Top Tips to Help You De-Stress
There are different variations and levels of stress throughout everyone’s life, and it cannot be completely abolished. The most important thing you can do to combat stress is to focus on the decisions that will help you to avoid as much of it as possible, and how you deal with the remainder of the stress.
What is stress
Stress often happens when you find yourself in a situation that you can’t control or manage and is your emotional reaction to how you feel under pressure or if you feel threatened. Many things can cause you stress, for example, it can be something extremely obvious, impactful, and painful in your life such as the loss of a loved one or pet. It can also be small and accumulative things that you might not notice at first, but over time will wear you down if you don’t acknowledge and deal with them. For example, you might be struggling at work with your roles and responsibilities, or even just struggling to stay organized in your daily life. It all adds up.
Why it is important to tackle stress
If you don’t tackle your stress and just let it build up then it can not only affect you and your health but also your career, your family, and any others around you. Over time stress will have a huge impact on your own physical and mental well-being and is linked to such issues as diabetes, ulcers, and heart disease. Chronic stress that is not dealt with effectively can lead to other mental health problems and give increased chances of developing symptoms of anxiety and depression. If you can instead work on managing your stress levels and introduce healthy coping mechanisms into your life, these risks will be reduced and your overall happiness in life will improve.
Negative impacts of stress
Not only does stress impact your mental health, but also your physical health and you may not even realize it and just be passing it off as feeling unwell. Being able to recognize stress in yourself is a great first step in attempting to combat it. A few symptoms you may be experiencing because of stress are headaches, muscle tension, chest pain, fatigue, upset stomach, sleeping problems, restlessness, feeling overwhelmed, irritability, anger, social withdrawal, over or under-eating, and sleep problems
Top tips to decrease stress
#1 Give yourself time
The first thing you can do is just give yourself time to unwind, just stop for a moment, and take a breath. Often, we are too busy trying to reach goals or push ourselves harder, when sometimes we just need to stop and take a break.
#2 Meditation and relaxation
There are many ways in which to meditate and relax. You could try listening to music in a dark room while lying down, there are guided meditations you can follow, or you can use THC in the form of Delta 9o to aid your relaxation.
#3 Get enough sleep
Something a lot of people don’t get enough of is sleep. Make sure you sleep enough. It is recommended that adults get between 7-8 hours of sleep a night. However, some of us need more and some less.
Top things to avoid
#1 Triggers
If you know that there are certain situations, people, topics, words, or even places that put you on edge then it is a good idea to avoid these if ever possible. However, sometimes it is not possible or even healthy to avoid or ignore, and in this case perhaps seeking help in how to deal with these issues when they arise.
#2 Stressful situations
Another similar thing to avoid doing is knowingly putting yourself into a stressful situation. This could be a more demanding role at work or even the time and day you are choosing to go to the shops to buy food. A lot of these situations can be avoided by just evaluating them and altering them slightly.
#3 Bad food and drink
Food affects us more than we think and a subtle change you can do to avoid unneeded stress is to limit the consumption of food and drink with high sugar content levels. All the extra sugar you eat will be putting stress on your body and you may not even be aware of it. Your blood sugar is linked to your energy, therefore your mood, and when experiencing large spikes and crashes, these also affect your energy and mood, causing stress and anxiety.
Whatever you decide to try, and however you continue in life, just make sure that you are listening to yourself and your body so that you can take the best possible care of yourself.
