7 Easiest Science-Backed Ways to De-Stress

stress management techniques, stress



Stress has become an integral part of our lives. No matter how hard we try avoiding it, it somehow manages to stick around.

Stress can be both positive and negative. Positive stress is what makes you get out of the bed in the morning, and get things done.

But when stress becomes a chronic event, it becomes a matter of fatal danger to your health.

In my last post, I spoke about 8 signs of stress on your body that indicates when stress starts becoming a problem. You have to first identify that there's a problem before you can do something to handle it. So I recommend you check it out, and see how you are doing.

Now, in this post, I am going to help you manage your stress because identifying the signs of stress is not enough. You should be able to identify and then use that knowledge to relieve that stress. That's how awareness is brought to best use.

I understand the importance of less technical methods because most of us don’t have the complex knowledge of stress relief techniques, and even if you manage to learn them it will take you quite some time to master them.

Besides, nobody wants to perform complex procedures when we are already stressed.

So, my aim was to present 7 of the easiest, and free methods of stress-relief, that doesn’t require you to follow too many steps.

Of course, you don’t have to do all of them to de-stress, however, they are so easy to apply that you can actually do all of them every day. But you can start with just one and add one or two more methods as you get comfortable doing it.

Here are 7 of my most favorite ways to de-stress, and also a small guide on how to perform these techniques.


1. Deep Breathe In...And Out:

Deep breathing is proven to reduce your stress level.

Tell me this, when you breathe, does your chest move more or your abdomen? What do you think should move more?

Okay, if your chest moves more when you breathe, you're breathing wrong! Keep this in mind; we’ll get back to it in a while.

Have you ever noticed your breathing pattern when you're relaxed?

If not, notice now how you are breathing. Or notice your breathing pattern immediately after you wake up or before fall asleep today.

We deep breathe when we are relaxed.

Deep breathing helps because it makes your brain feel the way it feels when you are relaxed, and thus makes your brain to calm down.

Deep breathing activates your body's natural relaxation response. So when you deep breathe, your body calms down naturally.

How to:


Sit in calm, quiet place and start taking deep breathes through your nose. Your breathing should be abdominal, meaning your abdomen should move more when you breathe. This will ensure better oxygenation.

Do this for 10-20 minutes. And you’re done!

All you have to do is breathe.

Include deep breathing in your morning routine, that way you’ll start your day in a stress-free manner.


2. Exercise:

If you have read my other articles then you might have noticed that exercise always makes it to every health and wellness post. That’s because exercise not only helps you stay slim, but it literally contributes so much to your overall health and personal wellness.

One of the many benefits of exercise is stress relief.

Even 10 minutes of physical activity is proven to reduce stress.

Exercising causes release endorphins, one of the feel-good hormones of our body. So, exercise literally releases the chemical that makes us feel good.

Now, don’t come up with the excuse that you don’t have time to exercise. In fact, if you have a busy schedule and you literally don’t have time to fit a workout in your routine, that’s even a bigger indication that you should somehow squeeze a workout in your schedule, to help you deal with the workload.

Exercise will not only help release the endorphins but will also help you sleep better. For your information, a lack of sleep in one of the major reasons for stress today.

So what to do? When you are nervous, do 50 jumping jacks, or go for a walk.

Walking is what I recommend you do, especially in nature, because just viewing nature has also been proven to reduce stress.


3. Meditation:

It is another inexpensive yet a very good method of relieving stress.

How meditation relieves stress, you ask? Basically, meditation helps stop all the thoughts running in your mind.

Very often all the thoughts we tend to worry about are not always very important. Sometimes we worry about even the silly things. Meditation helps to clear off all the thoughts and helps you focus on the thoughts that truly require your focus and energy.

Here’s how you should meditate:

Choose morning time to perform meditation, when your mind is not yet disturbed by the everyday thoughts so that you know since the beginning of the day what thoughts to focus on.

Make sure no one disturbs you in between.

Sit down; close your eyes, and either focus one word, like “om” or a word that you tend to feel, like “peace”, or the one thought that requires your attention that day the most. 

You can even not think about anything at all and keep your mind blank, which I must admit is very difficult in the beginning stages. That’s why I prefer to repeat one word continuously.

Do this for 10-20 minutes, although there are no hard and fast rules and you can perform meditation for a longer duration if you like.

Meditation triggers the body’s natural relaxation response by eliminating the thought that’s activating the stress response.

Research has also shown that people who meditation daily show a change in their response to stress, and recovers from stressful situations more easily.

So, I’d say don’t wait to get started!


4. Art:

Art therapy is a thing now. I’m sure a lot of you already know this.

First of all, when you get lost in art, you get distracted by the bothersome thoughts.

Secondly, when you create something from scratch, you get a sense of accomplishment. Your art doesn’t even have to be a masterpiece to give you the feeling of satisfaction. Just the thought of “I made it" does the job.

Now don’t come up with the excuse of “I’m not good at art”, because let me break it to you, that doesn’t matter at all.

In a recent study, it was proven that art helps reduces the level of cortisol, the stress hormone, irrespective of the talent/artistic level.

45-minutes of art session are proven to reduce stress.

If you are not good at art, make doodles. I have a "Art for Stress-Relief" board on Pinterest. You can check it out for some inspirations and ideas, and recreate them. You can also make mandalas or even buy adult coloring books.

Grab that paintbrush and some paints, and get started.


5. Journaling:

Journaling is no longer about writing down thoughts that you are not comfortable sharing with others or memories that would like to revisit from the future. It has become much more than that. 

Turns out, journaling is actually really beneficial for the mental health.

Sometimes it’s difficult to pinpoint at what’s bothering us the most. We have a million different thoughts running through our mind. And there’s a high possibility that if you are in chronic stress, you are kind of habitual of stressing out about everything, even the small things that are not important. 

From personal experience, I can tell that when this happens, it becomes very difficult to focus on only one thought. There are so many random thoughts, but you can’t focus on even one of them, and you end up losing a lot of time, energy, and mental peace. I used to even have difficulty in remembering all of the things that I needed to get done. My thoughts were all over the place and would never help me get things done.

When you writing down your thoughts on a piece of paper, you write down exactly what’s bothering you. And you can physically see what’s causing your stress, and thus, you can concentrate on solving that issue.

In fact, according to research, writing down your thoughts on a paper and throwing the paper away is helpful in reducing stress.

Our brain works in weird ways, right?


6. Progressive Muscle Relaxation Technique:

It is a method of deep relaxation that is not only beneficial to calm you down when you are stressed but will also help you if you have insomnia or chronic pain.

All you have to do is tense and relax your muscles. Not the whole body at once, but one group of muscle at a time.

This method is based on the fact that mental relaxation is the consequence of physical relaxation.

How to practice PMR:

Again, choose a quiet place without any distractions.

Start from lower extremities. Contract your foot muscles for 5-10 seconds and then take another 5-10 seconds to relax. Then move upwards, and contract your calf muscles for 5-10 seconds, and then relax. Progressively move upwards, up to head.

It’s a very easy, and a very effective method of de-stressing.


7. Have a Cup of Tea:

I’m a tea person, and for me, tea is the answer to everything. Whether I’m preparing for an exam, working on the blog, having a conversation with family, or taking a break from work; I’ll be found with tea.

According to a study conducted in 2010, black tea helps reduces stress. So, that’s great news for me!

The study found that those who had tea after a stressful task recovered from stress more easily than those who were drinking tea-replacement.

It was also found that tea reduced the level of cortisol to normal very soon.

Tea doesn't prevent stress, but it's really beneficial in coping from stress.

One thing to note here is that this will only work with real, natural tea, and not the fake flavored drinks.

So, I’d suggest get a packet of natural black tea, and make yourself a cup of tea.


Conclusion:

Stress is plaguing our lives. For the most part, we can’t even avoid it. Therefore, learning to manage stress is the key here. The methods discussed in this article are so easy, free, and personally tried and found to be very effective and also proven by science herself.

Start your day with a 20-minute meditation, then maybe go for a walk or do some cardio at home. Write down your plan for the day, and mention only the most important task. Socialize a little, but not through the screen!

Take small breaks in between work, and do the progressive muscle relaxation technique or deep breathing technique. 

It’s best that you make a habit of doing these methods every day, irrespective of how stressful the day is. That way you will prevent stress to build up and will be getting better at handling stress, rather than freaking out.

Make a cup of coffee, and spend some quality time with yourself coloring up some images you doodled.

Stress relief doesn’t have to be a boring job full of complex techniques. It’s the smallest things that we do every day affects us greatly.

Follow these steps, and let me know how it worked out for you.






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© Quirky Writes 2018


10 comments

  1. Great post darling never tried 5 n 6 but it sounds effective.thank u for sharing it 😘

    ReplyDelete
  2. Beautiful post..nice simple suggestions for stress management...the best way is to control the thoughts which disturb..
    God bless

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  3. When I get stressed out I love to exercise, journal and listen to music. Those things clear my mind and distract me from what's stressing me out. Great post ��

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It's good that you have a set of things that acts as stress-reliever for you. Everyone should have them. Thanks for stopping by!

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  4. This was great. I have not done meditation but swear by exercising and breathing. Breathing is such a powerful tool to destress!!

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  5. I have judt recently been interested in meditation and have recieved a book about it and would love to learn more about being mindful of your own body and controlling your emotions. Also a cup of tea alongside it is the perfect combination 👍

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  6. This is such a great post, I'm someone that gets stressed so easily so when I know that it's getting too much I will either do some exercise, do some breathing exercises or even just go away have a cup of tea and just take a break. It's so important to look after ourselves.

    Lovely blog!

    Chloe x
    http://www.chloechats.com/

    ReplyDelete
  7. Almost everything on this list, I let out an audible "yup" or "mhm!" Art is not usually a go-to for me, but I've seen how much it helps some others, so I may have to give that one a try. All around though, lots of great options for self care here, thanks for sharing!

    ReplyDelete

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