Dealing With The Stress
Life can be extremely stressful at times, but no time is more stressful than the holidays. All the cooking, cleaning, shopping, entertaining, and countless details can seem overwhelming. This article will give you some great tips to use to help bring your stress level down a few notches this holiday season.
Leave your job at the door when you get home. It is important to create boundaries, and stick to them. Make conscious decisions to achieve this goal, such as not checking email or accepting phone calls after a certain hour of the day. Make your home your sanctuary, and enjoy the reduced stress.
A great way to fight stress is to spend some quality time with your family. If you’re feeling stressed out from the pressures of work, there’s really nothing better than spending some time with the family to recuperate. Focusing on good times with the ones your love will keep stress at bay.
Smile to help lessen your stress levels. The act of smiling sends nerve impulses to the part of your brain that processes emotion, which slightly changes your internal neurochemical balance, making you feel happier. This might be because your body remembers that you smile when you’re happy–so if you smile, you must be happy at that moment.
Meditation is an excellent and time-honored way to deal with stress. Many religions include meditation as a practice, but even if you are not religious, you can still benefit from meditation. Just find something to focus on and concentrate on breathing slowly and evenly. A few meditation sessions each week can provide great benefits.
If you are driving on the road and have something on your mind, sing the words of a song at the top of your lungs. Since no one can hear you, this is a great time to let it all out to a song that you know. Singing is a great form of stress relief.
Fight stress and stressful situations with deep breathing. Inhale and exhale deeply through the nose at least ten times. Deep breathing can slow down an anxious accelerated heart rate, help relieve shortness of breath, calm jittery nerves and clear your head to help you prioritize your thoughts or ideas and that long need-to-do list.
Even though running or other forms of exercise may seem like a real annoying experience, with time you may learn to love it. Try to keep an open mind about exercise and you will see that it helps you to feel less stressed as well as much more energized throughout the day.
Exercising is a great way to beat stress. Go for a walk or a run, depending on your fitness level, during times of the day you tend to feel the most stressed. It can also help to start your day off with physical activity as this increases the mood boosters in your brain.
The holiday season should be a fun, warm and relaxing time to spend with friends and family, but as stated at the beginning of this article, the holidays can be an extra stressful time. Hopefully this article has given you some great tips you can apply when things start to get too stressful this season.
