Total Wellbeing Blog

Tips For Stress - 6 Ways to Deal with the Stress in Your Life

Stress is something that we all experience in one way or another and it is perhaps the number one cause of health problems today.  Here are 6 tips for stress to help you deal with life in a healthy and effective manner.

Talk to people
Talk about the problems you are experiencing with friends, loved ones or a professional. Keeping everything bottled up will only create more problems later on.

Exercise often
Go to the park and walk for 20-30 minutes every day or every other day or join a gym with a friend.  Exercise relieves tension and produces a calming effect and although it can initally seem like more effort when life is busy, you will soon reap the rewards by feeling calmer and sleeping better.

Yoga exercises
Do some breathing exercises or yoga stretches.  Yoga is great for the body and mind and very calming.  Many people avoid yoga as it is viewed as too 'new age' and not proper exercise but it is not the case.  Not only is it very calming, it is also a great way to tone the body and keep you supple.

Listen to music
Music can be a great stress reliever.  Use classical or instrumental music to calm or upbeat music to lift your spirits. Ocean or nature sounds are also a perfect way to release stress.

Eat well
Healthy meals can become an important factor in limiting your stress.  Eating regular meals and avoiding too much caffine and sugar can help.  Caffine and sugar both stimulate and cause slumps which can increase your stress levels if over done.

Sleep well
Sleep deprivation can cause stress. Treat yourself to an early night when you get the chance. Seven to eight hours sleep can make all the difference.

Coping with stress can be challenging.  Sometimes it feels like you seem to be pulled in every direction, trying to accommodate others.  The first priority is to take care of you - if you are not managing your own stress, you won’t be much good to anyone else.

Give yourself a break every now and then.  Buy a new outfit; go to a movie; do something you’ve always wanted to do.  Your family can take care of themselves for one day.  Alone time is just as important to you as it is for everyone else.  Think of yourself as a gas tank; if you don't stop and fill up you tank you will eventually be running on empty.

Put on your headphones, listen and feel the stress melt away...

Laughter is the best medicine

Is there too much stress in your life? Is everything piling up and weighing you down? You should try a proven natural therapy that has been used for generations to relive stress and make you feel better. So what is this miracle cure that makes us feel so great...

It’s laughter. Laughter is nature’s way of easing tension and helping us relax. So take some time to laugh every day and you’ll be feeling better in no time.

So how does laughter work exactly?

Physically - a mini workout...

Laughter works on several levels to make us feel better and less stressed. Laughter works to relieve stress physically. When we laugh, stress hormones in our blood, like cortisol, are actually reduced. Laughter also gives us a mini workout, which improves our health and releases hormones that make us feel happier.

Along with a healthy lifestyle, it also helps to boost our immune system. The stronger our immune system is, the better we feel and the more prepared we are to combat stress and illness.

Emotionally - think more positively...

Our bodies are designed to release excess emotions physically through acts such as laughing and crying. When we laugh, it releases some of our negative emotions as well.

It can also change the thoughts that promote our emotions. Laughter helps us think more positively, worry less, and be less stressed. Even if laughter doesn’t promote positive thinking, it can make us forget about our negative thoughts for a while and feel better.

Socially - promote positive relationships...

If you’re laughing with friends or loved ones, you are also promoting social bonding. When we are bonded with people, it promotes positive relationships that can make us feel more supported and less burdened, so we feel less stressed out about our personal situation.

Fake it till you make it...

So what do you do if life just isn’t that funny? What if you just can’t find anything to laugh at? You fake it. That’s right, fake laughing.

Consider one study done on forced laughter. Participants were asked to watch a movie and either not laugh at anything or laugh at the jokes whether they thought they were funny or not. After the movie, participants filled out a survey on how much they liked the movie. Believe it or not the people who laughed rated the movie as significantly better and funnier. Laughing, forced or not, improves the way you view the world and helps to fight stress from your everyday life.

In addition to stress relief, laughing has also been show to help you eat less, boost your immune system, increase your pain threshold, and even help you heal faster. So don’t delay. Whether it means going to a funny movie or laughing for no good reason at all, start laughing your way to a less stressful life.

Reduce Anxiety with Happy Thoughts

Although stress can be natural and positive, providing us with a sense of urgency to get things done, it can also lead to serious health problems if it builds up and we don't take steps to release it.

One way that we can reduce stress and anxiety is through positive thinking. Thinking 'happy thoughts' is one of the simplest techniques and also something that we have total control over. It is a resource that we can tap into that is totally free and we have access to it whenever we choose.

How we think controls what we do and how we handle our lives. If a negative thinker is in a stressful situation, they’ll spend their time worrying about the situation, anticipating the worst, and ignoring the positives. When a positive thinker is faced with a stressful situation, they instead focus on how they can overcome the situation and what they can learn from it.

If as a negative thinker, you get bogged down by anxiety, it is very difficult to find a way out of the situation whereas if you are a positive thinker, your frame of mind enables you to solve problems and learn from your experiences. Positive people are not only better at coping with life in general, they are also less likely to get disease and have a greater sense of wellbeing.

You’re probably thinking “That’s nice, but how do I actually change my thought from negative to positive?” The truth is that most of our thinking is automatic. This means it takes time and effort to change our thoughts, but it doesn’t mean it’s impossible. Here are some steps that can help:

• Take time to stop regularly throughout the day and reflect on your thoughts.
• Take specific negative thoughts you have and write them down.
• Next to them, write a positive version of each negative thought.
• When the negative thought comes to mind again, work at replacing it with the new positive thought as many times as you can throughout the day.

If you keep telling yourself the same things over and over, you’ll eventually start to believe them and start to think about them automatically.

If you have an anxiety disorder, you may find there are so many negative thoughts swirling around in your head they’re just impossible to get rid of. While you make one thought positive, 10 more negative thoughts pop into your head. Such an overwhelming amount of negative thought can be difficult to overcome.

If you recognize this problem, then you’ll probably benefit from meditation. This is a breathing and focusing method used to relax your body and clear your mind. Once you remove obsessive negative thoughts from your head, then you can then start to replace them with positive thoughts that help you lead a happier, healthier, longer life.

Relax a little...

Do you ever stop to wonder if you are actually enjoying your life as much as you could be or are you are packing so much in to each day that you don't take the time to think about much at all other than how many more tasks or chores you can squeeze in before bedtime?

Sometimes we are so caught up in our lives, we forget to enjoy them. We aren't here forever and if we don't sieze the moment and start enjoying it, we are left wondering where all that time has gone!

Many of us spend so much time doing what we think we should be doing rather than what we want to be doing. Take some time this week to consider what is keeping you on your 'hamster wheel' and look at what changes you can make to start relaxing and generally enjoying your life more.

Work - You may not be in your perfect job at the moment but your attitude to it makes a huge difference. Work is work but there is no reason why it can't be fun as well. Start appreciating what is good about where your work and enjoy your colleagues company more. There is nothing wrong with having fun in the workplace!

Home - We can all feel like there is a hundred tasks to do with not enough time to do it but to ensure you get some quality time to enjoy as well, segment your time at home in to work and play and make sure you stick to it! Allocate a reasonable amount of time to getting things done but also take the time out for yourself. If you spend a lot of time clearing up after others, then get them to do their fair share - even kids can chip in and help out to lighten your load!

A lot of what we do can either be done differently, not need to be done at all or done with a different attitude. Remember that life does not have to be done perfectly and if there are tasks that can wait in exchange for enjoying the moment, then this is well worth making the swap for.

Autumn clean - clear that clutter!

You have heard of 'spring cleaning' - well how about having an 'autumn clean'? It's a perfect way to get rid of the clutter in preparation for more cosy nights in and of course, to make plenty of room for all those lovely Christmas presents!

Clutter can have such a big effect on us if it gets out of control, it can totally zap our energy and pile up to a point where we don't really know how to tackle it! Clutter is one of life's drainers and if you are a bit of a hoarder, you may have more trouble with this than most of us.

Over the past few weeks, I tackled my clothes - we don't have a huge amount of storage space and 3 charity bags later I have been left with plenty of space to top up my winter wardrobe but best of all, getting rid of things that I will never use again and can go to a better home has made me feel so good! It lightens our load and helps put us back in control so that we can get on and do the things that really matter!

It's amazing how much we end up keeping hold of that is not important to us, we don't need or haven't used in months or even years! Don't underestimate the great feeling of getting rid of old baggage - it can be a major drainer, overwhelm us and raise our stress levels and that is never great for our sense of wellbeing!