6 Healthy Ways to Relieve Stress

We all experience stress in our lives, whether it’s from work, relationships, or situations like driving to work or hosting a party. Stress is a normal physiological and emotional response to pressure or to a perceived threat. This physical and emotional response has its place in our lives, but the problem is when we’re stressed all the time or have little to no ways to relieve stress when we experience it. Knowing how to relieve stress could literally be a lifesaver.

The Various Causes of Stress

When it comes to stress, it’s important to remember that we don’t get stressed in the same way or over the same thing. You could have one person who’s cool as a cucumber in an active combat situation, but is an absolute wreck on a first date or when handling conflict in relationships. Or you might have someone who’s at ease talking to crowds but gets stressed in a one-on-one situation. People get stressed over different things.

There are thus many different scenarios that can cause stress for an individual. For some, stress emerges from work, with its many demands, pressures, or sometimes the uncertainty that comes with it. Financial stress is another common stressor, whether it’s about debt, needing money to cover specific expenses, or an overall feeling of financial insecurity and what it brings with it.

Other possible causes and sources of stress include relationships, particularly the emotional demands made upon one in the relationship, dealing with conflict, or working through communication issues. Stress can also be connected to health issues, including dealing with your own or the illness of a loved one, experiencing chronic pain, or when you face uncertainty about your health and future.

Lastly, stress may also be caused by going through significant life changes. These changes include becoming separated or getting divorced, having to move house, losing your job, becoming retired, getting married, and other significant events that can happen in one’s life. Some people can face these situations and not feel stressed. That doesn’t mean the situations aren’t stressful; it just highlights that individual’s threshold for stress.

How Stress Plays Out in Your Life

Stress can have a huge effect on your life and sense of well-being. Often, people will speak of there being two main types of stress. These are acute and chronic stress. Acute stress is what you experience in the short term as an immediate reaction to a specific situation you find yourself in that feels threatening or overwhelming. This could be public speaking, doing a presentation, or handling a customer complaint.

The other type of stress is what’s known as chronic stress. When stress is chronic, it means it’s happening on an ongoing basis, and it isn’t short-term. This kind of stress is persistent and ongoing. You may have financial stress or work-related pressures that just don’t seem to subside, and they linger for extended periods of time.

When you experience stress, especially if it’s chronic, it can affect you in several ways. You might experience emotional symptoms such as being more easily irritated, mood swings, anxiety, or depression. You may also experience other things like fatigue, headaches, insomnia, and stomach problems. Your appetite may be affected, and you may find yourself withdrawing socially or turning to unhealthy coping mechanisms.

Stress can cause problems with your health, which makes it important to bring it under control.

6 Ways to Relieve Stress

When you feel stressed, you likely have your go-to means of dealing with it. What works for you might not work for someone else, but it’s also wise to consider that what you’re doing to relieve stress might not actually be working for you. An obvious example is turning to substance abuse to cope. Neglecting sleep or using sleep as an escape, procrastination, and retail therapy to relieve stress are other unhealthy but common ways of dealing with stress.

Below are six healthy ways to relieve stress

Exercise Engaging in regular physical activity can help reduce anxiety and stress. You could be dancing, walking, running, or anything else that gets you moving. It helps you reduce stress by releasing endorphins, the “feel-good” hormones, while reducing the levels of cortisol, which is the stress hormone.

Time management and boundaries Learning how to prioritize important tasks, set realistic goals, and be able to say “No” can help you reduce stress levels. Starting tasks promptly without procrastinating can also help you reduce stress down the line.

Mindfulness and self-care Taking time to slow things down around you can help ease your stress. Whether you’re doing deep breathing exercises that help to calm your mind and body or doing mindfulness meditation to help you focus on the present, you can reduce your stress levels. Engaging in activities that help you relax and bring you joy can also make a big difference.

Spending time in nature Being out and about among the trees, hiking up a mountain, walking in a park, or simply being outdoors and taking in the environment around you can have a calming effect on your body and mind. Looking out at what God has created can sometimes help us recognize how big and wonderful the world is, and it can give us perspective to handle our current situation.

Listening to music For some people, listening to calming music, white noise, or nature sounds like the wind or the ocean can help them relax. Other people are more relaxed with other genres of music; the point is to find the kind of music that helps to settle you and give you a sense of peace. It can take some time and trial and error, but you can create your own playlist that helps you relax.

Journaling and support It’s good to have an outlet for the feelings that often accompany stress. Stress can make you feel irritable and in a mood to vent, or it can make you feel like withdrawing into a cocoon. In such circumstances, you may find it helpful to have a place where you can go to process the thoughts and emotions that come with stress.

One place you can take these feelings and thoughts is to your journal. You may go old school and use a physical journal, but others have electronic journals. The point is, it’s a place where you go to write down or otherwise express your thoughts and feelings so that you can begin to process and release the stress.

This space allows you to reflect on your emotions and thoughts, and it can help you to clarify your thoughts and emotions about a given situation, in developing deeper self-awareness about what triggers your stress and the ways you typically try to address it, and it can also help you gain perspective on your situation.

In our times, one way people try to do this is by posting online. This can be problematic in several ways. Being vulnerable on the internet is risky business, and you could get the worst kind of advice. Also, when you post things online, someone who’s affected by the situation, like your spouse or boss, may see what you’ve posted, and it could worsen the situation by escalating conflict or tension.

Instead of posting online, it’s better by far to try to connect with trusted loved ones like friends or family and use them as a sounding board to help you with your situation. Rely on your loved ones instead of the nameless vastness of the internet. You can also speak to someone like a counselor or therapist in Laguna, California to help you process your experiences with stress.

In addition to talking with a counselor or therapist in Laguna to help you address your concerns and experiences with stress and to develop healthy coping mechanisms, you can also approach a life coach.

Your coach can help you develop effective strategies to pinpoint and address the sources of stress in your life. You can learn skills to work consistently, incorporate rest into your schedule, and find greater balance in your life. To learn more, contact our office today at Laguna Christian Counseling in California.