Reducing stress
What is Stress?
Stress is our body's response to pressure. Many different situations or life events can cause stress. It is often triggered when we experience something new or unexpected that threatens our sense of self or when we feel we have little control over a situation. We all deal with stress differently.
The effects of stress
headaches
nausea
indigestion
shallow breathing or hyperventilating
sweating
heart palpitations
aches and pains
anxiety
anger
sadness
frustration
depression
Stress can also exacerbate other conditions, making strokes more likely, heart attacks more likely or regular, even make cancer progress faster, and once stress becomes chronic it can be self-sustaining. The habits that we slip into that cause stress in our lives can be very hard to escape once were in them.
But it’s not impossible!
How do we stop it?
There are many ways of reducing stress, some as simple as recognising what causes stress in your life and trying actively to reduce the frequency of those behaviours.
Be active - try to work some exercise into your week.
Take control - those stressful things in your life that you feel you can’t change…
you might actually be able to…Connect with people - as social creatures we draw a lot of fulfilment and alleviation from stress through seeing friends.
Have some "me time" - we can also reduce stress a lot by simply having some quiet time to ourselves, without being assaulted by all of the noise of our modern world
Challenge yourself - try something new, without the pressure of doing well, just give it a go and explore new habits and hobbies.
Avoid unhealthy habits - those habits that you have already that make you tense or angry, try to reduce or cut them out of your life.
Help other people - as we are social creatures, we can get a little dopamine rush by helping someone else out and bringing ourselves a little fulfilment.
Work smarter, not harder - Imagine trying to get to the other side of a wall… instead of trying to punch through the centre and go straight there, wouldn’t it be easier to just walk around the side? (sometimes there’s an easy solution, we just can’t immediately see it)
Try to be positive - thinking of good times, and taking the ‘most positive route’ in different situations day-to-day is very good for helping reduce stress.
Another final thing to do to reduce stress is going on a picnic, this activity has all kinds of health benefits.
If you need a little inspiration on where to go and what to do, check out our picnic spots page.