Stress is the ultimate health killer. No matter how well you take care of your body, chronic stress can manifest itself as certain health problems such as depression, anxiety, heart disease, obesity, ulcers, sexual dysfunction, hair loss, and even diabetes. In order to avoid the potentially damaging repercussions of chronic stress, it is important that your body not be exposed to large amounts of stress by learning stress reducing exercises and techniques that you can perform in your life.
1. Identify the major areas of your life where you feel stressed out about such as money, family, your spouse, or your career choice.
2. Create a stress journal to write down your feelings about people, places, and things that cause you to stress out. Being able to write down how and why you are feeling the way you are is liberating and can help you to lean back and laugh off things you would ordinarily be upset about. Fortunately, be performing this exercise alone, you can always get up and leave if it proves too much for you and come back to it later.
3. Try to avoid stressors as much as possible. This is not always easy to accomplish but can decrease the amount of stress you feel. Try taking a less driven way to work as opposed to highways if you are one prone to “road rage”. Learn limitations you can set for yourself so that you can work with current everyday situations but make them into learning experiences.
4. Try meditative activities such as deep breathing, yoga, and regular meditation to teach your body more about self awareness and allow yourself to become fully relaxed. Some people prefer long baths while others enjoy running. It is all about what allows your body and mind to relax and what you enjoy doing, By teaching yourself how to invoke the natural relaxation response from your body, you will be able to approach stressful situations with a new mentality and renewed vigor.
5. Try to maintain a healthy lifestyle to keep stress at bay. Clinically proven to keep overall stress levels down, exercising on a regular basis benefits not only the body but the mind as well.