Best Ways for Women to Relieve Stress
Deadlines, meetings, calls, work, appointments, news. All of these have one thing in common: stress.
They all bring on stress in their own ways. A little bit of stress every now and then is fine, but it’s not uncommon to find yourself drowning in stress and suffering from the many negative effects associated with it.
Living Stress-Free, Made Easy
You’re in the right place if you’re looking to reduce the effect stress has on you by reducing your stress overall. Not all of the methods listed below will be easy or have immediate effects, but they all have long-term benefits.
Whether you’re looking to reduce the stress of your current life or need a break from learning the core responsibilities of a personal injury attorney so you’re prepared for your future career, you’ll find value in at least one of these stress-relieving methods.
Yoga
Exercise of any kind will relieve stress and make you feel healthier in general but yoga in particular is popular. Most people think of yoga as stretching and poses. This isn’t untrue but it doesn’t paint the whole picture either.
Yoga is nothing but a benefit to your body. As you strengthen your muscles and become more flexible, you’ll find that the connection between your mind and body will strengthen as well. This harmony makes you more grounded in the present and helps reduce stress by drawing you out of the past and away from your worries for the future.
The best part about yoga: it’s very beginner-friendly. Whether you visit a class in person or follow pre-recorded or even live instruction videos on the internet there will always be tips and instructions for beginners to follow along with lots of encouragement.
So long as you go into your first few sessions with the knowledge that you may need a bit of extra time and assistance to fully embrace this flexible exercise, then you’ll be alright.
Positive Thinking
Positive thinking does not refer to completely eradicating or ignoring negative thoughts, experiences or emotions. It refers to what thoughts fly in about every situation first.
For example, let’s say you begin preparing to paint a beautiful meadow full of bright flowers in bloom. You imagine a bright blue sky free of clouds. Below lies rolling green hills covered in pink, yellow, purple or even orange flowers. While the idea may morph slightly in your mind, the main goal remains stagnant.
As you start to paint, how do you think you’ll feel? If the painting’s completion leaves you satisfied and happy and those feelings reemerge every time you view it, you have positive thinking skills. If you nitpick every detail and feel unsatisfied with your work because you could have done better or it doesn’t perfectly match your mental image then your self-talk is negative.
There are many things you can do to change your self-talk. Try focusing more on the compliments others pay to your work and achievements, don’t assume that everything will always end in disaster and stop blaming yourself for what you’re not doing. Over time, you’ll find your positive thoughts are more common and you’ll feel better about everything, yourself included.
Healthy Foods
Since exercise was already mentioned, it likely comes as no shock that eating healthy foods also has a positive impact on your mental health. Your gut is filled with neurons that absorb the various compounds such as serotonin that are created as you digest food. These neurons work with or against the bacteria in your gut to get what it needs.
If there is a lot of good bacteria obtained by making healthy food choices, then you’ll feel happier as more serotonin is absorbed. Refined sugars, processed foods and other less-than-ideal food choices will promote the bad bacteria to grow and multiply, resulting in you not feeling emotionally healthy.
To simplify this a bit, the fruits, vegetables and other healthy foods you eat contribute to your gut health directly. The healthier your gut is, the more good bacteria it has. The more good bacteria it has, the more your body is protected from bad bacteria and the healthier you’ll feel.
You can start by incorporating more healthy snacks into your diet and slowly working your way to making every meal balanced and full of nutrients.
Emotional Regulation
Your day will be filled with a myriad of emotions. Most of the time, we’re more than happy to embrace the positive ones.
Negative emotions, however, are seen as examples of what to avoid. When we do feel them we try to rush through them to get back to feeling good. This isn’t healthy and causes more stress and problems in the long run.
You need to acknowledge and feel all of your feelings, not just the positive ones. You can begin this deeply personal process by actively labeling the emotions you’re currently feeling. For example, say that you feel anxious, not that you are anxious. Then, see how your body is reacting to this emotion. Think about what brought the feeling on and what it means.
Are you anxious because you started working or because you see you have an unread email? What does your newfound anxiousness need you to do? In this scenario, continuing to work and finding your groove or reading and responding to the email may be all that’s required, but it isn’t always so obvious or simple.
Once you know what’s causing the feeling and what you need to do to remedy it, take a few breaths and let it go. While it will take time to master this method, the benefit is that you’ll feel calmer overall once you do.
If this isn’t working, then you may need to try a new method. Maybe you need to be alone for a moment to let your emotions travel throughout your body before clearing. Sometimes a few deep breaths and a verbal acknowledgment of the feeling are all it will take.
Oftentimes, simply acknowledging that you’re feeling something is all your body needs to relax and let go.
Photo by Chelsea Gates on Unsplash
Contributed posts are advertisements written by third parties who have paid Woman Around Town for publication.