Top Tips To Relieve Stress & Anxiety

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Stress and Anxiety affects lots of people in many different ways for any number of reasons, here are some of my top tips to help reduce Stress and Anxiety that you may have.

Exercise

Exercise is probably one of the most important things that you can do to help relieve stress and anxiety. This doesn’t have to be anything strenuous; you could simply go for a nice relaxing walk around your local area.

• Exercise lowers your body’s stress hormones such as cortisol. It also helps release endorphins, which are chemicals that improve your mood and act as natural painkillers.
• Stress and Anxiety can negatively affect sleeping patterns, Exercise can help to improve your sleep quality.
•  Regular exercise can lead to you feeling more competent and confident in your body, which in turn promotes mental wellbeing.

Laugh

You may not feel like you are in the mood to joke around but it’s very hard to feel anxious when you’re laughing. It’s good for your health and there are a few ways it may help relieve stress:

•  Relieving your stress response.
• Relieving tension by relaxing your muscles.
• In the long term, laughter can also help improve your immune system.

Try watching a funny TV show or speaking with friends or family who make you laugh.

Listen To Music

Listening to music can have a very relaxing effect on both the body and mind. There are some people out there that will say things like, listen to slow-paced instrumental music or maybe try listening to sounds of nature to soothe you. Whilst these do have a calming effect and may help to alleviate stress and anxiety, I believe that you should listen to whatever music makes you happy. Industrial Metal, Alternative Rock, Pop, Dance, R’n’B or even if you’re a Show Tunes type if it helps you wind down then that’s all that matters.

Light A Candle

Using essential oils or burning a scented candle may help reduce your feelings of stress and anxiety. Some scents are especially soothing. Here are some of the most calming scents:

• Lavender
• Rose
• Bergamot
• Roman chamomile
• Sandalwood
• Ylang ylang
• Orange blossom

Using scents to treat your mood is called aromatherapy. Several studies show that aromatherapy can decrease anxiety and improve sleep.

Breathe

Deep breathing exercises can help activate your parasympathetic nervous system, which controls the relaxation response.

The goal of deep breathing is to focus your awareness on your breath, making it slower and deeper. When you breathe in deeply through your nose, your lungs fully expand and your belly rises.

This helps slow your heart rate, allowing you to feel more peaceful.

Reduce Your Caffeine Intake

Caffeine is a stimulant found in coffee, tea, chocolate and energy drinks. High doses can increase anxiety. Every person has a different threshold for how much caffeine they can tolerate.

If you notice that Caffeine may be causing you to become jittery or anxious, consider cutting down your intake.

Limit Alcohol

Having a drink to de-stress may seem like a great idea but this is a deceptive quick fix.

Alcohol affects the chemicals in your brain, it slows down how your brain and central nervous system functions otherwise known as a Depressant. It can also affect the part of the brain that controls your inhibition, which is why after a couple of drinks you may feel less anxious, more confident and you also may feel more relaxed.

In reality though having a drink is more of a distraction from dealing with what is actually going on and stopping you from dealing with the issues appropriately.

Talk

Find someone you trust that you can talk to about issues or feelings that you may be having.

Just talking to someone about how you feel can take a massive weight off your shoulders. It also opens up the door to another perspective, which may help to find the solution you need.

There are many people that you can turn to that will be willing to listen without judgement. This doesn’t necessarily have to be a Professional Therapist or Counsellor; friends and family are great support and they can only help if you talk.

Free Relaxation & Ego Boosting Mp3

You could also use my FREE audio file which is designed to help you to relax whilst giving you an Ego boost as you allow any troubles or worries that you may have to just drift away. The file is approximately 15 mins long, so perfect for even the busiest of people.

Even if you don’t think that some of these are your thing, why not give them a chance and find what works for you, you might just surprise yourself.

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Happy Stress Busting!!! – Ross