Are you feeling stressed? Stress is your body’s reaction to challenges or demands that you are faced with day-to-day. Stress can be both positive and negative, but there are healthy ways to deal with them – like sleeping well, which is extremely important when it comes to stress management.
What Is Stress??
The term stress is the body’s response to challenges and demands. Everyone experiences stress differently and can be triggered by a range of events from small daily hassles to majority changes like divorce or job loss. A body’s stress response can include physical components like; elevated heart rate and blood pressure and emotions like; fear and anger. We tend to think of stress as being negative, but stress can also be a positive change in someone’s life – getting a promotion at work or having a baby.
How To Deal With Stress In a Healthy Way:
Stress can be served, as an important purpose – enables us to quickly respond to possible threats and avoid dangerous situations. This doesn’t depend on the length of exposure to stress which may lead to increased physical health problems. Whilst none of us can avoid all stresses, there are ways we can handle situations in a healthy way that increase the potential to recover and move forward.
- Exercise regularly – Yes, regular exercise can have a positive impact on your physical health but it’s for mental healthy – a powerful stress reliever. Physical exercise has been shown to realse endorphins, a natural substance that helps you to feel better and maintain a postive attitude.
- Stop smoking or using nicotine products – Using nicotine products is often referred to as stress relievers, but what you might not know is that nicotine actually places more stress on the body – increasing physical arousal and reducing blood flow and breathing.
- Eat and drink healthy – If are really serious about reducing stress in your life, then one of the easiest and fastest ways to start is by reducing the your daily/weekly alcohol intake or over eating. Okay, these actions might not seen to help in the moment, but it can actually add stress in to the long run. Caffeine can also compound the effects of stress. So by having a healthy and balanced diet can help to combat stress.
- Reduce your exposure to stress triggers – Majority people’s life are probably filled with too many demands and too little time – the demand are usually ones that we have chosen. If you free up some time by practicing time-management skills such as; asking for help when it’s appropriate, setting priorities, pacing yourself and reserving sometime for yourself.
- Set realistic goals and expectations – It’s totally okay and healthy to not be 100% succcessful at everything all at once, but being mindful of things that you can control and work on accepting this that you can’t control.
Do you have trouble sleeping? Here’s a few tips on what to do:
- Avoid napping too much during the day, but still remember to balance activity with periods of rest.
- Use your bedroom for sleep only. Don’t work in your bedroom.
- Establish a regular sleeping pattern/schedule – go to bed and get up at roughly the same time every day.
- Ensure that your bed and surroundings are comfortable – arrange the pillows so that you can maintain them in a comfortable position.
- Don’t rely on sleeping pills, as they can be harmful when taking them with other medications. Also, make sure to use them if recommended for brief periods.
- If you find it hard to sleep, get up and do something relaxing until you feel tired.
- Maintain a regular exercise routine, but try not to exercise within 2-3 hours before you go to bed.
