10 Practical Stress Management Steps

The World Health Organization labels stress as “the health epidemic of the 21st century.”  Stress which results to illness is the producing factor underlying more than 70% of all visits made to the family doctor, medical doctors suggest.  So what is stress?  Many of us talk about but what exactly is stress and how does it affect our body?

Dr. Hans Selye defines stress as “a non-specific response of the body to any demand made upon it.”.”  Stress is neither good nor bad.  The effect of the stress is not determined by the stress itself, rather it is determined by how we handle the stress.

Effects of Stress

1. “Emergency Response”  The emergency response mechanism activates with a physiological change when people believe they are in physical or mortal danger.  Pupils dilate, blood pressure increases, and the production of stress hormones increase.  The body prepares within seconds to respond, which is known as the ‘fight or flight’ syndrome. The adrenal glands pour out adrenaline and the production of other hormones is increased by the quickly reacting pituitary-adrenal-cortical system of the brain.

This is a healthy, adaptive response to immediate danger but if continually activated, this emergency response may cause a constantly higher-than-normal level of hormone production that can eventually cause physical wear-and-tear on the body.  Health problems related to this constant high level of response include hypertension, headaches, ulcers, heart disease, and increased vulnerability to diabetes and colitis.

2. “General Adaptation Syndrome”   In studies, Selye came to believe that diseases of adaptation such as hypertension could be produced by abnormal or excessive reaction to stress.  The body would increase its supply of hormones in order to be ready for action to stress.  Over a prolonged period of time, excessive stress leads to distress and the accompanying physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual health problems.

Contributing factors to distress include a) your attitude to life and b) your mood (optimistic or pessimistic).  Both help to create the atmosphere that assists your defence system in repairing small wounds, bruises, and infections.  This is also the system that tries to destroy strange cells such as those of cancer, including leukaemia.

In mastering stress, you have to figure out what you are doing that contributes to your problem/challenge and change it.  The four categories of change include: change your behaviour, change your thinking, change your lifestyle choices, and/or change the situations you are in. Symptoms of overstress include fatigue, aches and pains, anxiety, problems sleeping, depression, and lack of joy in your life

Practical Steps to Stress Management and Creating Balance

1. Make your life regular like ‘clock work.’  Go to bed and get up at the same time each day.

2. Give yourself a break today.

3. Say ‘No’ more often when other people want your time. This includes social engagements, the family dinner on Christmas, Thanksgiving, etc.

4. Postpone making any changes in your living environment if you have been coping with undue stress.  Change of any kind is stressful and limiting it until later is a good strategy if you are under a lot of pressure.

5. Reduce the number of hours you spend at work or school.  If you are a work-a-holic or school-a-holic you need to reduce the energy drain on your body.  TAKE SOME TIME OFF.

6. Nutritional eating habits and eating small meals helps to keep your blood sugar stabilised.  Many people reach for something high in sugar content when feeling stressed which compounds the problem.  Eat more vegetables.

7. Rest your mind, as mind activities alleviate stress.  These mind activities include reading, working on a craft, listening to music, playing a musical instrument, meditation, self-relaxation, dancing, and biofeedback.

8. Have a worry time if you must worry.  When you find yourself worrying over a problem, set aside a time (I suggest to my students 7:30pm on Tuesday night) and then put off worrying until that time.  Chances are you will not even remember what you were stressing yourself about.

9. Book time for yourself.  In your daily or weekly schedule book time first for yourself and then the other activities you are involved in.  Don’t let anything, except an emergency, usurp your commitment to yourself.

10. Have a massage or another form of self-care activity.

Vitamins & Supplements for Stress Relief

Stress Relief Vitamins and Supplements Are a Huge Market

There are hundreds of stress relief vitamins and supplements on the market today. With heart disease as the leading cause of death in women, everyone is looking for ways to relieve stress from their daily lives. Depression has hit an all time high and suicide rates have escalated. In order to relieve our daily stress, our lives must begin with exercise and then be supported in healthy and nutritious food and vitamins that relieve stress.

The Leading Vitamins:

Some of the leading stress relief vitamin supplements are Kava Kava, St. Johns Wort, 5HTP, Melatonin and Vitamin B Complex. All of these vitamins and supplements have been proven to relieve stress in the people that take them continuously.

Kava Kava:

For instance, Kava Kava which is a natural root extract supplement promotes a calming effect while increasing mental acuity. There are different forms and extracts of the Kava Kava, but they all have the same effect as long as one continues to take the vitamin regularly. 5HTP is another example of a vitamin supplement for stress relief. 5HTP helps the body to naturally increase the serotonin level. It has been used to assist in weight loss and it improves the mood, reduces migraines and helps to diminish depression.

St. John’s Wort:

St. John’s Wort is also in the anti-anxiety and anti-depression drugs. This natural supplement has been used for centuries to treat a variety of illnesses and conditions such as sleep disorders, bacterial infections and inflammation. But this supplement is primarily used to fight the effects of stress. SAM-e, another supplement, increases the levels of serotonin, dopamine and phosphatides and improves the serotonin and dopamine receptor site binding. SAM-e always results in mood elevation.

There are many more stress relief vitamins and supplements on the market today. The stress relief vitamin companies are becoming financial empires. They tout vitamins and supplements for every area on the body including all brain related functions. It’s quite possible that everyone takes a vitamin of some sort every day and, as a matter of fact, many people take handfuls of vitamins and supplements every day.

Stress relief is something that every one of us is trying to achieve and if a company advertises stress relief in a vitamin, then the majority of people will buy it. But before buying stress relief vitamins and supplements be sure and check with your doctor to see exactly which vitamin would be best for your particular area of concern. Start an exercise program and watch your diet and the stress in your life should melt away.

Healthy Diet Plan

Help Yourself to a Healthy Diet for Stress Relief

The majority of people who are stressed will eat comfort foods. Which in return puts on weight that makes your bodies immune system more weak to illness. However by making good selective food choices will help your body feel good, which in return will help you feel better. Here are some tips for a healthy stress relief diet:

Don’t Blame Yourself

So you’re stressed. It’s not your fault that you feel stressed and don’t want to diet. The human body has not evolved along with the speed of easy food distribution. Your body will naturally want you to eat high-calorie food because it doesn’t know when the next wooly mammoth migration will come along. And we don’t move around as much as we did thousands of years ago.

The human body is programmed to think it lives outside to work in the fields all day and not think about sticking to a healthy diet for stress relief. But it is your fault if you let your body rule your head. Your body can be retrained to crave more variety and better nutrition. It just takes practice; be patient with yourself.

Water and Fiber

If you don’t make any other change to your diet, just eat more fiber and drink more water. This greatly aids any healthy diet, for stress relief. Water and fiber help give you a full feeling and keeps away the painful constipation that often occurs to new dieters. Alcoholic beverages don’t count as water – in fact, alcohol dehydrates you and makes you thirstier. Fiber is found in fresh fruits and vegetables, whole grains, nuts and beans, and to a lesser extent in cooked vegetables. These are things you should be eating anyway, so think of eating more fiber as multitasking.

The Caffeine Kid

If you are used to drinking a lot of caffeinated drinks, hot or cold and eating a lot of chocolate, gradually cut back. Don’t go cold turkey – you may go through some painful withdrawal symptoms like migraines. This can greatly reduce your chances of sticking with a healthy diet for stress relief. Cut back one cup of coffee or one glass of cola for a week, and next week cut back yet another cup or glass, and so on.

Drink more water, herbal tea or fruit juice instead. You don’t see results right away, but keeping at it will give you the confidence to make other choices for a healthy diet for stress relief. That and you’ll sleep better, which can also lower your stress.

Hypnosis For Stress Relief

Trying Hypnosis for Stress Relief

Because stress seems worse the farther we get into the twenty first century, more people are now looking for ways to reduce the amount of stress in their lives. There are many things a person will try when they feel as though they are drowning in stress.

Some might take vacation time to just get away and others might just delve deeper into a favorite hobby in order to forget about all of the outside stressors. Some have started to go see a hypnotist and find that the stress points in their lives begin to empty like a full trash can. They feel better, their blood pressure becomes normal, and their attitude changes into a more relaxed state.

Hypnosis has long been used for many other purposes and has shown promise in helping people reduce stress. Hypnosis for stress relief might work as long as the hypnotist can lower the brains ability to concentrate on stress as the highest priority. Just going to see the hypnotist begins the process because most of the things that are producing the high levels of stress aren’t important at that moment. While the hypnotist is working with a person they are deeply relaxed. Once the hypnotist is finished with the session and the person awakes, they often feel like they have been sleeping for hours instead of only minutes.

Don’t Go to a Quack

The cost of using hypnosis for stress relief varies greatly. Because the session is dealing with stress, it is important to not just pick anyone who says that they can do it. Instead, hypnosis for stress relief should come from someone who already is using hypnosis for stress relief. Ask other people who may have done something similar. They might have insight into what another person is going through and recommend the person that they used. Another way to do a search for the right person is to make an appointment with your doctor and ask for recommendations.

Hypnosis for stress relief might be able to help those with high stress levels. If it works, the person will wonder why it took so long to find out the adversary of stress. Even if it doesn’t work to the level that someone desires, it probably has helped in some way and just lowering the stress level a little makes the body more able to handle any of the possible stressors at the workplace. To reduce stress and improve the quality of life hypnosis is worth trying.

Using Exercise For Stress Relief

Stress is a common daily struggle for millions of people around the world. These stresses stem from many things, including work, finances, taking care of the house, worrying about friends and family and just trying to keep life together as we know it. Many people who suffer from stress strive to find relief, but fall short of trying everything possible.

Sure, visits to the doctor and certain medications can help, but one form of stress relief comes from exercise. This kind of stress relief is known for soothing the body and mind, and working wonders in relieving the daily worries we as humans endure.

Types of Exercise Used for Stress Relief:

Yoga is probably one of the most popular forms of exercise when it comes to relieving stress, and it’s because the methods of yoga are well known to soothe the mind by focusing all energy on relaxing and coming to peace with your surroundings. If this can be achieved, a feeling of serenity often lingers for hours after the yoga exercise.

Aerobics is also another popular form of exercise stress relief, as the fast paced exercise helps to release endorphins within the body which results in happiness and security. Getting rid of pent up energy by doing aerobics is something that will release stress within itself.

Exercise tips for Stress Relief :

If you choose yoga as a stress relief exercise but don’t have the time or endurance to perform an entire yoga session, there are a couple of moves you can do on a daily basis to help keep your stress in check. The first is a series of breathing exercises, performed while laying flat on your back.

Once in position, make sure your arms are flat against your body and your head is facing straight up. Close your eyes, and breathe. Using your nose, breathe in while counting to 5. Using your mouth, breathe out while counting to 5. Continue this cycle for 20 sets, all the while clearing everything but counting and breathing from your head.

The second yoga exercise for stress relief is a little more active, but can be done before or after the breathing exercise. First you’ll want to position yourself on your hands and knees with your head facing straight down. Next, you’ll use your right leg, lift it and bring your knee in toward your face below you.

While you bring your knee in, breathe out slowly. Next, extend your leg back out behind you, while breathing in slowly. Once your leg is in mid air and stretched behind you, hold it for a count of three, along with your breath, then repeat 10 times for each leg.

These short yoga exercises for stress relief can help turn a new leaf for you in your day to day activities, and it’s something that’s easy to keep as a part of your daily routine.

Natural Herbal Tea

There really is nothing more relaxing than enjoying a nice hot cup of herbal tea. It is also very soothing to drink especially before bed. Herbal teas have been used as medicinal purposes for centuries, and has been advertised by companies over the course of 50 years as a stress relief remedy. The English have been stopping for years for afternoon tea. This is one of their ways of reducing stress. But with the world becoming so health conscious, exercising and eating nutritious food, it is only natural that they have turned to herbal tea for stress relief.

Kava Stress Relief tea, which comes from the Kava Kava plant, is an herbal tea for stress relief. This tea helps you clam down and relieves anxiety, stress and minor pain. It also helps in digestion and the kidneys. It is a member of the peppercorn family and has been used for centuries as a medicinal herb, specifically to alleviate anxiety.

It is native to the South Pacific and is well known for its ability to calm the body and mind and produce a good night’s sleep. It is also known as a powerful antispasmodic. It has been found to relax the uterus and relieve menstrual cramps and minor menopausal symptoms. It has been supported by scientific data from The Herb Research Foundation that the use of kava will relieve minor anxiety, stress, restlessness, muscle tension and mild pain.

Calming Yogi Tea is another herbal tea for stress relief. This tea is a calming tea that eases stress and tension and encourages relaxed alertness without drowsiness. This healing tea contains organic chamomile that supports, soothes and rejuvenates the nerves. Chamomile has a natural herbal apple flavor and has been known for centuries that it soothes and calms the mind and spirit.  It is no wonder that these herbal teas for stress relief are reaching the number one spots on herbal tea stress relief charts.

The saying goes, “If you could box it and sell it you would make a fortune”. Well, this is exactly what these tea supplement companies have done to make their fortunes.  There are herbal green teas, herbal tonic teas and herbal exotic teas all packaged for stress relief. If you could bottle a stress reliever, eat a stress reliever or put it in a teabag, than the public will buy it. How much easier can it get then but to sip a good herbal tea for stress relief?

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