Stress can be a positive or negative influence on your overall health. If you can view stress as a chance to grow and develop it will have a positive impact on you. If you see stressful situations as detrimental and overwhelming, you’ll have negative effects. Really, it comes down to the strategies for how to manage stress. There are many, many ways to manage the stress in your life – these are our top three favorite ones.
How to manage stress:
If you already have strategies for managing your stress which are working, don’t feel a need to change them! Just consider trying on one of these for size, and seeing how it goes. These have worked wonders for our team, and we hope they do the same for you.
create your own meditation:
Meditation is a very common way of handling stress and building mindfulness. However, it’s important to note, there are many ways to meditate. Not all meditation is sitting still in a quiet place and staying still. For some of our team members, that leads to fifteen minutes of trying to not fall asleep.
Other options for meditation do exist. For example, taking a walk without your phone or music can be a form of meditation. As can static stretching or yoga. Anything that allows you to disconnect from the constant stream of oncoming information can give you space for meditation. Practice a few different ways, and see what works for you.
Journaling:
Similarly to meditation, journaling can be done many different ways. It works as a strategy for how to manage stress when you don’t set parameters around your journaling. If every day you force yourself to write a full page, for example, you can start to see it as a chore.
The advice we like to give here is to simply allow your journaling to take whatever form you need on a given day. If you are feeling overwhelmed and pulled in many directions journaling a few lists – to do’s, accomplishments, or even a gratitude list can be a way to ease some stress. Allow your journaling to flow with how you’re feeling when the goal is to manage your stress levels.
Have a trusted friend to talk with
There is a reason therapy is a beneficial service to experience. Therapists provide strategies and options for dealing with a whole host of life’s biggest challenges. While your friends and family will never be professional therapists (unless that is ACTUALLY their profession) for managing day-to-day stress, you potentially don’t need more than a friendly ear.
Spending time in deep, meaningful relationships has been found to be the biggest determination of long-term health. Even above exercise and nutrition. One of the theories behind this is that it helps keep your stress levels lower than those of people with less well-developed relationships. Spend time with your friends and family, and really open up about what’s going on. It will do more good than you think.
What are your strategies for managing stress?
There are so many ways to keep stress at bay. Much like exercise and nutrition, everything is going to affect each individual differently. Try out different ideas for stress management, and see what works best for you!
