Simple Stress Management Tips for When You Need a Reminder

Hello April showers! Before we bring May flowers into the year, we would like to highlight the importance of April as April is #NationalStressAwarenessMonth!

To normalise stress, it shouldn’t be a surprise to know that stress happens to everybody in every season of life. It can be induced by work, school, home-life, traffic, or even from a bad interaction with someone. It may be difficult to avoid stress, but it is important for us to learn to manage stress in a healthy way so we can be our best selves.

Stress is a normal human reaction that results in physical, emotional, and intellectual responses. When faced with changes or challenges, our body produces physical and mental responses to adjust to new situations.

Our seminar, Good-For-You-Stress: Building a Positive Mindset, will teach you how to change the perspective of your stressor from a negative one to a positive one. It will teach you to see stress as a challenge and provide you with the motivation to overcome it with an optimistic attitude that will leave you with an immediate positive change to your cognition, emotional state, and stress your hormone levels.

Don’t be worried or ashamed of the stressors you have in your life because no one has a stress-free life! As such, it is important for us to learn to manage our stress with healthy habits.

If you need help to get you started on stress management, we have a few tips for you:

Stress Management Tips

1. Be active every day:

Exercising every day has been proven to be a powerful stress reliever as it relieves physical and mental tension. Exercising releases endorphins and endocannabinoids, which are substances that naturally makes you feel better! Exercising is also associated with better sleep, and with better sleep, individuals can manage their stress efficiently and effectively.

2. Eat healthy foods:

Maintaining a healthy diet filled with fruits and vegetables decreases effects of stress on the body and increases the immune system, balances the mood levels, and decreases blood pressure, which enables the body to be more equipped to deal with stress – along with other health benefits! It is best to avoid processed foods, and foods that are high in sugar and fats, and quit unhealthy habits such as alcohol, caffeine, and tobacco as this can increase blood pressure.

3. Practice relaxation techniques:

Practicing relaxation techniques such as yoga, meditation, and deep breathing, can be beneficial in reducing stress and anxiety. Though yoga is a form of exercise, it can be a form of relaxation since it allows you to be focused on slow movements, stretching, and deep breathing. Meditation is important as it lowers stress, anxiety, chronic pain, and improves sleep, energy levels and mood. Deep breathing exercises can assist in activating the body’s natural ability to relax. It sends more oxygen to the brain and calms the nervous system to relax. With these relaxation techniques, your mind will change the way your body responds to stress.

4. Connect with people:

Spending quality time with your friends and family is an important aspect in life as they are your support system who will listen to you. Having a loved one listen to your thoughts and feelings, is a natural way to reduce your stress and anxiety. When meeting with friends and family, the body releases a hormone that stops the fight-or-flight response – this enables you to relax. You can also return the favour to your loved one by being there for them as helping others helps you!

5. Spend time on yourself:

Setting regular uninterrupted time for yourself helps the brain to unplug from the stressors of life. It allows the body to unwind, produces better sleep, provides more control over moods, increases patience, and helps with being present. That being said, “me” time relieves stress. Some “me” time activities include reading, taking a walk, gardening, unplugging from social media, meditating, putting on a face mask, listening to music, watching a funny movie, etc.

It is important for us to practice healthy stress management to decrease the risks of physical and mental effects of stress, which prevents us from being creative, motivated, and productive in our daily lives! Once we can properly manage stress, we can live our best lives.

About Well Street

At Well Street, we are founded on the principles of introducing healthy practices to the workplace, which encompasses both mental and physical health. Comprised of medical professionals who have a background in naturopathy, we aim to help organizations foster a healthy corporate environment in order to boost productivity and morale. If you would like to learn more about how our team can help you or your company, consider contacting us to find out more. We are happy to provide you with guidelines and approaches to support the wellbeing of your team members through virtual seminars and programs.