Stress has become a common factor in everyday life. But stress can be dealt with effectively if you have the correct tools. This post will uncover three of the best ways to deal with everyday stress, as well as discuss whether or not all stress is bad.
According to the American Psychological Association (APA), a third of all adults “said they have too much stress in their day-to-day lives to think about the future.” This is a harrowing statistic, especially when stress can impact so many other aspects of life, including careers and relationships.
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Is All Stress Bad?
A lot of the stress that you will experience can be bad, but that doesn’t mean all stress is bad. Some stress can be good; it helps you focus on something or get tasks done. It is how you manage your stress that can make the biggest difference to your mental wellbeing.
Reframing your thoughts about stress can allow you to determine whether the stress you experience is good or bad, and it will also ensure your coping methods, which are explored in the next section, are suitable.
How to Cope with Stress
This post outlines three of the best ways to deal with everyday stress. These tips are easy to use on a day-to-day basis, which will make your stress reduction more effective.
Practice Deep Breathing
When you feel stress in the moment, it can be difficult to lessen it. Deep breathing exercises can be used to activate the relaxation response in the body.
These exercises engage the diaphragm and slow down your breathing while sending signals to the brain to calm down. This then results in lowered blood pressure, heart rate, and stress hormone levels. Simply put, it tricks the body into thinking it’s safe.
Your deep breathing exercises will be more effective when you complete them in a comfortable position, so you are encouraged to sit with your back straight. You can inhale through your nose slowly, expanding your belly, before exhaling through your mouth. This process should be repeated for several minutes.
Create Boundaries
People, especially people pleasers, can often take on more than they can manage, which can cause excess stress. This can be stopped by saying “no” to requests that could add additional work to your load;
for example, if a colleague needs to leave work early, they might ask you to cover their calls as well as your own duties. To ensure you are selective with what you take on, you should decide what your priorities are and create boundaries to protect them.
Creating and maintaining your boundaries will help you to guard your wellbeing. Not only that, but it could allow you to create a healthy work-life balance.
However, it can be difficult to stop yourself from backtracking after setting a boundary, especially if you feel guilt or shame afterward. This will become easier as time passes and you practice maintaining these boundaries.
Maintain a Healthy Lifestyle
Probably the most effective method of dealing with everyday stress is to create a healthy lifestyle that you can follow. This will require a combination of dietary and exercise changes to be made and continued in the long term.
Most people find it easier to begin with increasing their physical activity, and this can be beneficial in releasing more endorphins. Adults are encouraged to complete at least 150 minutes of moderate-intensity exercise each week.
Next, people should aim to eat a balanced diet to reduce the amount of stress that they experience. While eating lots of processed foods could increase stress levels, this can also cause nutritional deficiencies.
Nutrients, like B vitamins and magnesium, are essential for regulating mood and stress and eating beans, fish, vegetables, and other whole foods can ensure your body is adequately sustained.
While not all stress is bad, it is essential to understand how to cope with stress effectively. This post has outlined three of the best ways to do just that.
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