Are you stressed out and want to do something about it that greatly improves you life? If yes, then you’ll want to keep reading because, not all stress relieving methods are the same. Here’s 5 aspects to stress management techniques that I’ll share with you to keep the negative effects of stress at bay.
Everyone experiences stress. Yet since stress is a response to what is happening from someone’s individual perspective, the experience of stress is difference for everyone!
It’s known that as stress accumulates over time, your health can really suffer. So it’s a very good idea to try to relieve it every day. Some ways to relieve it are worlds better than others though, so it’s really important to talk about these five aspects to look for.
Before we get into this list, take a moment to think about or write down your favorite ways to relieve stress. When you’ve had a bad day, what do you do to relieve the stress that results?
After you go through this list, you can decide if your stress relieving method makes the cut or if you think you need to make some adjustments
5 Aspects of the Best Stress Relieving Methods
1. Is It Holistic?
When you’re doing something to relieve stress, does it benefit your physical, mental, and emotional health?
It’s common for people to just prioritize their body, relieving stress that shows up as physical tension. So in the case of a tension headache, they might just take medication to remove the pain, the symptom. But this ignores the fact that there’s likely emotional or mental stress that is manifesting as the physical headache! So to completely let go of stress, the work needs to be on an emotional and mental level too.
Spirituality comes into play as well. When one is not feeling supported in life, like they have no purpose, that is a spiritual issue. So stress might have a root that is even deeper than the heart and mind.
It would be best for you to choose stress relieving activities that are holistic, which means that you give equal attention to body, heart, mind, and spirit.
Yoga is an excellent example of a holistic activity that has a potential to relieve stress on every level. Just be careful here, that you’re not making assumptions about a certain class. The depth of your experience is dependent on the teacher, if you’re doing a led-class, but also on your approach.
You may want to check out Yogic Approach to Stress Relief to make sure that you’re making the most of your stress-relieving practice.
2. Are You Checking Out Or Checking In?
Choose an activity where you’re constantly checking in with ourself.
Watching TV is an activity that many people like to do because they no longer experience the stress of the day while they’re doing it. But this is because they’re completely focused on something else. They are “checked out”.
The stress will still be there when the show is over though. Nothing has changed or shifted!
It’s best to choose an activity like journaling with which you can check in with yourself and actively process what’s going on. In fact, just writing down how you feel can shine a light on how stress is showing up in your life and it will be easier to see how you can avoid or release it. Typically, once our feelings are acknowledged, they shift into something less intense and the physical tension shifts too.
I hope you’ll try it! Here’s more information on how journaling can help you.
3. Does It Support Your Health?
Some people reach for alcohol, drugs, or engage in addictive habits when they’re stressed out. This is a way of checking out and unconsciously disconnecting from the source of stress.
This is important to talk about, especially right now when we’ve had continuous stress from the Coronavirus pandemic for six straight months. Obviously, it’s not the best idea to rely on a stress relieving method that harms your health when done multiple times, every single day.
So sorry moms, I’m not laughing at your memes anymore about how much wine you’re needing to deal with your kids who are learning at home. Yes, believe me, I know it’s stressful. But there are much better ways to handle it that actually improve your health.
You can try this breathing practice, for a relaxing start to your day.
4. Does It Offer Short-term Or Long Term Effects?
Yes, sometimes we need to do something to take the edge off quickly. But typically these are not the things that will lead to long-lasting effects.
Engaging in stress management practices like deep breathing, mindfulness, aromatherapy, journaling and yoga can actually develop you to a degree that you can avoid stress or you’re just less affected by possible stressful events. This cannot be said for quick pampering activities like getting a massage or your nails done.
Believe me, I LOVE to pamper myself. I am not at all knocking these activities and recommend you keep doing them. But I would be clear that it’s for self-love, not as much for stress relief. The reason I don’t like that association is because, again, stress needs to be managed daily, so the way to relieve it needs to be simple and accessible, daily. It also needs to be something you can do for yourself.
5. Does It Strengthen Your Connection To Others?
Whatever you choose to do to manage your stress will be even more impactful if the effects are noticed and felt by other people in your life in a positive way. It is very clear that when I’m meditating regularly, my home life and my relationships are more harmonious.
What about meeting with friends – going on hikes, going out to dinner, or meeting for drinks? Those meeting can be extremely positive and supportive! Or they can be detrimental and useless. It really depends on whether you’re having deep conversations that help you grow or if you’re just drinking wine and complaining about how life sucks! See, it’s what you do with the time that matters.
Conclusion
I hope this information is helpful and that is doesn’t trigger you! I’m only going to recommend the stress management techniques that work effectively and consistently.
If you want to learn more about self-healing stress relieving practices, join my free 5-day Stress Less Holistic Health Challenge that is beginning on Sept. 28, 2020.
This challenge will also help you with consistency and accountability if it’s just hard for you to make the time for these stress relieving activities. We have a Facebook group that you can join, so we all support each other.
What is your favorite way to relieve stress? Are you still thinking this is the best way to manage it now that you’ve reviewed this list? Please let me know in the comments!
