Nobody wants to live a life plagued by stress and anxiety, which are common afflictions in this modern age when work is busy, your family is busy and your life is just, generally, very busy. How can you hope to find some sort of respite from this constantly boisterous and problem-filled situation? Well, there are ten simple tips which you can learn and apply to your daily routine to improve your calmness throughout the day – and here they are, compiled in a list!
Exercise
Simply going for a jog when you have too many things on your mind to focus properly can really benefit your mental health. Exercise releases endorphins in the brain, which are scientifically proven to make you feel happier, and you can achieve the goals that you set for yourself as well – all of this benefits you, by making you feel better. Also, participating in sport with a team can help you make new friends and find new support networks, which all keeps stress and anxiety at bay.
Candles
Although they are a very small addition to your everyday life, keeping a candle in your room for when you are feeling the stress of work or general life problems is a great idea. Lighting it and watching the flame flicker gently as you relax and, if you have a scented candle, breathing in the aromatic smell, can really help you destress and take a moment out of your busy schedule to free your mind of negative or “busy” thoughts.
Chocolate
“As strange as it sounds,” Rachel Walsh, a lifestyle blogger at 1Day2Write and Write My X, tells me, “chocolate isn’t actually that bad for you – when you eat it in small amounts! Dark chocolate can reduce blood pressure, introduce many antioxidants to your system, lower the risk of heart disease and more.” So, some chocolate in moderation can be beneficial to your health, and it improves your mood as well.
Reduce Caffeine
We all know caffeine gives you the jitters – it can also lead to elevated anxiety levels, and a dependence on it makes you cranky in the morning, and whenever your regular fix of coffee or a caffeinated, sugary drink isn’t available. Cutting it out can make you a lot less on edge and irritable.
Green Tea
Leading on from that last point, if you need a coffee substitute, drinking green tea may be the answer. It can offset the effects of caffeine due to the L-theanine within it, and anywhere between one and three cups a day can benefit you massively.
Unplug
Taking time away from your screens can help you to properly relax and unwind, reducing stress levels and helping you to ‘switch off’ after a hectic day – especially if you work in an office setting, constantly surrounded by screens. Just turn all screens in the house off for thirty minutes a day, and you’ll start feeling a lot more at ease in your own home.
Clean Up
Not only is cleaning fairly therapeutic in its own right, but living in a clean, non-cluttered environment leads to a clean, non-cluttered mind, which helps your mental health to remain stable and you to keep calm, even during stressful situations. Invest in storage spaces for your clutter, since ‘out of sight, out of mind’ is actually true, especially if you know that it is safely stored away in a specifically allocated space.
Breathing Exercises
Exercising your body is great, but using breathing exercises regularly can also help you to keep a calm head in life. It is extremely soothing when your mind gets used to the breathing exercises meaning that it is time to relax. There are many apps which you can search for which provide guides on breathing exercises, or even posts on social media which have graphics to follow. Breathing exercises will break up your busy day and provide a gentle kind of therapy for your body, reducing stress.
Spending Time With Family And/Or Friends
“Hanging out with your friends at a nice Starbucks in town, or taking your family out on a walk through the park, can actually release oxytocin, which naturally relieves stress.” Marian Keeling, a health writer at Australia2Write and NextCoursework, suggests, “I, personally, always feel better after spending quality time with the people I love.”.
Taking Time Off
Sometimes, if life is hitting you too hard, you just have to take a step back and recover. Don’t be afraid to take a day off work, or even just have an afternoon to yourself, if you’ve had a difficult week and need to destress.
This article was written by Michael Dehoyos who assists companies in how to market themselves towards their target audiences, as a content marketer and editor at PhD Kingdom and Academicbrits.com. He is also a regular writer at Origin Writings, as well as contributing to numerous other sites and publications, and has a genuine love and passion for helping companies to understand who they are selling themselves to, and how to achieve this – seeing others perform excellently in their areas brings him great joy.
