Seven Ways to Relieve Stress

Stress is an issue that many of us struggle with every day. Bills, jobs, family responsibilities, and feelings of not having enough time in the day can cause us to feel stressed and overwhelmed. Over time, an overabundance of stress in our lives can take a toll on our overall mental health and physical well-being. To compensate for the daily stress we feel from demands and responsibilities, most of us seek out activities or hobbies to help relax. As you know, Portland acupuncture is a wonderful way to alleviate stress and its effects on the body. However, there are many other small and healthy ways outside of acupuncture that can relieve stress and help us feel more in control of our emotions, schedule, and demands. Here are seven ways to relieve stress if you can’t get some acupuncture.

7 Ways to Relieve Stress

1. Meditate

Spending a few minutes meditating every day helps to ease stress. Research suggests that meditating daily can alter your brain so that you are more resilient to stress. To meditate, just sit up straight with both feet on the floor. Close your eyes, and try to quiet your mind. Focus your mind on positive thoughts or mantras. You can also use this time as quiet reflection. Meditation can either be done quietly or by reciting out loud.

2. Listen to Your Favorite Tunes

Listening to soothing music has been linked to lower blood pressure, heart rate, and anxiety. Listening to soft classical music can help you focus your mind and relax. Or, if you’re looking to blow off some steam, you can rock out to your favorite rock songs, releasing stress by singing along and jamming out.

3. Sweat it Out

Exercising has long been known and used as a way of getting rid of stress. Not only does exercising release feel-good endorphins, but it can help ease depression and anxiety. All types of exercise can be good for your mental health, whether it be running the treadmill at the gym, going for a walk around the park, or dancing. Just get up, and get moving.

4. Keep a Stress Journal

Maintaining a stress journal can help you discern what triggers your feelings of stress, and methods of deal with those stressors. Every time you feel stress, jot it down in your journal. Keep track of things like: what caused your stress, how you felt about it, how you acted, and what you did to make yourself feel better. Over time, with active use, you will begin to notice certain patterns and themes that will help you develop better coping mechanisms in the future.

5. Puppy Love

Spending time with your favorite furball of love can help provide comfort and relief after a long, stressful day. Research has found that people can experience an increased output of endorphins and dopamine in as little as spending five minutes with an animal. Don’t have a pet? Find a buddy that will let you love on their dog or kitty for a little bit. In one study, patients who spent a short amount of time with a dog before an upcoming operation experienced 37% reduction in their anxiety levels.

6. Talk it Out

Sometimes, just spending some time chatting with a friend can help you to relieve stress. Face to face conversation will help to best maintain that personal connection. As an added bonus, conversations with friends often lead to a couple of good laughs, which by themselves can be a good relief.

7. Do What You Love

In our culture, we tend to prioritize work and productivity while downplaying leisure activities and play. Doing something just for fun that doesn’t seem “productive” to others is often perceived as trivial, frivolous, or even lazy. However, free time is anything but trivial. In fact, having free time to enjoy leisure activities is crucial to our mental health and well-being. Doing things like playing an instrument, reading a good book, playing a favorite RPG, playing sports, crafting, or even just drinking coffee while people-watching, are wonderful ways to nurture our mental health. So don’t feel guilty about taking a little “self-time” to decompress.

So if you’re feeling stressed out, try these methods to help you relax and feel better about your day. Lowering daily stress helps to maintain good mental health and an overall happier outlook. For a bigger boost in beating feelings of stress, try Portland acupuncture. Not only can Portland acupuncture reduce your feelings of stress and make you feel more at ease, it can also help to alleviate other health conditions brought on by stress such as fatigue and depression. Taking time for yourself to decompress and seeking out Portland acupuncture will remove the stress from your life, leading to overall better health.