Chill homie

Hey y'all!! This article is gonna be covering some basic stress management techniques. I think we all know how much stress can affect our health, both mentally and physically. So, we're gonna go over some practical things that you can start using in your life today. Other things we'll talk about in this article are a bit more conceptual; meaning they may not hit right away. The whole point of this article is to get the gears in your brain turning.

A lot of times how well or how poorly we handle stress comes down to our mindset. That being said, we can't truly change our mindset over night. Being able to handle stress better takes time and effort, just like reaching our fitness goals. My goal is to empower y'all with the skills and knowledge to succeed in this endeavor. So, let's get into it; starting with some of the practical things we can do to manage stress.

It's important to know that our physiology and psychology are one in the same. They share an inverse relationship, meaning what our body is experiencing can affect our state of mind, and what we're going through mentally can affect body. A lot of the practical things we can do to manage stress are actually physical things, and that's because of this inverse relationship. So, what can I start physically doing today to help manage my stress?

Well hey, there's actual quite a few things that we can do; so we have a good spread of things to choose from. At least one of them has to work for you and your current lifestyle. The first one we'll talk about is exercising. You can lift weights, jog, swim, bike, whatever you enjoy and will get you active. The short answer is exercise helps manage stress because it increases endorphins while lowering stress hormones. Just from my personal experience, there has been so many times when a good exercise session has saved my day and sanity. So, I really do believe exercise can be a reliable tool for stress management. Now, a lot of people say they just don't have time for that, which could be partly true.

However, if we sat down and looked at their day to day routine, I promise we could find 30 minutes for their well being. We make time for things that are important for us. Our well being should be important to us, just 30 minutes exercise can have such a positive impact on so many aspects of our lives. The next thing we're gonna talk about is breathing technique, and it's something we can fit anywhere in our day. Even in the middle of stressful situation.

Good breathing technique is literally a secret weapon, it's so powerful.

The breathing technique we're using is nice slow deep breaths. Like 5 seconds in and 5 seconds out, it can be more or less depending on your lung capacity. While we're taking these deep breaths, all of our focus should be on our lungs. Feel the air coming in filling the lungs, a pause then feel the air leaving the lungs nice and slow. We're gonna keep doing that for as long or as little as needed. You'll literally feel yourself start to relax in the moment, it's kinda crazy.

This works because of that inverse relationship I mentioned early between our body and our mind. Your body is telling your mind that everything is okay. Our heart rate and blood pressure will go down, our parasympathetic nervous system is being activated, which is basically our chill mode. When we're really tense and stressed that's typically our sympathetic nervous system being more active. That normally comes with increase heart rate and blood pressure. The total opposite, right? Knowing that we have these two systems at play inside of us, and knowing that we can shift from one to the other with just simple breathing control is very powerful. So, next time your in a stressful or tense situation remember this, and try this breathing technique. There's one last physical thing to cover, and that's sleep.

Sleep is really important when it comes to stress management. It's kinda funny though, that we can be so stressed that it makes use lose sleep. Then, because we're losing sleep it's makes our body go in this like high alert mode, that then makes it easier to get stressed. Next thing we know, we're in this cycle of high stress and poor sleep, and they just keep feeding each other. How do we break this cycle, and how do we get better sleep?

Well, that answer is a little different for everyone. Partly because of where the stress is coming from in someone's life. Also, some of us aren't losing sleep because of stress, but rather poor time management. Like staying up too late just to get more screen time, or whatever the case is. Either way that lack of sleep is going to effect stress levels the following day. So, if your having a hard time getting the right amount of sleep at night I'm gonna list off some ideas for you to try.

We can try the breathing tech we just covered while in bed. We can try setting "bed time" to create consistency. We can try limiting screen time before bed, that blue light exposure can be a real problem. We can even try being more active though out the day, so we don't have so much pent up energy by the end of the day. These are just a few things to try that a lot of people losing sleep would probably benefit from.

The last thing we're gonna talk about is the things we can do mentally to help manage stress day to day.

The mental part is where things get a bit more conceptual. We really need to step back and think about our life and ourselves. It's really important that we do this as honestly and objectively as possible. It's so easy to say that our stress is coming from anywhere but us. Like I said at the start of this article, a lot of how people handle stress comes down to their mindset. So, what is your mind set? How do you react to certain situations? How easily can you move on, or let things go? How long have you been dealing with the same things and still get stressed out by them?

Take a moment and think about these things honestly.

Understand the difference between what's a big deal and what's not. Losing a leg is a big deal; being in traffic isn't. If everything is always a big deal to us, then we'll always have these big reactions. Even if something is a big deal and we treat it like it's not; the response we have and how well we handle it can be dramatically different. Now I'm not saying don't care about anything. What I am trying to say is think about why it's really stressing you out. Is it worth being stressed out about or is it just an inconvenience? Remember we have way more control over our life than we like to think, and if it's outside our control we still have control over our mindset. I hope this gets those gears turning. Being resilient, and being able to step back and think about whatever situation life throws at us is corner stone of successful stress management.

Congrats y'all!! You made it through another article and are that much better for doing so! Hopefully at least one thing in this article was useful for you, when it comes to successful stress management. If you have any questions or comments, feel free to reach out to me. My email is posted all over the website, I'd love to hear from y'all. Until next time Y'all, peace!