How to Manage and Reduce Stress

Have you ever thought about how to manage and reduce stress in your life? Agreed! We know stress has always been part of our lives.

There is nothing worth doing that won’t require you to stress yourself a bit. But while a good amount of stress is good for your body, it’s also unhealthy to stay stressed constantly.

Hence, it’s important to learn how to manage and reduce it.

What is Stress?

Stress is a form of mental and physical discomfort. It’s how we react when we feel pressured, overwhelmed, or unable to cope with changes or challenges.

Simply put, stress is our body’s response to pressure. As I mentioned, being overstressed is not healthy for your body.

Most of the time, we bring the stress upon ourselves. Let’s say you are supposed to sleep for 8 hours every day, but because of your work schedule, you cut it down to four hours.

And sometimes you even sleep less, hoping you’ll create time to sleep later; which you most likely won’t do.

While it looks like you are doing the rational thing because you have to survive and provide for your family, it accumulates stress in your body.

And before you know it, you will break down from being overstressed.

This example shows that our approach to stress management needs to be corrected.

What if you could find better ways to manage and reduce stress? This article will examine actionable strategies for managing and reducing stress.

Quick Relief Tips for Instant Stress Reduction

1. Deep Breathing:

Sometimes, stress and workload can be overwhelming. A simple way to reduce stress is to practice breathing techniques.

There are different breathing techniques, but I recommend box breathing and 4-7-8 breathing techniques.

a. Box breathing

Box breathing, also known as square breathing or Sama Vritti Pranayama, is a deep breathing technique that can help you relax and manage stress.

How to do it

Sit, stand, or lie down in a comfortable position. Close your eyes and relax your shoulders and jaw.

Then, inhale slowly through your nose as you count to four, hold your breath for four seconds, and exhale slowly through your mouth within four seconds.

Repeat as much as you can.

What is the 4-7-8 technique?

The 4-7-8 breathing technique is a breathing exercise that can help reduce stress and anxiety, promote relaxation, and improve sleep.

How to do it

Find a comfortable place to sit and close your eyes; let your lips part. Make a whooshing sound, exhaling completely through your mouth.

Next, close your lips, inhaling silently through your nose as you count to 4 seconds in your head.

Then, for 7 seconds, hold your breath. Make another whooshing exhale from your mouth for 8 seconds. Repeat as much as you can.

b. Grounding Exercises:

Grounding exercises are techniques that can help you feel more grounded in the present moment and restore balance in your mind and body.

These exercises can be useful when you feel overwhelmed or consumed by a strong emotion that you want to put under your control.

One of the techniques is the 5-4-3-2-1 technique. It is a mindfulness exercise that can help you manage anxiety and stress.

How to do it:

For each of these steps, mention it out loud.

• 5 things you can see: Name five things you can see around you.

• 4 things you can touch: Name four things you can feel.

• 3 things you can hear: Name three things you can hear.

•  2 things you can smell: Focus on two things you can smell.                                                                      

c. Stretching:

When you are stressed, you can engage in simple stretches like neck rolls, shoulder shrugs, etc., to release tension and feel less overwhelmed.

There are no steps for this. Just stretch your body. You can just stand, stretch your waist, neck, hand, etc.

2. Physical Activities to Lower Stress:

Aside from breathing, you can engage in physical activities to lower stress.

Exercise: It’s no news again that physical exercises have always been useful to humans. You must not have dumbbells or weights before you exercise.

It can start with activities like walking, yoga, dancing, etc. These activities help release stress, thereby improving your mind.

Nature Walks: One of the best things you can do for yourself is to walk around nature.

It has been proven that being around nature can reduce stress, improve mood, and reduce fatigue.

3. Mindfulness and Relaxation Techniques:

Mindfulness and relaxation techniques can help you relieve and manage stress. Here are a few mindfulness and relaxation techniques:

Meditation: There are different meditation techniques. One of them is breathing in and out.

In this case, instead of just breathing in and out, you focus on your breath. One of the benefits of meditation is that it helps you release stress and have a productive day.

But if you do not want breathing meditation, you can start a guided meditation.

You can use meditation apps like Calm or Headspace. There are also many guided meditations on YouTube or Spotify.

Massage: You can get a full-body massage from a masseuse. You can book an appointment once or twice a month.

You’ll be surprised at how relaxed you’ll be after the massage. Getting an expert to massage you will greatly help manage and reduce stress.

4. Improving Daily Routines:

As John C. Maxwell once said, “The secret to your success can be found in your daily agenda.” Show me a successful man and I’ll show you a man who has and follows daily routines.

We can get a glimpse of what you’ll be in the future from what you do today. So, how do you plan your daily routines to manage and reduce stress?

Morning Routines: One of the best morning routines you can try is starting your day with meditation and stretching.

There are many other things you can do in your morning routine. You can check out the post I made on that.

Time Management: Over the years, the importance of having a to-do list has become inarguable. Many time management techniques stem from having a to-do list.

For example, the Eisenhower technique (which divides tasks into urgent, important, not urgent, not important) is a form of a to-do list. But it is more structured; it helps you achieve the important things on time.

Likewise, some to-do list strategies, such as writing your top 6 tasks for the day and top 3 tasks for the day, are still to-do lists.

To avoid being overwhelmed, you can also use apps like ‘Todoist’ to plan your day.

Decluttering: Sometimes, stress comes from seeing everywhere scattered. This is called visual stress. You can see your workspace disorganized and get stressed instantly.

As much as possible, ensure that your workspace is organized to avoid unnecessary stress.

5. Nutrition for Stress Reduction:

Proper nutrition is vital in reducing stress. One of the essential ways to reduce stress is through nutrition.

These are the things you take in, so you must be mindful of them. Let’s look at some of the things you can do:

Hydration: Hydration is essential. Your food is not complete if you don’t take water. You should always take water to stay energized.

You should always have a bottle of water with you. You are advised to drink at least 3.7 liters of water daily.

Stress-Relieving Foods: You should consume some magnesium-rich foods like spinach, almonds, and omega-3s like salmon and walnuts.

Limit Stimulants: Reduce your sugar and caffeine intake as much as possible. While they give you energy, overtaking them can cause energy spikes and crashes.

6. Building Strong Social Connections:

Humans are social beings. Sometimes, we can easily fall into depression and anxiety if we don’t relate with other people.

We are extra stressed when we don’t relate with people, especially for a long period.

You want to ensure that you build strong social connections. Here are some of the ways you can do that:

Support Network: Regularly communicate with friends and join support communities. Talk with people. Not talking with people is rampant these days.

We now live in a world where you can work from home and get paid, unlike those days when there was no phone, and you had to interact with people physically to make money. Ensure you talk with people.

Quality Time: Engage in stress-relieving activities with loved ones. These can include singing, cleaning, reading, dancing, or even going to a hangout with friends.

You can discuss things, laugh your hearts out, reminisce on memories, create new ones, etc.

Acts of Kindness: Life is too fickle not to do what you want to do. Some things you can do to relieve stress are volunteering, helping others, or being kind to others.

Decide in your heart that you’ll be kind to someone every day. It can be as simple as slipping a note to their desks, smiling at them, giving them a gift, helping out when they need help, etc.

7. Creative Outlets and Fun Activities:

Here are some fun activities you can do in your leisure time to manage and reduce stress:

Hobbies: You can create new hobbies for yourself, such as painting, gardening, or playing an instrument. Some people learned how to play the piano just to unwind, not to play it professionally. You can create multiple hobbies for yourself.

Laughter Therapy: You can watch comedies on YouTube. It can either be comedy skits or stand-up comedy. You can also listen to some podcasts on Spotify or Apple Podcasts that make you laugh.

This is called laughter therapy. Laughter releases neurochemicals and feel-good hormones in your brain that help you manage and reduce stress.

Journaling: One of the things you can also do is to journal, especially about things you are grateful for. I wrote about this in one of my posts. You can check it out.

Gratitude helps you shift focus from the negative aspects of your life to the positive parts. When you think about negative things, you tend to get stressed. But when you think about positive things, you feel better.

8. Digital Rest:

Sometimes, you only need to rest and stay off social media. A friend broke down recently due to stress. While some parts of the stress were work-related, the majority was about her mental health.

Her incessant use of social media and consumption of news took a toll on her health and she broke down. This happens to people every day. Here are some things you can do.

Limit Screen Time: Limit your screen time on social media. You can set the time you only have to be on social media.

If that time exceeds, your phone will kick you out, and you have to wait till the next day before you can reassess social media. Set boundaries on social media and if possible, stay away from news.

More often than not, news channels have more negative news to report than positive news.

Engage Offline: Rediscover offline activities like board games, puzzles, ludo, sudoku, chess, etc. It helps you to release stress.

Sleep Hygiene: For better rest, establish a sleep routine. Don’t sleep at 9 pm today and sleep at 11 pm tomorrow.

Try to be consistent with your sleep routine. It helps your body. I wrote a detailed post on how you can sleep better. Check it out here.

 9. Seek Professional Help:

While everything I have discussed is vital, you’ll notice the steps above can be done without professional help.

However, that doesn’t remove the place of professional help. Here are some signs that you need professional help; they are signs of chronic stress:

• Aches and pains.

• Insomnia or sleepiness.

• A change in social behavior, such as isolation.

• Low energy.

• Unfocused or cloudy thinking.

• Change in appetite.

• Increased alcohol or drug use.

• Change in emotional responses to others.

Kindly note that you shouldn’t consider professional help as a last resort. You can take a proactive step by seeking professional help as you notice any signs of chronic stress.

Conclusion

In this article, we discussed how to manage and reduce stress. The steps explained in this article might look minute but can help you manage and reduce your stress effectively.

As the saying goes, “Little drops of water make a mighty ocean.”

I implore you not to stop at just reading this post but also apply the strategies discussed.

You can begin with the easy ones, like breathing and stretching, then move on to others. Don’t make this another blog post you read on managing and reducing stress and abandon.

Practice what you have learnt and you’d be well on your way to a wholesome lifestyle.

Did you learn something new? Share your thoughts in the comments. Also, share this post with your friends and family.