Signs of Stress and How To Reduce

Today’s topic is all ABOUT STRESS. We all have stress in our lives. It’s almost inevitable. But are you living with too much of it? Sometimes it feels uncontrollable. Do you have days that you just feel really overwhelmed and you just feel kind of like out of control and you just want to hide and run away?

We all have some sort of stress and there’s a study that says, 77% of people regularly experience physical symptoms caused by stress and your stress might be different than mine We are all a little bit different depending on how we cope with things and knowing your actual limits of what you can actually handle.

A little bit of stress is not going to hurt you. It actually develops grit but you know when it’s too much to handle then, you can have some pretty bad side effects and some of those side effects

might be looking or feeling really tired – just fatigued overall. It can also be irritability or some anger, feeling nervous or having like no energy, anxiety or you might get a headache or an upset

tummy. You might have like a little bit of body ache and so, you can’t eat or maybe you just want to cry.

Those are some of the symptoms that you can tell if you’re under stress but, I’m

guessing you pretty much know and stress is totally normal and it does serve a purpose. It actually does make us stronger and it makes you motivated to go to the next level.

Sometimes,  you just need that little bit of push to develop the grit but on the other hand, you need to manage it so that it doesn’t linger on and create massive problems.

Some people say that stress is the reason that you fight with loved ones or friends because you’re stressed out and you’re actually like projecting on them.

The causes of stress could be because of work or demands from your family or money, situations, hardships, pressure to accomplish, big life changes like maybe you’ve had a death in the family or a debilitating illness or maybe you’re moving or your kids are

going out of the and sometimes we worry about stuff like all the recent events going on in the world and that can bring out a negative outlook on life.

Basically, the cause of your stress though depends on how you perceive a situation. I always say this quote, “A person’s happiness or unhappiness does not depend on their situation but on how they respond to it. “ It’s really how you respond to thing that is the important thing.

We know that long-term stress can have some major risks such as, depression, high blood pressure, weight gain because the hormone stress hormone cortisol is responsible for some weight gain and lack of sleep. And when you won’t be sleeping then that will also create some problems. You can get ulcers or you know skin problems. There’s all kinds of different things that you can get because of stress and so we wanted to find ways to reduce it and take care of it.

• What are you doing for relaxation?
  
  You can do deep breathing exercises. There’s all kinds of different things you can do. You can do slow long deep breaths. Just inhale as long as you possibly can until you’re stomach everything’s all filled up and then exhale.
  
  When I do that deep breathing I say, inhale love, joy, peace, patience, kindness goodness, self-control as if I’m  filling my body up with the fruits of the spirit and then when I exhale it’s, anger, stress, worry, and all of the negative.
  
  You can do guided imagery which would be like a meditation practice where they take you to your happy place. Maybe it’s a beach or it’s the mountains and you’re on a hike or you’re by a river and you can hear the water. There’s a lot of guided imagery that you can find like on YouTube and things like that.
  
  You can do another relaxation method where you lay down and you’re visualizing this ball of white light coming into your crown chakra and you feel like that whole visualization of it relaxing you and you go through one body part at a time come down to your face, your neck, your jaw and you’re just relaxing and you’re feeling that light relaxing you all the way down.
  
  You can do aromatherapy. There’s essential oils a lot essential oils that will actually help you and chamomile is good. chamomile tea is good um just having or you can get a rollerball application and rub it on your wrist, on your temples or in different places on your solar plexus.
  
  Meditation is also great. There’s some great meditation apps. My favorite is called calm and I like the girl’s voice it’s really good.
  
  You can do emotional freedom technique or tapping and basically what you’re doing is you’re changing your thought pattern by tapping on different pressure points like above your eye and to your side and your cheek into your collarbone.

• Stretching and exercising.
  
  When you do cardio it will actually help you create some endorphins in your brain that make you feel good and reduce stress. Exercise really is amazing if you don’t overdo it.
  
  Walking outside in nature is great because you can get the vitamin D from the sun and you get all that fresh air, that feel-good endorphins. The more nature you have around you, the better. Being barefoot in the grass or dirt is even better because then you’re doing something called “grounding” where you’re absorbing the negative ions from the earth and that actually will balance out all the positive ones that you get from living. It’s kind of like a battery that you get the negative ones from the earth and then it balances out all the positive ones.
  
  Do yoga. So, a lot of you know that I teach yoga that actually is wonderful to combat stress especially because in yoga, you focus on deep breathing and feel the flow so you can kind of lose yourself in your practice.
  
  Tai Chi or Qi Gong Reiki are really good for stress too. Those are all energy practices. We’re actually using energy and gathering lifeforce energy into your body.
  
  
• Nutrition
  
  Nutrition can help you miss stress because some foods are really inflammatory like grains, gluten, some dairy can be implemented and your body creates inflammation which gets to be systemic. You want to eat foods that will build a healthy immune system
  
  You want to ditch the like processed foods and the fast food. I think having a really healthy protein bar every once in a while is fine like for an emergency to keep at your car.
  
  You want to eat raw foods because those foods are full of enzymes. They’re really good for you.
  
  Of course, you want to have enough omega-3 or fatty acids.
  
  Soothing herbal teas are good for you you can find all kinds of herbal teas that will relax you. Just be careful because some of them have a laxative effect.
  
  Be mindful with your food because sometimes when we’re stressed out we’d start picking up food and we’re not really hungry and that actually ends up keep creating more stress in the end because then you’re you’re mad at yourself because you ate that and it just kind of makes things worse.
  
  When you’re stressed, be very mindful and check in with yourself and ask yourself. Be questionable and then after you process the stress, process the emotion and decided on what outcome or what action you’re going to take so it no longer will stress you.
  
  Stay away from the sweet stuff. No white carbs, no sugar because that creates inflammation and that will just make your stress worse.

• You want to do activities every day that make you feel good. Pick at least something
  
  Laughter. Watching funny videos not all day but just like you pick one a day or something that is good.
  
  Listen to fun music. Pandora has great music on it and you can just pick your mood and have some fun and you can dance.
  
  Just play around a little bit. Think about kids. They are always playing and having fun and that’s the way we want to be. We want to nurture our inner child and have more play in our life.
  
  Stop taking yourself so seriously. This is something we really need to do. Remove yourself from situations that are stressful.
  
  Volunteering will also help you. When you are serving people and helping people in need then that is a wonderful thing. Don’t overdo it so that you’re stressed out about that but just enjoy.
  
  Take a day of the spa or get a pedicure. Take some time to pamper yourself because you deserve it.
  
  Read a good book. Like a book that is just a no-brainer book.
  
  Do art. You can find like little crafts that you or can either paint. Doing art is really good to help keep your mind busy and occupy your mind from whatever’s going on.
  
  Gardening. Being outside and having your hands in dirt is another way to get those negative ions from the earth. You’re actually really doing a physical thing and plus them again, you’re outside with the vitamin D and you’re making something wonderful. Gardening is very very therapeutic.
  
  Take a bath with Epsom salts and they are fantastic. You can use essential oils with like lavender, chamomile or you can create those eye masks. I mean, any drugstore now has those really cool facial masks that you can use but just go in the bathtub and just relax and unwind. Epsom salts the magnesium will actually even help you sleep better.
  
  Create boundaries with your time and not everybody deserves your time. Be very discerning when you decide what you’re going to do and how you spend your time and put yourself first.
  
  Socialization. Being around your friends is a really great way to get rid of stress because they’re going to make you laugh and you’re going to enjoy the chitter chatter.
  
  You could go and see sites in your local area that you’ve never seen. How sad is it that we live by an hour away from really cool things or even maybe closer that we’ve never seen? Some of the beautiful stuff is right in our own backyard and we don’t even see it that it’s just there.

Take a break every now and then and don’t worry about it. Just enjoy life and slow down. I really want to wish you love, joy, and peace.

Here’s a little quotes, “Every day we have plenty of opportunities to get angry stressed or offended, but what you’re doing when you indulge these negative emotions is giving someone outside yourself power over your happiness. You can choose to not let little things upset you.” and that is by Joel Osteen.

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