Like several other health and wellness issues, stress is one of those things where the word itself has lost meaning. Now, many people would tell their loved ones over a cup of coffee that they feel ‘stressed’ over something relatively trivial.
However, stress can have a wide range of detrimental effects on the body and mind and can lead to even more serious conditions, one of the major ones being depression.
So, with that being said, here are four simple ways to help reduce your stress levels.
Try Not to Rely on Unhealthy Habits
`First and foremost, even though when you are living through a particularly stressful day, or indeed a longer period of your life, it can be tempting to fall back on a reliance on smoking cigarettes or drinking alcohol, but this will only perpetuate the problem.
Instead, try and identify the root cause of your stress and worry, and moreover, attempt to identify the key triggers and work to reduce them as much as you possibly can. If this is not possible for you to do (for instance, you might be stressed about a sick family member), try to find ways to be proactive about the situation so you feel more in control or follow self-care practices.
Schedule Some Self Care Time
In the busy modern world, especially if you are always balancing your professional responsibilities at work with your personal and family commitments at home, you will often find there is virtually no time left to take care of your own needs and wants.
This is why if you are currently feeling stressed and overworked,you should try and find even a small amount of time to focus on yourself. Try and take yourself off for a thirty-minute walk in the evening, for example, and take your headphones to listen to your favourite tunes as you walk.
Book a Massage
Another incredibly beneficial way to help reduce your levels of stress and furthermore, to help keep them that way, is to book yourself in for a massage.
A full body, deep tissue massage in Abingdon can be an excellent way to soothe tired, tense, and strained muscles, as well as to calm the brain and to give you a chance to relax and reflect, making for a less stressful mind once the massage is complete.
Talk to Others
Even though, after a hard day’s work and dropping and collecting your children at school, all you want to do is to collapse on the sofa with your dinner and binge-watch your favourite series on Netflix, another proven-to-be effective way of reducing stress is to reach out to loved ones.
This does not mean that you should arrange five social events a week and exhaust yourself. Instead, a simple phone call or even a conversation through text messaging to reconnect with those around you will be very helpful.
Having a strong support network around you is an essential part of adult life, whether or not you are currently going through a particularly difficult time, and as such, make sure you stay in regular contact with friends and close family members.
