Whether it be caused by life changing events, unpredictable situations, or just daily hassles, all of us experience stress on a regular basis. Too much regular stress can lead to some very harmful symptoms for our health, so it is extremely important we have effective stress management techniques. There are many things we can do to reduce our stress on a daily basis, but some of the practices we could try may be too time consuming or unaffordable. And if you’re a college student like me, you probably don’t have much time or money to spend on anything other than necessities. While it is fair to say that stress management is a necessity, it is not one that most of us budget our time or money for. The good news is, you don’t have to! Here is a list of 5 free and easy stress management techniques that you can start today to be healthier tomorrow.
1. Progressive Muscle Relaxation In this relaxation technique, you lie down and focus on slowly tensing, and then relaxing each muscle group. This not only helps you relieve tension you have stored up in your body due to stress, but it also helps you focus on the difference between tension and relaxation (Mayo Clinic). Becoming more aware of your how your body feels in different states can help you recognize your body’s subtle reactions to stress, since tension is a very common stress symptom. Over time, you will become more aware of when and how stress is arising in you, making it easier to manage and calm the stress reaction. Try beginning at your head and tensing your forehead for a couple of seconds, then continue to tense and relax every body part until you’ve made it down to your feet. 2. Deep Breathing Deep breathing is one of the easiest techniques to try since you already have everything you need to get started- a mouth and some lungs! Deep breathing can either be practiced with a specific technique, like a 4 count breath, or by just simply breathing in fully and exhaling slowly for a few minutes. Deep, focused breathing allows us to bring awareness to ourselves and one of the most important functions of our existence. This technique also reduces the levels of stress hormones in our body, so it actually lessens the intensity of any stress symptoms caused by these hormones, like a rapid heartbeat or anxiety (Seppälä). Deep breathing also helps us become more aware of our breath and it how changes in different situations. For example, we breathe faster during stress and slower when we’re calm. If we breathe deeply when we are stressed, we are sending a message to our bodies that we are calm (whether we really are or not), and that slows down our stress response and lessens our stress symptoms (Harvard Health). If you feel like you need a specific deep breathing technique to follow, try breathing in for 4 seconds, holding for 4 seconds, exhaling for 4 seconds, and holding again for 4 seconds. If 4 seconds is too long, try 3. If 4 seconds is not enough, try 5. There is no right or wrong way, so experiment until you find something that works for you. All that matters is that you are breathing in and out fully and doing your best to be aware of your breathing. 3. Physical Activity Physical activity, like deep breathing, helps to reduce the amount of stress hormones in our bodies. Physical activity also help our bodies produce endorphins, which are chemicals boost our mood and ease our pain (Harvard Health). Using regular exercise as a stress management technique is very efficient, as we reduce our stress hormones, which can cause nasty health effects, and replace them with endorphins, which make us feel happier and more at ease. Just taking the time for yourself to get away from your daily stressors and get moving can make us feel much less stressed as well. You don’t need a gym membership or any fancy equipment to reap the benefits that physical activity has to offer. You can do a quick 30 minute body-weight workout at home, go for a run, take your dog on a walk, or even just speed walk or jog around your neighborhood. There are many YouTube videos that will lead you through at home workouts if you are just getting started with a fitness regime and don’t know what moves to do. Harvard Health suggests that you should aim for 30-40 minutes of moderate exercise a day, which is not much longer than a typical TV show. And, if you don’t have a full 40 minutes every day to dedicate to exercising, you could separate it out into three or four 10-15 minute work out sessions. 4. Journaling I know that when I experience a particularly frustrating or stressful event, I just want to talk and vent about it. Talking about my stressors helps me to work through and better understand how to manage them. However, I don’t always have someone around that I can confide in about my experiences. This is where self-reflective journaling can come into play. With self-reflective journaling, we can use our words to dig deeper into our thoughts and feelings so that, through the process, we can learn more about our stress triggers and how we usually manage them when they arise. Once we have our thoughts on paper, we can review what we’ve written and see if we can come up new ways to overcome the struggles and stressors we are facing (Tams). For me, the best part about journaling is that I get the stressful thoughts out of my head and onto paper. When I have the negative emotions and worries swirling around in my head, it often causes me a lot of stress and self-doubt. Writing them down helps me to remove them from my mind and work through them so that I can learn from experiences instead of being bogged down by them. It can be hard at first to sit down and reflect about our experiences on our own, but even just a few minutes a day of self-reflective journaling can greatly help us reduce our stress. 5. Practice positive thinking I’m sure most of us have been in a situation where you’ve been feeling down or stressed, and someone’s advice to you was to “just be happy” or “just think more positively.” As frustrating as that can be to hear when you’re in a stressful situation, the advice is truly valid. Fostering a more positive and growth-oriented mindset has actually been proven to make us more effective and relieve our stress. It’s a trick that your mind can play on your body. When you begin to feel stressed, your body reacts in different ways-- your heart rate and breathing increase, you may get shaky, have an upset stomach, or you start to sweat. Understandably so, most of us view these symptoms as obstacles. However, if we can tell ourselves that these symptoms are actually beneficial to our performance, they will be. A study conducted by the University of Texas at Austin and the University of Rochester found that when teenagers were went through a 30 minute growth mindset seminar, they performed better in stressful situations, and their levels of stress hormones were significantly lower than the teenagers who didn’t (Wheeler). This means that just by changing how we view our stress, that stress can actually help us. This is a technique that definitely takes consistent practice to fully reap the benefits of, but it is extremely effective at reducing stress and it’s symptoms. As you can see, it doesn’t take much more than your own body and mind to effectively reduce stress. While these are not the only free ways to reduce stress, I have found these 5 to be the most effective in my life. Some of them may work for you and others may not, but it is worth trying if it means you can ease your stress and relax. If you have any free and easy ways to reduce stress that work for you that I didn’t list, please leave them in the comments below! :) References Mayo Clinic Staff. (2017, April 19). Relaxation techniques: Try these steps to reduce stress. Retrieved from: https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/stress-management/in-depth/relaxation-technique/art-20045368. Harvard Health. (2018, July 13). Exercising to relax. Retrieved from https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/exercising-to-relax. Wheeler, S. (2016, August 23). Can a Change in Mindset Help Teens De-stress? Article retrieved from: https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/can_a_change_in_mindset_help_teens_destress Tams, L. (2013, May 1). Journaling to reduce stress. Retrieved from http://msue.anr.msu.edu/news/journaling_to_reduce_stress. Seppälä, E. (2014, February 7). Benefits of Breathing: The Scientific Benefits of Breathing Infographic. Retrieved from: https://emmaseppala.com/tag/breathing-exercises/
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November 2018
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