3 Things You Can Do to Naturally Handle Stress
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3 Things You Can Do to Naturally Handle Stress
In this blog, we are tackling this big hairy ugly word, “anxiety.” I get a lot of questions from the perspective of, “What do you do when faced with anxiety in today’s world?”
We all have stress, weight, and negative thoughts that we carry around. Mothers are feeling it trying to raise a family and have a career. Dad is feeling it, trying to provide, while at the same time be a good husband or be a good father. There’s stress in getting through school, trying to get the passing grades, trying to keep up with the rest of society, taking care of family members and their stress, too – whether it’s how you look, or what you’re doing, or your purpose or your career.
There are so many people feeling anxiety as it fills today’s world. It’s possible that I described you above or you feel like you are the only one dealing with something. I think, in some regards, we all deal with anxiety on some level. The difference is our perspective on how we deal with it. I want to give you 3 tangible “Anxiety 101” tools you can use right away.
3 Things You Can Do To Handle Stress
1. Change Your Thoughts
How? Through perspective.
Take a deep breath in. Say to yourself, “I woke up today. I’m alive!”
Think about it, you’re here reading this. You can see. You have a heartbeat (and maybe a slightly high heart rate). Maybe you have a spouse at home. Maybe you have kids. Maybe you’ve gone through a tragedy. Maybe you don’t have some of those things I just mentioned, but there’s so much more going right for you today than going wrong for you today. You’ve just been trained to focus on what is going wrong.
Just acknowledge that. Spend some time in gratitude because you’re letting the stresses of everyday…
…with deadlines…
…places you have to be…
…work…
…or financial problems…
that really are not THAT big of problems, but you’re making them enormous in your brain when really when put into the grand perspective of life, they’re rather small.
There is so much going right for you today!
Right out of the gates, how do you handle anxiety and stress? Get some gratitude into the equation. Try daily — practice just a couple of minutes of gratitude and think about what you’re thankful for. Throw in some deep breathing exercises to help with the blood flow, and try to let go of that muscle tension while you’re at it. It may not change your situation but it will change your ability to see it differently, which is a path to progressive stress relief and better overall wellness!
2. Move Your Body
The Academy of Sports Medicine says that working out is the best thing to curb and decrease anxiety and stress. Duke University, right here in my hometown, did a big study showing that working out is actually more successful in dealing with depression and anxiety than taking an antidepressant. Endorphins are one of your body’s natural stress relievers, and physical activity is what releases them.
What are you doing for depression, anxiety, and stress currently? Is it actually the safest, long-term option? Do you want to be on antidepressants and anti-anxiety medications for the rest of your life?
Now I know you may feel trapped, and don’t necessarily know what to do. I would never tell you to come off your medications cold turkey, especially when it comes to those to lower blood pressure, as that can really be impacted by stress levels and other stressors. Let’s start here though, practice gratitude and move your body every single morning. This will take you in the right direction physically and mentally, which is away from the internal dialogue of stress and worry and away from harmful drugs.
The 10-minute workout is what I do. Start small if you have to. The point is you need to move your body as fast as YOU can. Movement is the first step to getting unstuck!
3. Ashwagandha
This all-natural supplement has been shown to decrease stress and anxiety levels by up to 89% more than a placebo. It also decreases your cortisol (stress hormone) levels three times as well. If you are in a really stressful/high anxiety situation and can’t control it, use ashwagandha in order to decrease it. It offers a ton of health benefits holistically too as an adaptogen and works directly on your stress response for stress reduction in your daily life.
Summary
Bottom line, you only get one shot at today. Don’t waste it worrying about what has happened in the past or what might happen in the future. Those things are out of your control, be grateful for today. Practice mindfulness, and don’t forget that self-care of your own mental health can do a whole lot for stress management.
Decide to be happy today. You’re never going to get it back. Why go through the day miserable? I can’t change the situation that you’re dealing with. I can’t take the stress of the burden away, but I will encourage you to start looking at it differently. When you look at your world differently, your world will change. You have more control than you think! The thing I want to leave you with is a message of hope. You might be dealing with stressful or hard things, but that’s not who you are. Don’t let the world label you from an anxiety or depression standpoint. You can rise above it! I’m here to help you. That’s what this blog is all about—getting this message of real health to the world!
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