Stress is an essential body function that involves a whole range of psychological, physiological, and hormonal reactions. Thanks to stress, we can react in front of a dangerous situation, keep ourselves safe, prevent further injury, or find the determination we need to study for an exam or work on a time-sensitive project.

However, when stress becomes a constant in our lives, it no longer remains within a normal range and turns into chronic stress instead. Not only is chronic stress associated with a range of diseases, but it can also expose us to a greater risk of anxiety, depression, chronic pain, impaired sleep, emotional distress, and irritability. 

Fortunately, there’s more than one strategy you can leverage to manage stress in your life and use it as a force for good. Let’s discuss them more below.

No. 1

Learn To Recognize Your Triggers

The first step is to learn to recognize the triggers in your daily life that cause you to experience constant stress. This can be your job, colleagues, home, family life, or financial problems. With some practice, some of these triggers can be managed.

For example, you can plan a detailed budget that can work as a roadmap to improving your financial situation. Alternatively, you could consider changing jobs or asking your employer to move you to a different team or department. 

It’s important to note that not all triggers can be avoided altogether. In this case, the techniques below can help you manage how you respond to those triggers, thus leading to better overall health. Let’s uncover them one by one. 

No. 2

Meditate Your Way To A Stress-Free Life

Meditation is a practice that dates back to thousands of years ago. And yet, only in the past few decades has the global scientific community started to look into the benefits that it can bring to our mental and physical health. 

In particular, mindfulness meditation is considered to be a fast, simple way to reduce stress. It does so by clearing away unnecessary information overload, boosting focus and patience, improving self-awareness, and reducing anxiety. From a physical viewpoint, meditation reduces your heart rate and blood pressure and can aid sleep and chronic pain. 

No. 3

Discover Stress-Relieving Supplements And Herbs

Nature provides us with all we need to relieve stress and anxiety. Some herbal infusions that may help include:

• Chamomile

• Lemon balm 

• Fennel 

• Cinnamon

• Mint 

• Ashwagandha

• Rhodiola

• Passionflower 

• Lavender

• Valerian

You may also try ad hoc, premium natural stress-relief supplements or supplements that help with certain risk factors for high stress levels. For example, if you feel stressed and irritable because of a lack of sleep, melatonin supplements can help. 

No. 4

Leveraging The Power Of Nature: Spend More Time Outdoors

“Mental health walks” have become a huge trend across all social media platforms. But they are more than just a fad—they actually work! According to studies, spending more time outdoors, ideally in a natural environment, can help reduce oxidative stress, blood pressure, and heart rate.

Walking or jogging through a lush park or garden can immediately boost your mood, increase serenity, and promote self-awareness. Not only are these physical activities helping you relieve stress by releasing feel-good neurotransmitters called endorphins, but chemicals like serotonin, noradrenaline, and dopamine, which improve your physical and mental health are also having positive effects on your body.

No. 5

Practice Mind-Body Activities Or Just Get Moving

Exercise of any kind can help you experience what’s known as “runner’s high”—a feeling of generalized well-being caused by the release of endorphins and other “feel good” hormones in the body (as mentioned previously). Exercise also helps clear mental and emotional overloads, improve your overall physical and mental health, and boost your self-image. 

For even better results, consider engaging in mind-body activities like Yoga and Tai Chi. These ancient practices can help you boost the connection between your body and mind while boosting your overall well-being. 

No. 6

Create A Stress-Free Home Environment

Did you know that your home can be one of your main stress triggers? Coming home after a hard day at work to a cluttered, untidy living environment can cause your stress levels to spike. Even worse, you may not be able to focus or relax in a cluttered room because of how hard your brain needs to work to sift through the mess.

If you are struggling with high stress levels, a great starting point is to get organized, declutter your home, and get rid of items you no longer use. In no time, you will be able to enjoy a much more relaxing home that is truly conducive to overall health. 

No. 7

Prioritize Sleep

Getting 7 to 9 hours of high-quality sleep each night is essential to better manage your stress levels during the daytime. When we are well-rested, we are more capable of focusing on problems that need to be solved; we also feel less irritable and overwhelmed. This can help us think more clearly and face everyday challenges without letting stress and anxiety take over our lives. 

No. 8

Don’t Let Stress Take Over Your Life: Work With A Specialist  

Not all stress is created equal. While feeling stressed for brief periods of time can fuel you forward, chronic stress can take you down and lead to a whole host of health problems. What’s more, over time, high stress levels can increase the risk of suffering from disorders like anxiety or depression.

In such cases, you may need more than just self-help strategies. Learn to recognize the signs of anxiety early on, and work with a mental health specialist to get the professional support you need if necessary.

Takeaways

Learning ways to manage and overcome stress in your life requires constant effort. However, with the proper tools and techniques, it becomes easier to transmute your stress into something positive.

As you redirect your energy, you will become more resilient in effectively managing your stress levels. Your stress will fuel you toward positive activities, instead. Eventually, you will emerge better equipped to handle any of life’s challenges.

Mental health is an integral aspect of health and wellness, and everyone must protect it at all costs. Yet, despite most people knowing this is the case, they still often ignore the signs and symptoms that something is wrong. Most people will often tell themselves (and perhaps others if they ask) that nothing is wrong—that they’ll get through this period of their lives soon enough—and that nothing can be done anyway. 

The reality is that none of that is true—mental health is something to pay attention to, and something can surely be done to address it when warning signs arise. The first step is to get help by getting connected with experts who can understand what’s happening and advise you on the best options to consider to treat your issues.

Still, if that’s not something you’re ready to do, it might be useful to look at what can happen if you don’t get the help you need. That could be the motivation you need to take that all-important step.

In this article, we discuss the top three reasons why you should get help as soon as possible to avoid your condition worsening and to receive the mental health support you need.

No. 1

It Will Get Worse

Some health issues get better on their own with perhaps, a bit of rest and relaxation. However, that’s not the case when it comes to mental health, and if you leave things to get better without getting the professional help that’s out there for you, most of the time, things will just get worse. 

Yes, your mental health issues might be something you can manage, but do you want to have to keep managing things forever? That’s going to be exhausting, and it means you’re not living your life in the best way possible—in a more positive way, in other words.

By getting treatment like therapy or San Diego ketamine treatment, for example, you can stop the problem in its tracks and stop it from getting worse and dragging you down. There are plausible reasons why it could serve as a life-saving option for individuals experiencing treatment-resistant depression (TRD) in which other therapies have otherwise been proven ineffective in more severe cases of depression.

No. 2

Physical Health Issues

A lot of the time, people think of mental health and physical health as being two separate things. You might understand you need to take care of both of them, but you might not be so sure about the link between them. The thing to remember is that when you’re suffering from mental health problems, the rest of your life is going to be affected, and that includes your physical health.

Think about how you feel when your depression or anxiety is bad; for example, you don’t want to do anything at all, and your motivation is gone completely. That can make work a challenge, to say the least, and it can affect your health and relationships at the bare minimum.

More importantly, it means you’re not exercising as much as you should and it means you’re not eating healthily, in many cases. That’s going to cause physical health issues, and getting your mental health back on track can help you get going again.

No. 3

Addiction

Another problem that can come with untreated mental health issues is addiction; people try to self-medicate to make themselves feel better, and although it might work very temporarily, the long-term results can be that you’re addicted to whatever substance it is you’ve chosen to make yourself feel better.

Learning about the addiction cycle as it pertains to mental health challenges will help you understand why it is that you are using it as a coping mechanism. Addressing addiction is a crucial aspect of treatment, as it often goes hand in hand with perpetuating existing mental health conditions.

Takeaways

Regardless of the substance of choice, addiction is a terrible disease, and once it’s part of your life, it’s hard to remove it. That’s why it’s better to get your mental health problems treated by professionals as early as possible and to not self-medicate in any way—it’s never going to solve your problems and will generally just make things worse.

There is a newfound freedom once you take that first step toward improving your mental health and seeking treatment and recovery where you are no longer controlled by your thoughts, emotions, and harmful substances. Over time, you can learn how to break patterns that you once held onto. There is hope, and a fulfilling life is waiting to be experienced on the other side.