Healthy Habits for Dealing with Stress

Healthy habits for dealing with stress involves a commitment to make lifestyle changes to reach your stress management goals. These different stress management techniques are proven stress reducers and tension tamers.

You only have to turn on CNN or read the local news to know that we live in a stressful world. Stress is becoming a part of life but it does not have to be a way of life.

The World Health Organization states that stress is becoming a "global epidemic".

If you feel frazzled at the end of the day, or find that you constantly stressed, then you could be suffering from chronic stress.

You may think that you are adjusting to your increased stress levels and the increased stress is just a part of living in the modern world.

However, there is enough empirically validated research to show that chronic stress can lead to stress related illnesses.

This can mean that as we are adapting to higher levels of stress - we may just be living with an unhealthy level of stress.

Here I will describe some of the lifestyle choices that you can make for dealing with stress.

Exercise and dealing with stress

Stress activates the fight or flight response. Your heart pounds, breathing rate increases and stress hormones are released into the blood stream.

In caveman times this served an important purpose.

The caveman was able to fight or flee from the saber-tooth tiger and thanks to the boost of stress hormones such as adrenaline that stopped him from being on today's menu.

But today the causes of stress are very different.

The irate boss, financial concerns or being late to a meeting can all activate the stress response. In fact any annoyance or frustration can trigger a stress reaction.

This can mean that the stress response is constantly activated - increasing muscle tension and flooding your body with stress hormones.

Now it would be ridiculous to "fight" or "flee" from a late meeting, a traffic jam, financial concerns or some of today's more common causes of stress.

This can mean that we are left in a state of stress-induced tension with accumulated stress products waiting to be used.

Exercise provides a great way to reduce stress and use up these accumulated stress products. Exercise reduces stress through a number of different ways - by relaxing muscles and releasing the body's natural feel good chemicals to name a few.

This makes exercise not only important for stress reduction but also an important lifestyle choice for overall health, weight control and increased wellbeing. Here are a number of ways that you can maintain an exercise program for stress relief.

Dealing with stress through nutrition and eating habits

When stressed your body depletes B complex vitamins and Vitamin C - the very vitamins that can help you to cope with stress. This can mean that without adequate vitamins for stress can lead you to into an increasing cycle of more stress.

However, a healthy diet that follows the principles of the food pyramid can be one way to ensure that you are getting adequate stress nutrition and vitamins for stress.

However, generally the biggest nutrition mistakes for stress revolve around not eating enough of the right foods or eating too much of those foods that are psuedostressors.

This article describes some of the foods that will help you to cope with stress, and also what foods to avoid to maximize your stress coping skills.

Yoga exercises for dealing with stress

You don't need to be a Himalayan monk to benefit from the stress reducing effects of yoga.

These relaxation yoga exercises combine smooth muscle movements with deep breathing - so they are a great stress reduction exercise.

Yoga is said to create a balance between mind, body, and spirit. Yoga improves vitality and overall health. The research on Hatha Yoga illustrates that it does reduce stress levels and is a suitable approach to stress management.

Develop a routine of regular relaxation for dealing with stress

Relaxation is not so much about reading a book or watching TV. These are more like distractions.

When I talk about relaxation strategies I am talking about exercises that activate the relaxation response and counter the effects of the stress reaction.

Making time for relaxation exercises - even if it is only 10 minutes a day can build confidence for dealing with stress and be an important part of any stress management program.

Some relaxation strategies that activate the relaxation response are progressive muscle relaxation, guided imagery, meditation or autogenic training.

Breathe correctly and more often

One of the simplest and most effective stress management techniques is right under our nose. Breathing exercises usually involve deep breathing techniques from the diaphragm.

Breathing exercise can quickly counter the stress response. These breathing exercises increase the lungs capacity to deliver oxygen to the body and promote a calm and relaxed effect.

These breathing exercises are a skill and just like any skill they require practice.

When I give breathing exercises to clients I try to set homework to do breathing exercises on a regular basis - a few times a day.

Create a life of meaning and purpose

Do you jump from one thing to the next putting out fires. If you feel that you are on a treadmill, constantly battling against the tyranny of the urgent - you can feel out of control.

Not being in control and feeling like your life is a movie reeling from one dramatic scene to another can cause plenty of stress.

Goals can put you back in control of your life movie.

By creating a life of full of meaning and purpose and then moving step-by-step towards this vision can reduce your stress.

These goal setting tips create a bridge between today's dreams and tomorrows reality.

Dealing with stress: Other stress management techniques

Here we have discussed lifestyle choices for dealing with stress. Each stress management technique requires commitment and motivation to reduce your stress. Here we describe a number other methods to deal with stress.

Related Articles

Time Management: Time Management Techniques for Stress Relief

Stress Health: Some of the Stress Related Illnesses

The Physical Effects of Stress: Identify your Physical Effects of Stress

Not all Stress is Bad: What are your Optimal Stress Levels for Peak Performance


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