Whether you live in a busy city or a relaxing countryside, stress cannot be avoided. It may come from work, money, relationships, or health. Most of the time, it’s the root cause of severe physical, mental, and emotional consequences.
So before it gets worse, simple natural remedies and techniques are available to manage it. In this guide, we will share four quick and low-effort ways to manage your stress.
Stress Management in 4 Ways
We can list hundreds of natural ways to manage burnout and stress, but here are a few simple ways and techniques you can start applying to your everyday life today.
1. Mindful Meditation
Meditation is great for the brain. Sometimes, we have to disconnect from the world to reconnect with ourselves. Think of it like a little pit stop or a pause. Your brain isn’t meant to go fast all the time. It needs these little rests where you can stop and take a moment for yourself.
At times, you can even burn out, not because you’re doing too much, but because you’re doing too little of the things that make you feel alive. So, take that rest for yourself one or two times a day.
Once you create your habits, then those habits create you. So schedule meditation and put it into your planner. Make time for the pit stop.
2. Be Active
Your stress response is controlled by your hypothalamus. It doesn’t know the difference between being late, overworked, or a cougar chasing you. Once it perceives your fear, your hypothalamus triggers your sympathetic nervous system to fight or flight.
Your adrenal glands then produce adrenaline, raising your heart rate and blood pressure so you can either fight or run away from the fear. Your adrenal glands produce cortisol so that you can fuel the fight-or-flight response.
Exercise can help you burn off these stress hormones so they don’t damage your body, and so you don’t start storing fat. Plus, daily exercise has been shown to reduce the natural stress response. So get active and move your body for at least thirty minutes every day.
3. Exercise Proper Breathing
When you’re stressed, you tend to take short, shallow breaths, reducing the amount of oxygen and making you feel even more anxious. Remember to breathe deeply to reduce your stress and anxiety.
If you focus on breathing slowly and deeply, you not only increase your oxygen levels, which calms you, but you stimulate your parasympathetic nervous system. Your parasympathetic nervous system calms what your sympathetic nervous system excites.
Follow these steps whenever you’re feeling stressed, and you will immediately feel calmer.
- Place your hand just above your belly button.
- Breathe slowly through your nose, counting to four. It will feel like you’re filling your lungs full all the way into your belly.
- Slowly exhale through your mouth, counting to four, using your stomach muscles to completely empty your lungs.
- Repeat these slow, deep breaths three times. In through your nose and out through your mouth.
4. Eat Healthy
A 2015 study detailed the benefits of nutrients for brain health. Specifically, severe nutritional deficiencies in vitamin B12, B9 (also known as folate), and zinc can cause things like depression, low mood, fatigue, cognitive decline, and irritability.
The bottom line is that the food you eat can control your mood, your mind, and even your memory. You want to reduce the processed food. You want to reduce your sugar intake because sugar is very detrimental to the human brain.
Eating food with high nutrition reduces inflammation, which can lead to decreased risk of depression, mild cognitive impairment, and ADHD.
To start improving your diet, consider changing one meal a day to include more whole, nutrient-dense foods. This gradual approach can make the transition to healthier eating more manageable and sustainable.
Conclusion
Those are four quick and low-effort ways to manage your stress and burnout. To learn more about natural remedies and other holistic solutions to improve your overall health, contact us at Calgary Integrative Medicine.
Remember, your mental health is just as important as your physical health. Take care of yourself and manage your stress effectively.
DISCLAIMER: The information in this article is sourced from publicly available materials and expert opinions. Please consult with your healthcare provider before beginning any new health regimen or treatment.
