Stress Reduction
So far we’ve talked about eating right and exercising as the first two steps to good health. Your next goal is to reduce stress in your life – or at least learn how to manage it better. Stress causes high blood pressure, headaches, and all sorts of other health problems. Sometimes when you hit the boiling point you can be like a heart attack waiting to happen.
If you’ve already started eating right and exercising, you may find that your stress levels have already dropped. For example, lifting weights or going for a run are a good way to burn off some steam and make you feel better. Eating right helps improve your mood so that you aren’t as irritable.
But no amount of eating right or exercising can completely wipe away all stress. Only you can do that by changing your environment. You need to sit down and look at your life, examine what stresses you out, and see if you can reduce some of this stress.
For example, are you stressed about money? Then ask yourself how you can alleviate this stress. Perhaps you need to make a household budget so that you reduce unnecessary expenses. Or perhaps you need to start seriously considering changing jobs.
Does work itself stress you out? Ask if there’s a solution. If changing jobs or becoming self-employed is out of the question, can you change departments instead? Can you ask your boss if you can do some of your work from home? Is there a way for you to avoid the people who irritate you?
Is your family life stressing you out? Perhaps you need to open the doors of communication and talk about your problems so that you can understand each other’s point of view. If this doesn’t work, perhaps you can seek the aid of a counselor to help you get at the root of your problems.
You get the idea. Look at the different parts of your life that are stressful and brainstorm some alternative options, no matter how ridiculous they seem. See if you can’t reduce the stress in your life. If you can even reduce stress from one part of your life, you’re making a great start.
No matter how much stress reduction you do, there’s a good chance that some stress will remain. If you can’t change it, then you need to work on reacting to it in a more healthy way.
As mentioned, exercise is a good way to burn off some steam. However, there are plenty of other things you can incorporate into your daily life to help manage stress. For example, you may want to take up meditation, yoga, deep breathing exercises or muscle relaxing exercises. Or perhaps you would benefit from getting a professional massage once a week or so.
