Easy Ways to Reduce Stress

Understanding Stress is the Key to Relief

Like it or not, stress is a part of life. In fact, over a third of therapists say that anxiety and stress are the top reasons that people seek their help. Triggered by changing demands and pressures, stress is actually a natural response, a biological function designed to help us avoid danger. While you are thinking about how to reduce stress, consider this: some stress is good. Does that seem counterintuitive? It’s true. Your brain responds to stress by triggering stress hormones that flood the body. This increases blood flow, keeps you alert, and helps you face down challenges. However, it is important to learn how to deal with stress effectively, because too much stress can negatively impact your overall well-being. While some people have more difficulty dealing with stress than others, it is possible to learn stress management techniques to keep your stress under control.

How can Stress Impact Your Health

There are two types of stress: chronic, and acute. Stress is a natural reaction to everyday events, spurring you to action when you are late for a meeting or facing down a deadline. Chronic stress, on the other hand, can be damaging to your health. Chronic stress is consistent, causing a person to feel worried, pressured, and overwhelmed over an extended time period, and when it is not managed, it can contribute to major health issues long-term, like obesity, high blood pressure, heart disease, and diabetes. Even short term, stress can be a problem, causing headaches, dry mouth, fatigue, weight fluctuations, intestinal distress, insomnia, sweating, rapid heartbeat, and lowered immunity to infection. It can cause you to have trouble relaxing, make your mind race, and dull your ability to focus. You might notice that your moods fluctuate, you feel isolated and worried, and your self-esteem begins to plummet. If the stress is severe enough, you can have a panic attack or anxiety attack, which is not dangerous but can feel frightening. Chest pain, chills, trouble breathing, a choking of smothering feeling, hyperventilating, increased heart rate, nausea, shaking, and sweating are all symptoms of a panic attack. You might also experience tingling in the extremities, and emotionally, you may feel afraid of losing control, and have a sense that things aren’t real.

Causes of Stress

It doesn’t take much looking to find causes of stress in modern life. The demands of work, financial stress, political instability, violence, the high cost of health care, and the news are all common triggers for stress. Parenting involves stress, social media can be stressful, social pressure can cause people to feel stressed, and if you are also dealing with chronic illness or health problems, it can dangerously elevate your stress. Of course, some things that cause stress in one person may not affect another person at all, because our stressors are unique to us as individuals.

How to Manage Stress

Learning how to relieve stress quickly can help you. It can be helpful to learn some relaxation techniques like meditation, guided imagery, deep breathing, yoga, and progressive muscle relaxation, so that you will have tools to calm yourself in a moment of stress. Practicing mindfulness, which is something with which these things can help, allows you to distance yourself from your stressful thoughts, remaining more present in your own body. Long term, there are some lifestyle strategies that are known to be useful in stress reduction.

• Design your diet for lower stress. A nutrient-dense diet, low in sugar, alcohol, and caffeine and full of lean protein, healthy fats, complex carbohydrates, and nutritious produce can help support your overall health and decrease stress. Omega-3 fatty acids, found in fatty fish like salon, sardines, and tuna, can help alleviate stress and anxiety, as can magnesium-rich foods.
• Prioritize self-care. Just as stressors are different for everyone, personal care varies from person to person. Find the things that help you relax, whether that’s soaking in a bath, going for a walk, reading a book, listening to a podcast, chatting with a friend, or something else entirely.
• Exercise to alleviate stress. You already know that exercise is good for your physical health, but did you know it also benefits your mental health? Exercise, from yoga to cardio, relieves stress by causing your body to release mood-improving endorphins.
• Get enough quality sleep. Accomplish this by starting with a soothing sleep routine, to quiet your mind and help you relax. Aim for seven hours of sleep each night, and if you are having trouble accomplishing this, improve your sleep hygiene keeping your bedtime and wake-up time consistent, lowering the temperature in your bedroom, avoiding stimulants and food too close to bedtime, and putting away the electronics at least 30 minutes before you head to bed.
• Be mindful of what you put into your mind. In our modern world, we are bombarded with information all day, every day. Be careful about watching the news and certain types of shows that cause you stress, and limit your social media consumption. Pick and choose where you put your focus, reducing negative factors in your life and learning to say no when the demands placed upon you cause stress.
• Nurture your relationships. Maintaining healthy, supportive relationships is an important part of a healthy lifestyle. Having someone to depend on in stressful times can help you feel less isolated, and can help reduce your stress. And when you are there for someone else that is feeling anxious, it can alleviate your own stress as well.
• Practice gratitude. It can be helpful to keep a gratitude journal, writing down at least one thing that you are grateful for every day. When you focus on gratitude, it can help you to notice the things that are going well, rather than focusing on negative, stressful things.

Brevard Health Alliance is Here to Help

Whether you need help with stress management or a primary care physician, Brevard Health Alliance, Inc. is here for you. Brevard County’s only Federally Qualified Health Center, BHA offers extensive health care services on a sliding-fee scale, so that we can treat residents regardless of their ability to pay. We’re committed to providing an extraordinary quality of care for our patients in order to improve the health status of Brevard County. Our focus is on continually improving the quality and efficiency of our care, and on ensuring that every patient we serve is heard, encouraged, and respected. As your family health care provider, we strive to provide not just acute care but also preventive care and healthcare-related education. Our board-certified physicians, advanced practice nurse practitioners, and physician assistants provide primary care that includes well-child checkups, well-woman care, and physicals, along with chronic disease management. In fact, since 2005 we’ve provided not only primary care services, but also behavioral health services, dental services, diagnostic services, resource management services, pharmacy services, women’s health care and obstetrics, Hepatitis C and HIV services, extended hours pediatric walk-in care, and specialty referrals. For more information, to find a location, or to make an appointment, contact us through our website.