Safeguard Your Happiness with Stress Relievers

From traffic to job stress to bills and kids, most of us face many stressors throughout the day. Our bodies react to this stress with the fight or flight response, which alters different functions in our bodies temporarily so we have a jolt of energy we can use to fight or run from a perceived threat. While this in itself isn’t a problem for our health, many of us repeatedly experience this response throughout the day with an absence of accompanying calmness, resulting in chronic stress and a constant hyper-arousal of our body’s stress response. (Simply put: our bodies always think they’re in danger, and this can cause a great deal of wear and tear.) Over time, we end up more susceptible to illness, both mental and physical, as a result, and the experience of all this stress (let alone the health problems that can result from it) can hinder our happiness. Fortunately, there are some simple ways to calm your body quickly and counteract your body’s stress response so that your body has a chance to recover from daily stresses and you feel more at peace. The following short-term stress relievers can be quite helpful:

• Breathing Exercises: Take a few deep breaths. Breathing in ‘relaxation’ and breathing out the stress you feel, and expanding your diaphragm (rather than lifting your shoulders) as you breathe can help you to feel calm very quickly. This is a great one to try, as it can be done anywhere at any time, and requires no special equipment.
• Reframing: Reframe your experience. A lot of the stress we feel has to do with our perception of what’s going on—remember, the fight or flight response is triggered by perceived threat, not actual threat. . If you can get into the practice of viewing more experiences as challenges rather than threats, you can remain calm and interested in finding a solution, rather than stressed and scattered.
• Take a Break: If you give yourself a few minutes to talk down and clear your head, you can often calm down your physiology. Taking a short walk changes your scenery, gets your blood circulating, and helps blow off steam, so this can be a beneficial way to take a break. However, just allowing a little space between you and what stresses you can often allow you to calm down and feel more prepared to deal.

It’s also a good idea to have some regular stress relieving practices, so that you feel less stressed overall, and the little things don’t impact you as much. Yoga, meditation, walking, and even listening to music are some great ways to de-stress and enjoy life.