Stress affects us all at some point in life. When it does, it can feel like an additional weight upon your shoulders that drags you down both physically and mentally. Finding the right habits and routines for stress management is the key to lightening this mental load, and there are plenty of tools that provide simple and effective stress relief.

As mystified as they might seem at times, stress management techniques do not need to be complex or expensive to function well. Nor is relaxation a mere commodity to be overlooked, as studies show that chronic stress can lead to all kinds of negative physical consequences for the body—particularly the critical cardiovascular system.

Luckily, the options are plentiful in deciding how best to approach stress relief strategies. By finding which one fits best within your lifestyle, a life with less stress becomes more easily attainable.

 

1) Find the Right Diet and Supplements for Stress Management

Often people underestimate the effect nutrition has not just on their bodies but on their minds as well. Stress can come about due to physical, emotional, or seasonal causes. It’s important to meet each challenge with the appropriate response.

Proper nutrition prepares your body for whatever lay ahead. It’s not breaking news that a balanced diet is good for the body. However, people are just now beginning to recognize just how important nutrition is regarding stress levels and that there are new tools available to help with stress management.

In the last decade, science has made significant strides in understanding cognitive health. As a result, cutting-edge supplements such as Relax Max, Cerenity, and Calmposure have been clinically tested and proven to be invaluable tools for stress relief. 

This new type of nutritional support is known as nootropics. These compounds increase the production of cerebral chemicals like serotonin to reduce stress, increase focus, and improve overall cognitive performance. Whether it’s stress relief throughout the day or to ensure a night of restorative sleep, nootropics can be a vital piece of the stress relief puzzle.

It’s difficult to receive this kind of support with just a healthy diet, and as these supplements are all-natural, there are no negative side effects.

You can find a location near you that carries these supplements and more here. As always, it’s best to consult with the experts before changing your nutritional strategy, and at Community Pharmacy, we can help guide you to the best decision for your stress relief needs.

2) Make Exercise a Habit

There’s a reason sayings like “Burn off some steam” exists, and it is because vigorous exercise has been long-proven to decrease stress levels.

One major indicator of unhealthy stress levels is high blood pressure, which poses significant health risks in both the short and long term. One of the best ways to not only manage stress but strengthen your heart is through physical exercise.

Challenging circumstances and stress seem to melt away when a person is absorbed in physical activity. It’s important to find something difficult enough that your mind stays focused, but not so brutal that you will never come back after completion. Perspectives on stress-related issues tend to skew far more positive after such activities.

What you do for exercise isn’t as important necessarily as doing something physical regularly. Find a form of exercise that you find genuinely engaging and rewarding. This often means experimenting with different activities, settings, and groups until you find the one that clicks. 

Doing so dramatically increases the likelihood you stick with the exercise long enough to see the positive returns, which in turn will motivate further improvement.

 

3) Utilize Mindfulness Techniques

Stress often stems from a restless or overstimulated mind. In recent years, mindfulness techniques such as meditation and breathwork have become wildly popular for stress management as they are low-cost and easily accessible.

The average person takes around 22,000 breaths a day, yet rarely do we pay attention to any single one nor the quality of this vital function. By bringing some intentionality to our breathing, stress levels can be dramatically decreased and it directly impacts our heart rate.

To begin, start with a few simple breathing techniques or guided meditations to settle the mind. Even just a few minutes a day can yield significant results, and when things start to feel hectic and stress-inducing, it’s a safe and simple practice you can always return to regardless of location.

There is an abundance of free online resources to help you get started, but if you prefer in-person or group activities, many yoga classes blend breathwork with movement as well. 

Where the breath goes, the mind and body tend to follow. By taking some time to find a sense of mindfulness that incorporates breathwork, a person gains a stress management tool that works rain or shine.

4) Take an Occasional Digital Detox

While technological tools have increased and helped us in countless ways, often we can be overwhelmed by the amount of digital clutter in our lives.

The average person spends about seven hours per day on various screens. That is a significant amount of blue light and information to ask our eyes and brain to handle. It’s part of the modern world, especially for remote workers, but excessive screen time has been linked to higher stress levels.

An answer to this issue is to create and commit to a set period to digitally detox. Find a few hours—or better yet—an entire day in which you can simply put your devices away and enjoy only what is immediately accessible. All the notifications and such will still be there when you return, and it is quite likely you will be far less stressed after a break from the always-busy online world.

Other useful tools to help digitally induced stress are time limits for apps, turning off unessential notifications, or limiting the hours in which your phone is active. Avoiding technology usage during the first and last hours of the day can improve sleep quality as well.

Any system of digital tool management is better than none at all. Find one that is realistic and works for you and try it out next time you feel stress mounting. 

 

Stress Management on Your Terms

While there are endless other options for stress relief, don’t feel like you need to do everything at once. Incorporating even one or two into your weekly schedule will likely lead to noticeable changes in your stress levels.

When making any decisions that impact health, information from credible sources is essential. At Community Pharmacy, you’ll not only find the right products for your stress relief needs but well-trained staff who can answer any additional questions.

Put all these pieces together and stress management becomes far easier to attain, which is something everyone deserves at the end of the day.