By Stress is the most common emotional discomfort today. We offer you a series of simple resources to manage it immediately and effectively.
One of the goals desired by people who tend to get overwhelmed is to relieve stress quickly. Many people believe that achieving this is only possible after years of training or therapy, but the truth is that there are techniques in everyday life that help us with nerves and worries.
Not only do you need to know the methods, but you also need to be skilled at identifying the signs that indicate that you are stressed. So, keep reading and you will discover what you need to quickly and effectively calm those stressful episodes.
Simple ways to quickly relieve stress
There are simple and, above all, immediate strategies to regulate negative emotions and face the days in a better mental state. Below, we present the most practical advice if what you want is to quickly relieve stress.
1. Make small changes in time management
One of the daily stressors is time management problems . We often tend to procrastinate or avoid those tasks that are unpleasant, without realizing that we only lose the opportunity to do other things.
Small changes to your routine can make big changes. Try this exercise: every morning, replace “five minutes more” with “ten minutes less.” Get up just ten minutes earlier, so you have time to get ready and not start the day stressed out because you are late.
2. Take 10 minutes to breathe deeply
Breathing techniques are one of the best ways to combat stress quickly and effectively. The benefits are felt within a few seconds. When you feel stressed, stop what you are doing and take ten minutes to breathe slowly.
A study published in Lecturas: Educación Física y Deportes states that deep breathing is an efficient strategy to combat work stress . However, you can apply this technique to other situations that cause you anxiety and discomfort outside of the work environment.
3. Take a hot bath or shower
To avoid going to bed feeling stressed, try taking a hot bath . This helps relax your muscles and lower your blood pressure.
Bath time is also an opportunity to put aside electronic devices, such as your cell phone or computer. It’s an opportunity to be with yourself and enjoy the present moment.
4. Listen to calm music
Melodies influence our mood, both for good and bad. So why not take advantage of this and make a playlist of relaxing music , or music that conveys a positive message.
5. Vent with someone you trust
Talk about your problems with someone you trust and who is willing to listen to you. It’s not about giving you advice or telling you what to do, but about being empathetic and validating your emotions. Words have a powerful healing power.
6. Do physical activity
Any physical activity is beneficial for regulating emotions and reducing psychological stress. In fact, aerobic exercises or yoga are the ones that help most to relieve stress quickly.
Being in motion is the best way to do something with all that excess energy and get it out in a healthy and controlled way. If you can’t or don’t want to exercise, small actions work, like going for a walk around the block; this will be enough to find a state of greater calm and clear your mind.
7. Repeat positive self-talk
Self -talk has a great influence on our mood . In stressful times we tend to speak harshly to ourselves, which is not helpful. If we changed the way we treat ourselves, more from empathy and understanding and less from criticism, we would feel comforted.
Positive affirmations can help you in times of greater distress. For example: “everything will be fine” or “you are ready to face the present.”
8. Gently stretch your muscles
As we said before, one of the symptoms of being stressed is muscle stiffness in the upper body. Therefore, gentle stretches that release these muscle groups will not only relieve you physically, but will also make your mind feel freer. Just try to roll your shoulders back and gently rotate your neck; you will immediately notice a big change.
9. Try meditation exercises
Meditation is a discipline with many benefits for the mental state. This is because attention is directed for a moment to what is happening inside oneself, leaving aside all external sources of stress.
A simple exercise that will take you no more than 10 minutes is the body scan . It consists of scanning the entire body, becoming aware of bodily functions such as breathing, as well as detecting points of greatest tension.
10. Write on a piece of paper how you feel
Expressing emotions is very effective in seeing them from another perspective and distancing ourselves from them. It is the same as putting into perspective what is happening to us, so that we do not feel trapped by anxiety. Keep in mind that this unpleasant emotion prevents us from thinking clearly.
11. Prepare a warm drink
Drinking a warm beverage has relaxing properties, just as a shower has the ability to induce calm. Just make sure that the beverage does not contain alcohol or caffeine. Otherwise, you will increase stress rather than reduce it.
12. Practice grounding
When our mind is going so fast that we can’t be aware of what’s going on around us, we can practice the grounding technique . This focuses on sharpening our senses and saying things that we perceive at a given moment. For example, there are these exercises :
- Any flavor we detect
- Five things we can see
- Four sounds we hear
- Two smells that reach our nose
- Three objects that we have within reach of touch
13. Move your hands
These accumulate a lot of activation throughout the day. However, we are not usually aware that, through our hands, it is possible to regulate our mood and relieve stress quickly. This is achieved through tasks that do not have any objective in themselves, but that involve the movement of our hands. The most representative examples would be painting , drawing, combing our hair or making origami.
14. Hug someone who is also overwhelmed
Physical contact is a method of reducing stress. In fact, if we hug a person who is also going through a bad time, the benefits are multiplied. During the most intimate contact, oxytocin is released , a hormone that induces positive emotions, as well as relaxing.
15. Take care of your diet
Good nutrition is a basic habit for physical and mental health, necessary for managing emotions. Organizing meal times and including macronutrients in each one is of vital importance.
16. Stop negative thoughts immediately
Thought stopping is a very simple technique to quickly control negative thoughts that cause stress. Essentially, it consists of telling ourselves “STOP” or “STOP” with determination when we fall into a loop of worries.
17. Get rid of avoidance
Avoidance behaviors paradoxically lead to an increase in anxiety . We believe that when we avoid what stresses us, we get rid of it, but in reality, we only manage to make it stronger and more difficult to eliminate. Knowing the mechanism of avoidance is helpful to avoid falling into this tendency.
18. Take your mind to a pleasant place
Methods that use the power of imagination are effective in relieving stress quickly. In this sense, create a mental scenario to achieve a relaxing visualization and transport yourself when you are having a bad time. This can be, for example, a desert beach or your childhood home.
19. Face situations with humor
A sense of humor is a positive mechanism for overcoming adversity. It helps us to put things into perspective and not take things to the extreme. Practice it and you will see that you feel less anguish.
20. Apply assertiveness
Not knowing how to set limits to the requests of others is a frequent source of stress. In these cases, the best thing to do is to practice social skills, assertiveness and unburden yourself of too many commitments due to not knowing how to say “no.”
21. Set short-term goals
Thinking short-term provides more solutions than thinking about the more distant future. If you want to solve stressful situations, focus on the here and now . And from there, go little by little.
22. Take off your shoes when you get home
The feet are an area of the body with many nerve endings and shoes cause a great build-up of tension. To relax, take off your shoes when you get home and wear socks or slippers.
23. Take a short nap
After eating, it is advisable to take a nap of about 20 or 30 minutes. You should not take it longer, as you run the risk of having a complete sleep cycle and negatively affecting your night’s rest.
24. Play a video game
Video games are an entertaining pastime that has a great ability to distract us. This is because they require our attention and, therefore, it is not possible to have our mind on anything else.
25. Try aromatherapy
Using your sense of smell to regulate your mood is known as aromatherapy . Although it is not a structured psychological approach, its proponents claim that it can lower your level of arousal. Aromas most associated with calm include lavender, rose, chamomile, bergamot, incense, sandalwood, geranium, and orange. The list is long, so choose the one that suits you best.
Signs that indicate stress
We have all been under a lot of pressure and experienced stress at some point. However, we don’t always deal with it in time. It’s not until it becomes very distressing that we pay attention to it.
Keep in mind that stressful situations are the emotional and hormonal response that is activated by situations or events that we perceive as dangerous. At that moment, physiological changes occur that are felt throughout the body. The main signs are the following:
- Insomnia .
- Severe headaches throughout the day.
- Feeling your heart beat faster and stronger.
- Reacting to everyday things with irritability.
- Muscle stiffness, especially in the shoulders, neck, and jaw.
- Digestive disorders and discomfort ranging from constipation to diarrhea.
- Difficulty concentrating when performing a task or feeling mentally tired.
Prevention will always be the best option
In modern society, it is inevitable to feel a certain degree of stress. However, this does not mean that we cannot do anything to improve the situation. You have at your disposal the techniques shared here and the option of consulting a professional to learn how to deal with those situations that distress you.
Remember that before acting you have to know how to identify. Therefore, we recommend that you pay more attention to your body’s signals and learn which ones indicate that anxiety is intensifying. Finally, we cannot fail to mention that preventing stress is the best. Therefore, if you work on emotional management tools on a daily basis, you will avoid greater problems.