5 Natural Ways to Ease Your Stress

These days we hear the term stress very often, but do we actually know the real meaning of stress? When we hear the term stress we often link it to the feeling that everything seems to be too much and that we can’t cope with the pressure anymore.

Stress doesn’t necessarily have to be a bad thing. Positive stress keeps us going and aids us to face and undertake new challenges. It is our response to face the world, to change or act to keep our footing and to keep our body and mind in balance. This fight-or-flight reaction is vital, it gives us the physical energy we need to cope with our daily tasks and to keep us alive. It activates resources in our body to protect us in situations where we need to get away as fast as possible or when we need to fight or act.

Our sympathetic nervous system reacts to stressful events and our body produces higher levels of cortisol, adrenaline, and noradrenaline. Those will trigger a higher heart rate, blood pressure, alertness, muscle use, rapid breathing, and sweating. They will prepare your body and muscle to fight or flight and protect yourselves in dangerous and challenging situations. All non-essential functions such as digestive system and immune system will be slowed down and all available energy will be put to the task to protect your body.

Positive stress will give you that extra push you’ll need to go beyond your own limits. Without this positive stress, our lives would be very boring and pointless. But in some cases the stress will become too much and will turn against you, undermining your physical and mental well-being.

Modern threats to our systems are more psychological these days. We have to cope with stress at work and interpersonal conflicts and our response to those kinds of stress reactions are not always helpful. In many cases, it makes us think less clearly and can induce negative stress patterns. The key to physical and psychological well-being is relieving yourself from those negative stress factors that are troubling your mind and enhancing our positive fight-or-flight mechanisms to make us think more clearly and undertake correct actions.

5 Natural Ways To Ease Your Stress Levels

Before you throw yourself completely on these stress-relieving methods, try to take some time to think about your problem. What’s causing the stress? Is it your relationship, work, money or any other situation that upsets you? It is easier to fight your problem when you actually have a full understanding of what is causing the negative stress.

All the methods mentioned below are in my opinion an excellent way to relieve you from your daily stress. Just pick some you enjoy the most. But remember, if you don’t solve the problem that is causing these negative feelings, stress will come back. Identifying the sources of stress in your life is not always easy.

Not all stress-inducing thoughts, feelings or behaviors are that obvious. At first you may think that you get stressed because you can’t handle the pressure of a high workload, but actually the main reason could be something totally different and less obvious.

Maybe it’s a colleague who’s always picking on you, giving you those negative feelings. To successfully control your stress levels you’ll have to look closer to your own habits, attitudes, and excuses to find the real source.

Scroll down to learn how to ease your stress!