Quick and Easy Ways to Deal with Stress

So what is Stress?

Experiencing the effects of serious stress can not only be very disturbing but is also something from which once you're gripped in the cycle of constant worry and anxiety it can be very hard to extricate yourself. The more stress you feel, the less strength you have to deal with the things that are stressing you out, which causes the stress to intensify. This vicious cycle can keep you captive for years and years unless you get a handle on it, seriously affecting your long term physical, emotional and spiritual health and perniciously reaching into all areas of your life.

There’s no need to tell you what you probably already know if you are one of the millions of people currently suffering from stress: your relationships at work and home start to suffer, your finances can take a nose-dive and it becomes almost impossible to maintain a healthy, positive outlook on life, which in turn feeds the downward spiral. And that’s not to mention your self esteem taking a hammering as your negative self talk gives you an almost constant ear bashing! The obvious key to healthy stress management is to not let it have an effect on you in the first place, but how do you do that? How do you live your life day to day without being affected by the typical daily pressures? Well, there are lots of ways…in fact we’ve written a whole book about it. Most of them are free, easy and certainly don’t involve a lifetime of therapy or prescription drugs.

Stress comes in many guises. You can get stressed driving your car when someone cuts you up on the road for instance. You can get stressed when your neighbor’s dog barks all day long when they leave it home alone. Obviously you can become stressed for clearly painful reasons, such as someone close to you falling ill, suffering a serious accident or you lose your job, but you can also become stressed for apparently happy reasons; If you’re stressed about money and lack of financial security at this time, it’s hard to imagine that many people who win large sums on the lottery in fact find the life changing effects quite stressful but we have seriously heard that this to be an actual fact.

Another stressor in your life might be your work conditions or job stress: while some people thrive on always being busy, having lots to do and plenty of challenge, others can become stressed just thinking about it, never mind watching people like that. There are probably as many reasons you can become stressed as there are people on the planet! But although if left unchecked, stress can go as far as endangering your very life, it does not need to be a life sentence.

Take some deep breaths

The quickest, most surefire way to get out of your head (and that’s where the stress in your life begins with your mental processes, beliefs and thought forms) and into your body, is to take some nice, long, slow deep breaths out and in.

Let yourself breathe in through your nose until your lungs are completely full. Then hold your breath for a second or two, before slowly exhaling through your mouth until your lungs are totally empty.

Repeat this sequence a few times, and as your breathing becomes slower, you’ll definitely find yourself becoming more relaxed. You’ll often find that this simple exercise is enough to get rid of your stress in just a few short minutes.

Start Meditating

One of the most effective methods for managing stress is through meditation. You simply empty your mind of nagging thoughts and let it become still instead of letting it chatter away, focusing on everything that is stressing you out. Contrary to popular belief, it is not some sort of mystical enchantment or strange technique and people who practice meditation are not part of a fanatical spiritual cult, although once you begin to feel the positive benefits of regular meditation, hopefully you could get quite addicted to making it part of your daily practice.

Although there are many deep levels and types of meditation, the best place to start is by simply closing your eyes and taking some regular deep breaths similar to the example we gave you above, while at the same time concentrating on your breathing. As in the precious exercise, by really focusing on your breath your mind should discharge itself of negative energy and this will allow you to gradually relax. Meditation is best practiced every single day as a precautionary measure rather than just as a treatment for stress. Nevertheless, it can also be very helpful when you need to get rid of some stress quick time on the double.

Just be aware that your mind probably will chatter away and there is nothing ‘wrong’ with that. It can take years of practice to fall into a space of deeper and deeper inner silence, but if you are simply able to watch the thoughts coming and going as if they were clouds floating across a summer sky, without judging them or thinking you are not doing it right, by and by you will feel the stress melt away like magic. 10 to 20 minutes is all it takes but even 5 minutes is better than nothing.

Count to 10

Have you heard people say you should count to ten when you get angry? Well it’s actually a surprisingly effective technique. The next time someone or something pushes your buttons and you feel your stress levels start to rise, slowly count to 10. You can do it out loud or under your breath – it doesn’t matter. For some basic forms of stress, or when you catch yourself early enough, you may find this little technique is all you need to do.

If instead you feel that all you are doing is bottling up your anger and creating more tension and stress in your system, then another thing you can do is to regularly treat yourself to the unusual but highly effective practice of ‘Gibberish meditation”

Gibberish Meditation

Find a place you won’t be disturbed … and ideally where you won’t be disturbing anyone else as you’re hopefully going to make a bit of noise! While sitting, close your eyes and begin to make nonsense sounds – any sounds or words, so long as they make no sense. Just speak in any language that you don't know! Allow yourself to convey whatever needs to be expressed within you, throwing out all the garbage and stress that doesn’t serve you and using your voice to articulate in sound what you are feeling. The mind always thinks in terms of words, while gibberish helps to break up this pattern of continual verbalization. Without suppressing your thoughts, you can throw them out energetically. Nor should you sit there impassively like a Stoic since your body holds masses of stress in your cells which is why stress will ultimately make you sick if you don’t find creative ways to eliminate it. So let go, giving yourself permission to move your body freely and letting it be equally as expressive as your voice. Oh yes, you might also allow yourself to make this FUN!!

Get Up and Walk About

One of the best ways to administer some stress relief is with your feet. Why not let your feet do the talking! That is, if something is causing you all sorts of stress, all you need to do is simply stand up and walk away from it, at least for a while until you can get some much needed perspective. This will give your mind the break it needs to calm down and get to grips with the situation. Staying hooked in and involved and allowing it to stress you out more and more is simply not a constructive answer. So get up, walk away, and cut yourself some slack.

Once you have walked away, there are various things you can do for stress relief. One of the simplest things you might try is to tackle cleaning the house. That's right, vacuuming, dusting, ironing, scrubbing the floors and cleaning the countertops will actually help relieve your stress,particulalry becuase it is relatively mindless. Deep cleaning the house can effectively become a meditative practise if you let your mind go limp. The Buddhists still have a saying about 'chopping wood and carrying water' which although they might be considered to be apparently menial tasks can nevertheless be realy valauble techniques to quieten the mind.

Just by putting your clutter in order and cleaning away the dust and grime, you will energetically feel a great deal lighter. This is because by taking care of the physical chaos around you, symbolically you will be cleaning up the mess in your internal world. Putting your house in order will ‘put your house in order’’. You are effecting an inner and outer cleaning.

Or you could go for a walk; if at all possible choose a walk in a park or somewhere else that you find peaceful and relaxing. A beach walk is ideal because apart from the obvious beauty of your surroundings, you will also be breathing in the negative ions of fresh sea air which oxygenate and invigorate your cells and brain. But even a walk around your local streets will do. As much as anything, you’re just giving your mind something else to think about and while you have distracted it from stressful thoughts it will rapidly calm down.

Find a Hobby

Another approach for stress relief is to take up a new hobby. This could be learning the tango, gardening, going to the gym or local pool, model ship building, stamp collecting, or any number of other things which serve to keep your mind busy. Similarly, woodworking or even fishing can help you get some stress relief and clear away the clouds of stress and anxiety that can quickly crop up in the normal run of things. Hobbies give your mind something else to concentrate on besides that which is stressing you out and give you a much needed break. By concentrating on something relatively inconsequential, your mind can finally relax

Take up a Sport

For those who prefer to be a bit more active, taking up sport is also a great way to relieve stress. You can get stress relief just by going outside and kicking a ball around, by shooting some hoops or by going to the gym; simple physical exertion will keep your body active, release ‘feel good hormones’ like serotonin and dopamine and once again provide some much needed relaxation for your mind.

You’re also likely to meet up with people who are on the same wave length as you and in all probability you’ll get to expand your social circle in the process. This not only means you’ll have more friends readily available to help you out when you feel stress starting to develop, but once you have created a whole new peer group, some of the people, places and things which used to stress you out will simply evaporate from your daily life as you start to move in different circles perhaps surrounding yourself with more open hearted and positive people.

Keep a Diary or Journal

You might also manage your stress through writing. By concentrating on what is on your mind and stressing you out and by then putting it down on paper, it gives your stress a creative outlet. It puts your concerns into words which you can either keep or throw away. This is a particularly effective strategy for people who don’t have anyone to talk to and really need to tell someone about what is going on for them. So keeping a diary or a journal can help you let off steam, allow your passion and frustration free rein and get rid of some stress by putting ink to paper. Stress is like a pressure cooker with the valve jammed tight shut. If you don’t release some of the tension there is likely to be a huge explosion so by putting pen to paper you are just exploiting one of many ways to let off some steam!

Find Out What Works Best For You

The single most important element of stress relief is to find the method or methods which work best for you. Many people like to take a nice hot bath or soak in the spa to get rid of stress. Better still if you combine that with some healing aromatherapy oils or scents. Some people enjoy playing with a pet which is why keeping a dog, cat or other animal can be so therapeutic in stress relief programs. Other people find tremendous benefit in meditation or progressive relaxation techniques. It really doesn't matter what you do; just check that it works for you and then make sure that you do it regularly and if at all possible before the stress has reached chronic proportions.

Find a way to relax now and make sure that you do it. Once you learn how to eliminate much of your stress, you will find that you are far happier, more productive and more able to deal with the issues and triggers that can cause you stress every single day. This way you will also be protecting your long term health, wealth and vitality.

This hub is brought to you by Sandhan, co owner and founder of Soul Search Publishing, a personal development and self help publishing company whose goal is to help customers realize personal happiness and success. Sandhan has also co-authored The Anti Stress Book with her business partner Maxim Haim, as well as being responsible for numerous blogs, Twitter accounts, websites and online articles. But her biggest joy is when she knows she’s had a positive impact and made a difference in someone’s life!