Most experts believe that since stress is multi-faceted, treating stress should also be multifaceted. It should be attacked from many different directions to ensure that all potential causes of stress are treated.
Sometimes, though, you need immediate stress relief. Your appointment with your therapist might not be until later in the week, but if you have five minutes, you can bust that stress with these strategies and get on with your day.
Breathe
Simply taking five minutes to catch your breath can work wonders. Practice breathing in for 4 seconds, holding your breath for 7 seconds, and then exhaling for 8 seconds. Do this for five minutes and you’ll achieve some clarity and stress relief.
Mini-meditation
If you think that successful meditation requires several minutes daily, then you might want to try 5-minute-meditation. Not only is mediation a key stress-relief tactic, but it also helps to build resiliency against future stressors!
Have a Relaxing Drink
Make yourself a cup of relaxing green tea – the hot variety. Sweeten it with honey, too, and sip. Green tea contains anger-busting L-Theanine and honey contains compounds that relieve inflammation in the brain, fighting both stress and anxiety.
Change Your Passwords
Sometimes you need little reminders in your everyday life to keep you on track. Here’s a novel way. Think about how many times you use your passwords in a day. Then, change them to something that reminds you to “T@k#@B3@th” or to “M#d!t@t3!”. Of course, this only works if you type in your passwords manually!
Cannabis
The stress-busting and relaxing properties of cannabis have been known for millennia. One of the best ways to ingest cannabis is via a dry-herb vaporizer or using a concentrate wax vape pen. Not only will you feel relief quickly, if you need the stress-relief at work, but there’s also a lot less of that telltale smell. Keeping a vape pen with a prefilled cartridge handy or a vaporizer with pre-ground buds can mean you can destress whenever stress pops up.
Roll on the Floor Laughing
Stressed? Ha! You laugh in the face of stress! Turns out, there’s some actual science behind the benefits of laughter. Having a sense of humor can help you to laugh in the face of future stress. Visit Youtube for funny videos or keep a book of jokes in your desk drawer.
Savor Something
The mere act of simply savoring something heightens the effect of positive emotions and feelings. Looking forward to dinner with your spouse or an old friend, remembering a recent vacation or win at work, and simply taking the time to savor being alive are all ways you can destress.
Aromatherapy
When it comes to being easy and readily available, aromatherapy can be as simple as lighting a scented candle or pouring a few drops of your favorite essential oil into a diffuser or a hot bath. Research some stress-busting scents or just keep it simple (and stress-free) and use lavender.
Create Your PERMA-H Score
PERMA-H stands for the following: Positive emotions, Engagement, Relationships, Meaning, Achievement, and finally, Health. You have 30 points to spend between each facet and none can have 0 points. When you feel at your butt-kicking best, take note of the scores for each element. Feeling stressed? Whip out your score and decide which one needs work.
Play a Mind Game
Our brains are preconditioned to focus on the negative. Sometimes those negative things can become distracting and you need to simply change the channel in your brain to get back focus. Try counting backward from 300 by 3s. Or create sentences where every word begins with the same letter.
Author
Michael is a writer and content marketing strategist with 10+ years of experience currently enjoying his work at GotVape. His idea is to break some of the stereotypes people have towards health. He gets motivation by doing things he always assumed he can’t do but secretly wanted to try. Work hard, challenge yourself, stay focused, take a rest, and surround yourself with good people – this is the path to a balanced life.
