We all feel stressed form time to time. It’s natural. For many of you reading this, it’s fair to assume that stress is a regular part of your life. It plagues you most days and you know you should try to get rid of it. You’re always told to find ways of reducing stress, and you know it’s a good idea, but why is this important? What happens to you when you don’t try to get rid of stress, letting it continue to pile on?

Today, we’ll explore some reasons why you should de-stress, while also mixing in a few tips along the way!

Too much stress is bad for your mind

Stress can have a direct impact on your mental health and is very closely associated with anxiety, depression, and paranoia. Therefore, reducing your stress levels will be a good way of aiding your mental health. This is why a lot of stress-relief treatments, like CBD oil from places like Juna World, also help to calm feelings of anxiety. When too much stress is in your body, it plays on your mind and makes you think of all sorts of bad things. In turn, this causes more stress, so the two help each other out. You don’t want this to happen, so for the sake of your mental health, you should de-stress. 

Too much stress can raise your blood pressure

Similarly, when there is a lot of stress and built-up tension in your body, it will raise your blood pressure. This is all to do with the way your nervous system responds to stress – be it physical or mental. Long story short, it will raise your blood pressure, which can be super bad for your health as it increases the chances of cardiovascular diseases. If you’ve ever had your blood pressure checked, the doctor will always tell you to de-stress if the levels are high. One of the best ways to do this is through meditation or deep breathing exercises. Both are shown to help calm your nervous system down, reducing stress and helping to gradually lower your blood pressure. 

Too much stress can cause physical pain

Yes, being stressed can end up manifesting itself as physical pain. Often, when you’re stressed, you get very tense. As a result, you subconsciously tense your muscles and they become very hard and tight. This leads to muscle knots forming, which can cause chronic pain. While problems like this can exist throughout the body, it’s most likely to be experienced in your shoulder area. Much like the mental health conundrum, physical tension and pain end up causing more stress! This is why treatments like self-massage or acupuncture are beneficial to combat stress as you remove physical tension and let the body feel more relaxed. 

Overall, the conclusion we can draw is that getting rid of stress is essential for your all-around health and wellbeing. It can cause issues both physically and mentally, potentially putting you at risk of developing harmful diseases. So, if you feel stressed, make it your mission to calm down and be more relaxed.

Everybody has ‘triggers’ to some degree. A trigger is often referred to as an event that ‘triggers’ an immediate emotional reaction. These reactions are excessive and last longer than we can really make sense of. 

It’s normal to react in extreme ways when going through something devastating, such as the loss of a loved one. You shouldn’t avoid this or try to control it. However, triggers tend to be emotional reactions stemming from seemingly insignificant events. Eventually, these triggers can prompt us to look a little deeper. We can find things lurking below the surface that we didn’t realize were there. Once we understand them better, we can work to move past them. 

Addressing your triggers will be uncomfortable, but they can lead us to healing and happier lives in the long run. Triggers nudge us toward self reflection, and that can only be a good thing. Here’s how to get started. 

Identify Your Triggers

People, places, words, subjects, and behaviors can all trigger us for different reasons. When you identify your own triggers and where they tend to stem from, you will give yourself the ability to respond consciously in the moment. You can also plan and prepare, aiming to stay mindful as you navigate the situation. If a family member often triggers you, for example, you will be able to prepare better when you are around them. 

Find Out Where The Feeling Started 

Identifying the source event that created the trauma in the first place is a must if we are going to free ourselves from ongoing instances where we are knocked back by the trigger. Think back to when you were younger and see what comes up for you. You may be able to identify it straight away, or you may need to do some journaling and ongoing self reflection. 

Understand Projection

Trigger reactions often involve projection. This is because we tend to predict outcomes based on experience, whether we realize that or not. So if you were cheated on in the past, this can lead you to be suspicious of partners in the future even without evidence. We project those fears and insecurities onto others, even when this is unwarranted.

When we make our reaction about other people and their behavior, we disempower ourselves. We can’t change their behavior, but we can change our own. Taking ownership of how you respond to these triggers can go a long way to helping you let go of the original injury. Working with a pro such as Marc Effron of Legacy Healing could help you to look even deeper into what is going on so you can further let go of troublesome patterns and behaviors that have been holding you back.

Put Words To The Feelings

Practice knowing and showing emotions so that you have a deeper understanding of what you’re going through. Using the emotion wheel can help if you need clarity on what is going on – many people were not raised with the language required for this. 

Practice Acceptance

Try to appreciate your triggers for pointing you towards healing. Accept that they are a part of life. You can heal your triggers with time, but acceptance can make you more confident and happier in this moment.

Your diet is important to your overall life. With any good diet, you can reduce your chances of getting ill, perform better when taking part in a sport, and feel more positive about yourself. Every now and then, everyone’s diet slips. Luckily, there are a few simple tips to getting back on track. To help with improving your diet, I have put together four simple tips below. 

Make A Meal Plan 

A simple way to improve your diet is to create a meal plan. By creating a meal plan you will know what you are going to be eating each day of the week. If you are really organized you can plan to cook these meals over the weekend so that they are ready for you after a busy day at work. By planning your meals, you can base them around hitting certain nutritional points. Maybe you want to increase your vitamin d consumptions or be add more vegetable to the meal. There are a whole variety of apps that you can use that will tell you about what things are in your foods and what nutrients you are lacking within your diet. 

Try Not To Over Eat 

Overeating is something that many people struggle with, particularly when you are eating your favorite meals. When trying to improve your diet, reduce your portion size and aim to be around 80% full. By doing so, you will be reducing the number of calories you are consuming. This will help you lose weight. If you enjoy larger portions, do this in moderation so that you can continue to do so. 

Eat Five Portions Of Fruit and Vegetables a Day  

The recommended amount of fruit and vegetables you should eat a day is five or more. When you think back to what you are eating, do you regularly achieve this? If not, it’s important that you try to on a daily basis. This will dramatically help your diet. Why not try and add some fruit to your breakfast, a piece of fruit for a snack, and add plenty of vegetables for your dinner? You can even have vegetables as a snack. For example, carrots and hummus.  If you don’t enjoy eating vegetables, try and disguise the flavors by cooking something with a sauce and adding them into it. 

Allow Cheat Days 

Cheat days are important. They allow you to enjoy the sweet or unhealthy things that you like, but also make improving your diet more realistic. It’s ok to enjoy a meal out a couple of times a week or a glass of wine (or two) on a Friday night to say goodbye to the week. (If you struggle with alcohol and want to stop altogether you could consider looking for an American Addiction Centers location). When having a cheat day, try not to overdo it. You can still enjoy a cheat day without being excessive. 

As well as improving your diet, it could be worth looking into some simple tips to improve your health overall. Being healthy is important as this can help your mental and physical wellbeing. 

What simple tips can you recommended for improving your diet? Have you tried anything from the above? Let me know in the comment box below. 

Your immune system needs to be healthy to fight off invaders. Your immune system is your friend. It protects your body from infection. Give it your full support and, as with any friend, there will be perks. Here’s how it works: Your immune system creates, stores, and distributes the white blood cells that fight bacteria and viruses that enter your body, especially during cold and flu season. Here are the easiest ways to boost your immune system. 

Supplements to Boost Immune System

Since the worldwide pandemic, the popularity of immune-boosting herbs and superfoods has reached new heights. Understanding the key supplements to aid in strengthening your immune system and building physical fortitude is essential to cultivating good health. For example, if you are noticing vitamin d deficiency symptoms such as muscle and bone pain, this is a sign you need supplements. If we all took a step into ensuring we get enough vitamins, nutrients, and minerals, we can boost our immune system and fight off illness and infection.

These supplements are known to have immune-enhanced potential. But, keep in mind they are called supplements for a reason as you are to supp-le-ment them into your diet. Add nutritious food, regular movement, good sleep, and self-care rituals before you begin with supplements. These should be added as an extra benefit, not a replacement. Some supplements to include are:

• Probiotic
• Zinc
• Vitamin D 
• Vitamin C 
• Elderberry

Movement

Self-care moments can also involve exercise and movement. Movement is a practical step and method used to benefit the body and the mind simultaneously. Moving your body has impressive effects on the immune system. 

Exercise allows immune cells to perform effectively. Any form of exercise increases blood flow, reduces stress and inflammation, and can strengthen antibodies. Exercise is one of the pillars of healthy living. But, that does not mean the exercise has to be rigorous to be effective. Gentle movements such as walking in the fresh air, meditating in the morning, or doing yoga before bed are enough to boost the immune system and build strength. 

Sleep

We can have wellness moments every second of every day. Even when we are sleep. Sleep offers the mind, body, and gut-healing powers. Our bodies need rest in order to regenerate and regulate our energy, from breaking down our food to resetting our brains. Sleep also has restorative benefits for the immune system.

If you struggle to sleep well or enough, there are some sleep rituals that may help you improve your sleeping pattern. First, you should practice prioritizing sleep. No matter how busy you are, you need sleep to reset and be able to function properly. Seven to eight hours is enough for the body to reset. 

Before going to sleep, you may benefit from doing yoga, meditation, listening to a podcast, having a herbal tea, or simply switching off your devices. Creating a zen atmosphere in your bedroom will help you relax and drift off into a peaceful sleep. 

With these mindful practices in place, we can boost our immune system, we can obtain better health, and we can live beautifully.

Life is full of unknowns, making it critical to find ways to keep calm during a crisis. Let’s face it, we all react differently during moments of crisis. Some of us freeze, develop anxiety attacks, go blank, or develop chronic stress.

While there’s no right or wrong way to respond to turmoil in your life, there are effective strategies sure to keep you calm during a crisis. 

No matter the problem you’re going through, these six tips will help you feel settled even at your worst.

Calm Your Physical Body

Regardless of the situation you face, crises always cause shock, overthinking, and sometimes less than desirable reactions. When dealing with problems, it is better to calm your physical body to ensure your mind settles and it can think. While there’s an on-going debate on hemp oil vs. CBD oil and their ability to calm nerves down, below are some tried and tested methods.

Breathe

When done correctly, breathing helps manage anxiety attacks and emotional situations effectively. When you want to stay calm during a crisis, you must focus on breathing. During anxious moments, we often take short, quick breaths that hamper our ability to calm down.

Using the three-part technique, you can immediately improve your mood and feel calmer. Here’s how it goes:

• Take a once off deep breath and exhale
• Continue Inhaling and exhaling at the equal intervals
• Start taking in fewer breaths and exhaling more

Challenge Your Thought Pattern

Most dead-end situations begin in your mind. The things you continuously think about become part of you and influence your behavior. If you always think about worrying cases, you’ll never experience total calmness in your life.

Instead, focus on becoming a more positive person both mentally and in your actions, and you’ll feel calmer even during problems.

Release

Fear, despair, and hurt tucked up inside do you no justice. In fact, such negative emotions are toxic to your overall health.

Finding suitable ways to release all the tension is an effective way of physically calming your body. You can run, jog or engage in an activity that will help you progressively calm down and express yourself.

Listen to music

Music is food for the soul, and it often has a healing effect when you connect with the lyrics. Listening to smooth rhythms and awesome beats helps prevent the tension and stress from building up during turmoil.

Take a Step Back to Stay Calm During a Crisis

When facing a crisis head-on, you hardly have sufficient knowledge, let alone the skill to tackle it to completion. Instead of allowing yourself to suffer, it is best to get out of the situation first and think later.

After you’re out, you now have the chance to critically reflect on what you can or should have done during the periods of crisis.

Distractions sometimes offer the best option of getting your mind off problems. Go for a run or watch your favorite TV show to try and keep your thoughts occupied.

Look for Solutions to Your Crisis

When a crisis hits, some see the opportunity, while others look at it as a disaster. When you’re optimistic, you’ll realize that it’s a chance to look for new solutions for the problems you currently face or seek readily available remedies.

Through simple research, you can derive a lot of valuable information that may be of help to your current predicament.

The easiest way to get instant results from your efforts is:

Start Broad, and Narrow down.

Although a crisis may seem too far out of reach to you, the solution may lie on the first page of Google or Wikipedia. When there’s no sign of any useful findings, go deeper into your research and use advanced methods to find viable solutions.

Be Organized

Useful research relies on having an organized mindset. You can’t be undertaking non-essential matters like chatting and social media and expect to keep the focus.

Instead, let your moments of perusing be analytical and organized such that the flow is seamless.

Rely on Credible Sources

Before quickly moving to apply any answers you get for your questions, ensure that the information you’re about to implement in real life is accurate. Incorrect details may add fuel to the fire and make the crisis escalate further.

Before incorporating any new solutions, you should always confirm the credibility of this piece of information by verifying it with other reputable sources.

If there’s no record of such information anywhere else on the web, it is better to seek other options.

Expect Weird Answers

When you search the internet and books for answers, expect to find weird solutions to your problems, some you’ve never heard of before. If there’s nothing new under the sun, there must be an answer somewhere for every challenge.

Journaling to Keep You Calm During a Crisis

When you’re amidst a crisis, it may seem like an inopportune time to scribble down anything considering your mind is in a feeble state. The stress, pressure, and anxiety in your mind prevent you from thinking clearly.

However, writing down your intricate feelings, no matter the form or order, helps significantly reduce anxiety and gives you a better perspective.

Whether you use a computer, pad, or just the ordinary pen and paper, here’s how to effectively journal, especially during a crisis:

Start With Your Insecurities

Whenever you think about what you’re going through, specific aspects leave you worried and anxious. Detailing your inner insecurities and expressing them openly and emotionally feels much like talking to someone.

Recall the Moment

Take your mind back to the moment when it all happened. Write down the specific details of how the problem occurred, the part you played, and your first reaction immediately after learning about the catastrophe.

Doing this will help you process the events faster and give you a clearer understanding of the way things occurred and forge a strategy of moving forward.

Come Up with Solutions

After continuous scribbling of emotions and happenings, critically read your work and analyze every scenario deriving useful takeaways and thinking of viable solutions for moving forward with your life.

Besides, the most persuasive form of writing isn’t about total ranting but lessons too.

Final Thoughts

A crisis takes you by surprise, and most times, its effect is significant and felt years down the line. It is hard to focus on anything else other than your safety and that of your loved ones during these tumultuous times.

However, you must be in a state of calm to effectively assist anyone else. Use the above tips to keep the peace regardless of the type of crisis you’re currently battling in your life.

Remember, there’s life beyond every problem.

One quick way to help relieve stress is by placing indoor plants around your home. We sometimes forget to take care of our own well being yet are very good at encouraging others to do the same. During this particular stressful year, self care is important. By looking after your body and mind, you can boost your confidence and reduce levels of stress and anxiety. You can so small things like introducing plants and flowers around your home to create a sense of calm. 

Treating Yourself to Flowers

Having flower pots or vases filled with flowers are a great way to add some vibrant color and natural fragrance into your home. They can also be extremely uplifting. Do you only purchase flowers for special occasions like birthday flower delivery for a family member or friend? Why not for yourself?

Indoor Plants to Relieve Stress and Lift Your Mood

Certain varieties of flowers and indoor plants can be extremely beneficial in relieveing stress. They can lift your mood instantly in a natural way. 

Chrysanthemums are vibrant and can naturally aid relaxation by reducing your anxiety and stress levels. They improve the quality of air by filtering out toxicity. This in turn can improve your sleep. 

Jasmine plants can also improve you low mood. German scientists at Ruhr University discovered that the fragrance can be more effective than taking prescribed medication to alleviate feelings of anxiety. The jasmine fragrance boosts a chemical in our nervous system called GABA. This chemical enables us to relax and feel less anxious.

Plants that Can Improve Air Quality

An Aloe Vera plant can purify the air quality. The long surface areas of the plant absorb pollutants and carbon dioxide in the air by replacing this with oxygen, particularly at night. It can be particularly helpful to have one in your bedroom to ensure you have good air quality when you sleep. 

Plants to Aid Relaxation

If you want an indoor plant to help you feel more relaxed at night then a Chamomile plant is the optimum choice, It releases a sweet relaxing aroma that helps you have an uninterrupted night’s sleep. Which is certainly something you need when you are feeling stressed. 

Another plant that will aid relaxation is lavender. As a fragrance it is used primarily in beauty products to help you sleep and feel more relaxed, so opting for a small pot of this in your bedroom will certainly help. An active ingredient called terpene linalool is present in lavender which when released in the air, encourages a sense of calm. As well as promoting a relaxing atmosphere it also provides a lovely natural fragrance which is better than using an air freshener which is full of chemicals.