You Can Manage Stress Naturally

You can manage stress naturally.  Stress is often defined as feeling anxious, upset and worried.  Stressors are situations or events that cause you to feel stress. It is helpful to understand that the stressor can be an external event or situation, but it is our reaction to that stressor that creates the stress response. For example, I may enjoy walking outside on a sunny day, while someone else may find that being outside creates stress for them.  Sometimes we hold stress for long periods of time.  When you feel stress often for long periods of time, such as days, weeks, months, or years, then you are weakening your health. Since we can suffer from the long term effects of stress, it is desirable to find ways to manage stress naturally.

Natural Ways to Manage Stress

Often people reach for medications to manage feelings of stress or anxiety.  These medications can be substances such as _______       .    All medications can have a reaction in our bodies, or side effects besides those for which they were created.  For example, feeling stress and self-medicating with alcohol or drugs may be a short-term solution, but over time has long term adverse consequences for our health.

So, it is always better to manage your stress response naturally, using tools such as exercise, breathing practices, meditation, and heart meditation.  These tools, although they may take longer to become effective, are not going to have long term side effects that harm your health.  And the great benefit of using ‘natural’ remedies is that as you use them consistently, over time, they help you to build up resilience so that you can proactively prepare for, manage, and reduce stress quickly.

Recognize When You Feel Stress and Act Quickly

My goal for stress management is to be able to quickly recognize when I feel anxiety or am upset or constantly worried about a situation. Once I recognize that I feel stress or anxiety, then   I can begin to take immediate steps to lower that anxiety. Sometimes I feel stress and I am not in the comfort of my home, where I can take a break and do some yoga postures, followed by breathing exercises, followed by meditation practices.  Other times when I feel stress, I may be in an environment where I can’t do these practices.  So when I am in that situation, I use HeartMath techniques of heart focused breathing and quick coherence.  These techniques help me stay connected to my heart and enhance the bodily connections that interrupt the cycle of anxious thoughts and feelings which lead to behavior that is not effective nor healthy.

A Simple Technique- Heart Focused Breathing

One simple technique you can do anywhere is to do heart focused breathing developed by HeartMath.  Here is the technique: focus your attention on your heart, imagine you are breathing in and out thru your heart, breathing a little slower and deeper than usual. Find an easy rhythm that is comfortable.  Do this for at least 5 minutes several times a day.  You may listen to a recording of it by clicking here

____.  Just doing this simple technique for 5 minutes a day several times a day will make a difference in how you feel and react to stress.

If you have more time and want to embark on a program to manage your stress naturally, watch this video on Calm Body, Calm Mind: Managing Anxiety at Work.  This video will offer you techniques which you can practice to help you relieve stress.

Need Help with Sleep?

If you are having stress and it is affecting your ability to get good sleep, then watch this video on Getting Better Sleep.