Life is a journey of constant stress. From the moment you are born, you are bombarded with so many expectations and changes that you will never recall, but the stress begins. Stress is a biological response (or a reaction) to changes to your external environment. This means that whenever things or circumstances change around you, your mind is challenged to face them, putting it under pressure and making it work harder than it should. Stress causes your heart rate to rise as adrenaline is released into your bloodstream, and you start breathing faster. All of this is just because your mind is stressed.
There are many kinds of stress. It could be long term or short term, or it could be good stress or negative stress, but it can also be stress related to your health issues. Since there are many different kinds of stress, there are various ways of managing them, but today I will teach you about the basic steps of handling any stress types that have been beneficial to me over the past couple of years.
Ways to handle stress
Exercising
The biggest secret to keeping your stress under control is exercising. I found that exercise was the most significant stress reliever. I felt much more relaxed since my body was tired. So my mind was busy trying to heal my muscles rather than focus on unwanted external circumstances. Exercise helps release a healthy amount of endorphins into your system, your brain’s “feel-good” chemical. Therefore meaning stress goes down, and your mood goes up.
“Take care of your body. It’s the only place you have to live.”
– Jim Rohn
Staying in control
Focusing your energy on what you can control can help handle stress. A lot of people are stress when they feel themselves losing control. So the best way to avoid that is to find something in your life that you can always control easily; therefore, you don’t stress over the things you can’t control. When you feel in control of the little things, your mind automatically assumes that you can control the more important things. So it finds a way to do so; therefore, you never feel any negative stress at all.
Positive thinking
We sometimes stress over things that have not even happened yet. Stress due to overthinking can be a killer as you start predicting the worst outcomes of any given situation. We need to stop and ourselves the question; if this outcome does arise, what can I do to better handle the situation? Turn that negative stress into positive stress. This, in turn, wires your brain to think about the best possible way to handle your imaginary scenario and gives you a sense of control, making you feel less stressed.
We all have our own ways to battle stress. If you have habits that I have not talked about, then continue to do them, but if you don’t use the ways I have mentioned above, I recommend you try them. Worst comes to worst that they might not help you, but it’s worth the shot, right? They may work and benefit you forever in your life—the power of positive thinking ;).