6 Smart Tips for Successfully Managing Stress

Hello friends I'm Alikhan in this article we're gonna cover some simple and practical ways that you can manage your stress and just quiet your mind and get rid of some of the anxiety that plagues so many of us these days and these simple strategies are things you can actually start implementing today most of them are research proven to actually work let's dive on in get your pen and paper out you're gonna learn a ton

so when talking about stress management the first thing we need to think about is how are you sleeping and I know it sounds a little weird because sleep is actually our body's natural stress management system it's our time where our bodies get to shut down regenerate all our cells quiet our mind dream and open up so anything we can do to actually improve our sleep quality was actually gonna help our bodies manage stress better so below in the article associate with this article now some simple things you can do before bed can really help the first thing is doing a gratitude journal so I have a journal here and it's just a standard journal just blank pages that you can write in and one of the best research back practices for you know really distressing especially before bed and first thing in the morning is doing a gratitude journal it's as simple as really listing five things you're grateful for and maybe a couple wings or successes from the day and what that does and what the research actually shows is that over time it rewires your brain to be more grateful and more successful so you feel less anxiety and stress and really a journal like this at night and in the morning the morning will prime your brain for less stress throughout the day and at night it'll help your brain unwind integrate what happened during the day and get ready for sleep and another thing can really help is if on your journal you also write down what your would you plan to do the next day or what your intention is for your work or whatever you have planned it can actually get your brain set in motion to be taking action on what you're gonna be doing next day and it can help really improve how the state they're gonna wake up in you'll be less anxious less stressed the next day so that's the first thing and in along with sleep which you can also do is get some nice herbal tea so I have a nice sleep tea here from a company called organic India and there are lots of different teas you can get some lavender or chamomile or a blended tea like this but point being is some teas at night are amazingly beneficial for just helping your body you like just shut down and get your mind to quiet down a little bit help you battle some stress other tools that actually work eat healthy if you're eating like crap and your blood sugar is all over the place and you're having processed foods chips snacks drinking sodas and you know you're not eating right there's gonna be a low level anxiety about the fact that you know you're not eating good foods in addition to the fact that your blood sugar is gonna be all over the place and that's a natural stress to your body so just improving your diet will increase your whole body's resiliency to stress so obviously that's a core tenant if you've been here around the fifth Fowler project for some time you know how simple we can make healthy eating and if you haven't you're just getting start with us check out our free one day meal plan that would be the perfect place to start again there's links to all that below this video now the next thing I would say is get a meditation practice and this is why I have my phone and my headphones right here is there are so many apps on phones that you can do or you can just unplug from technology altogether and get a little quiet time but a regular meditation practice is one of the most research proven ways to decrease your body's overall stress and quiet your mind and I'm talking about literally just one to five minutes where you're just sitting down being present being with your body breathing deep focusing on your breath nothing crazy you don't need to go chance and go naked in the forest and meditate you can really just sit down in the morning in the evening or two great times to really get some meditation in and just set a timer for five minutes and just sit in quiet and just watch your breath and as a thought to come in observe them and let them pass through and that practice is really damn hard if you're not someone who's meditated regularly you might find it very difficult to sit still for five minutes but over time you're going to train your brain to be just more calm overall have less anxiety less mental chatter where things are going around all the time in the morning in the night those bookends to your day are essential times to be doing meditation another really good idea to practically incorporate into your routine is to do stretching in yoga and in a way stretching and yoga is a lot like an active physical meditation it's a chance to really lengthen your body you know get rid of a lot of that muscle tightness because there's an amazing correlation between how tight your body is and out tight your mind is they go like vice versa so you notice when you're stressed and you're staying up late at night drinking lots of coffee in the morning and you're not feeling good you're gonna find tightness in your body and your shoulders your back you might feel pain all the time and nice and tight and so nice and tight the exact opposite right tighten like stressed out so in by actually opening up and loosening the body the mind is going to end up being more loose and open as well and vice versa as we go through the meditation as we go through the journaling and we're drinking teas and we're hydrating we're eating better the body will begin to relax as well so it's a two-way street now for more intensive practice doing something like yoga or stretching ritual a couple times for we can have a dramatic impact on your level of presence how relaxed you are physically and mentally so that's another great habit and the final thing I want to add is hard exercise get in there move your body it's one of the best natural d stressors that we have getting that energy out your body will increase all those endorphins you start feeling more energized and vibrant exercise is one of nature's best therapeutics and when the research actor shows is that exercise done outside is one of the best things for really distressing our human brains because we're actually you know born in nature and we're living in concert with nature we're very attuned to exercising around green things you know out in nature really has a profound effect on our brain through how the green light interacts with our brain with the fresh air it naturally de-stresses us and they've actually found that people who exercise in rooms that are painted green just literally green paint have a lower stress level than people who exercise in non green painted rooms so in fact no matter is it greens important if you can get outside get in nature take a walk get a workout in you can even do a walking meditation where you're just walking watching your breath listening some calming music you have all that stuff will really help and I think the main overarching theme here is that stress management is all about your daily rituals it's all about those things you do every single day and unless you will really are doing things like the gratitude journaling like the improving your sleep and eating well and the yoga meditation if you're not doing these things you can't really expect to be less stressed being less stress takes some deliberate habits so focus on a couple of the habits maybe one or two that really really resonate with you or things you're like oh man I've been thinking about journaling for a while use this article