My Students’ Blog

Handling Your Stress

By Yaira Ramirez Guzman

If you’re reading this right now, you are most likely feeling stressed and looking for solutions to reduce and relieve your daily stress! At times you may feel like your stress just never goes away and that there’s nothing you can do to help relieve everything you are feeling. You can become stressed when worrying about whether you’re going to have enough to pay bills or afford food for the month. Learning how to deal with stress can prevent you from dealing with other health issues, as well as change your life for the better! If you weren’t aware already, here are some ways that stress can affect your body.

Stress can cause sudden changes in your mood. One can become angry, frustrated, sad, or worried. Your mood can change to the complete opposite within minutes. It can also cause your blood pressure to drop, which in most cases is harmful to your body. Not to mention, long term stress may cause one to suffer from a heart attack or stroke, due to the constant increase in your heart rate. Having daily stress can cause you to have a lack of sleep, which can then cause you to develop insomnia. Stress is something that everyone deals with from time to time, but it is important for us to find ways that can help manage our stress so we can accomplish daily tasks with ease.

The first step to managing your stress is finding the ability to recognize your stress.

The first step to managing your stress is finding the ability to recognize your stress. By this, I mean recognizing the physical, mental, and emotional symptoms your body may be showing you in high stress moments. You may experience a sudden change in your mood, such as anger, exhaustion, frustration, sadness, and procrastination. You may feel emotional symptoms, but stress could also cause you to experience physical complaints, such as minor or major headaches, back pain or any muscle tension or pain in your body, heart palpitations, fatigue, and digestive problems, such as bloating.

Once you know what triggers your stress, you can start to work on how to avoid those stressors. It is beneficial to practice some relaxation techniques that will help manage your stress, as well as symptoms accompanied by it. If you want to learn more about identifying the sources of stress in your life, as well as some extra beneficial advice click here.

 Here are plenty of fast and easy ways that you can use to help reduce stress!

 Relaxation techniques 

• Meditation – Meditation helps you think less negatively as well as improving sleep.
• Deep breathing – Deep breathing clears your mind and allows you to feel more relaxed within yourself. It also allows your heart rate to slow down.
• Yoga –  Yoga helps with bringing more awareness to your breath;when we are stressed our breathing often shortens or is held in. 
• Exercise or going out – Going out or exercising even for an hour will take your mind off of what’s causing you stress and will make you feel relaxed and less tense.
• ASMR – Watching and or listening to asmr can help relieve and retract those negative feelings.
• Keeping a journal – Keeping a journal is useful when having stress because you can write down what’s stressing you out and write about how you are feeling which lets your emotions out. 

Check out the link below for more in-depth information about the techniques we have discussed. 

Stress Relief: 18 Highly Effective Strategies for Relieving Stress

In addition, if you want to look more into these relaxation techniques here are some videos that you can watch to learn and practice these techniques!

Videos!

Meditation for Stress

10-Minute Meditation For Stress

Thunder and Rain Sound Bath | You are stronger than you think

Bedtime Yoga Stretch to Release Tension and Stress

In addition to those relaxation techniques, you can also try other healthy habits and hobbies to reduce daily stress, such as sports, reading, writing, and music. Often, one’s habits can be the number one lead to causing stress. If you use substances such as alcohol, cigarettes, and illegal substances, limit your intake, or, if possible, avoid using them at all. Not only are these bad habits, but they can have negative effects on the body overall. Overusing electronics is also a stressor for the body. Often social media has a lot of negative effects over time. It is also best to try and avoid information about negative events or news that will cause more worry and concern. 

Remember that stress is common and you will often find yourself dealing with stress, especially as you grow older and deal with life’s problems. Being able to deal with your daily stress lets you accomplish many more of your goals in life. Not only that, but you will also feel happier, healthier and more productive. No need to worry, though, you are always welcome to come back  and review this when you are feeling stressed and need a reminder on what to do to feel better.