Top 7 Tips to Manage Stress

You can’t rid stress from your life completely, but you can reduce it. Know that it takes some effort because you may have to make changes in your attitude and lifestyle. Reducing stress requires that you know how you react to stress. If you know, you can change your behavior. Try to be more optimistic and assertive. See the glass as half full instead of half empty (and tell someone who disagrees that that’s the way you see things). Also, develop a strategy for handling stressful situations. This way, you won’t be caught off guard.

Here are the helpful tips:

1. Add good nutrition and exercise
When your body is healthy, it can better stand up to stress. Keep your body healthy and strong with nutritious foods. A low-fat diet helps slow the progress of some stress-related diseases. Avoid caffeine, nicotine, and alcohol.

2. Laugh
Laughter may be one of the healthiest antidotes to stress. When you laugh or, just smile, the blood flow to the brain is increased. It is due to the release of endorphins which results a drop in the level of stress hormones.

3. Be social
When you feel stress, your instincts tell you to isolate yourself. When you withdraw, you allow yourself to concentrate more on the problem, which makes your stress level greater. Call friends. Be around with young children, who can help make you forget yourself and your worries. Do volunteer work.

4. Know your stress personality
Do you know how to react to stress? Do you yell and kick the furniture? Or do you retreat into stony silence? Keep a stress diary for two weeks. Make note of any stressor, the time, place, and day it occurs, how you feel (angry, defeated, tired, overwhelmed), and what you do as a result. By knowing your own personality and triggers, you can learn to respond to stress before you reach crisis mode.

5. Make your job work for you
The real cause of job-related stress is not overwork but lack of personal control. Interestingly, the most stressful positions are not at the top. Workers in high-demand, low-control positions, such as computer operators and sales personnel, are more heart-attack prone than CEOs, who have a high degree of control in their jobs. Although you probably can’t change your company’s culture by yourself, you can change the way you react to stress at work.

Participate as actively as possible. Ask and answer questions, attend company meetings and events, and be sure you speak up in the workplace. Support your coworkers. Good relationships with peers and a respectful boss help you feel more in control of your job. But no matter how good things are at work, there is bound to be an upsetting event. What do you so then?

Try counting to ten before you react, which helps to avoid conflict. And the pause can help you regain a sense of control.

And finally, if you know you are in the wrong job, accept the fact and consider improving your skills so that you can change jobs.

6. Get enough sleep
Probably one of the most important things that you can do for yourself is get enough sleep. Sleep helps your body replenish and maintain cells, fortifies your immune system, filters out toxins, and relaxes your muscles. Develop a daily sleep routine that signals your mind that it is time to sleep (for example, take a warm bath before bed). Don’t drink alcohol or caffeine, and don’t smoke because these substances contain chemicals that stimulate your mind.

7. Mind-Body Technique
Teaching your body to flex and relax its muscles is a good way to release stored tension, which relieve stress. Allot at least 15 to 30 minutes of relaxation time. Be sure to practice this relaxation technique when you know that you will not be disturbed, and take the phone off the hook. After the session is over, gently stretch your body, allowing yourself to slowly come out of the relaxed state.