Easy Ways to Relieve Stress at Home

Easy Ways to Relieve Stress at Home

While it is not uncommon to experience stress, possibly even on a daily basis, it is also possible to find relief. Here are some natural ways you can find relief from stress in the comfort of your own home.

Avoid These Unhealthy Methods

Before you start looking at the healthy ways to relieve stress at home, you should be first aware of the ways you should avoid helping with stress. While these habits might seem like they are helping, you are actually heightening your stress overall. Make sure you don’t turn to the following unhealthy coping mechanisms:

· Drinking alcohol

· Smoking cigarettes

· Binging on junk food

· Avoiding responsibilities

· Sleeping too much or not enough

· Turning to drugs or pills

· Making erratic or dangerous choices

· Keeping busy to avoid your problems

Move Your Body More

One excellent way to relieve your stress on a regular basis is by getting your body moving. This keeps your mind occupied, releases endorphins and serotonin in your brain, and can be a healthy way to distract yourself from your problems. Even if you are not accustomed to working out a lot, there are ways to ease into a new workout routine. If you have a swimming pool, you can start swimming laps just a few at a time, then increase it every day. You can start taking your dog for a longer walk during the day or dancing in the living room with your kids.

Try Meditation While it might seem difficult, meditation can be easy if you just give it a chance. It does take some practice, but before too long you will discover just how helpful it is. It not only helps to relieve stress, but can help with anxiety, depression,

and other problems you experience in your life. An easy way to start meditating is by using visualization. Sit in a quiet room with your body relaxed and your eyes closed. Just spend a few minutes trying to visualize something that calms you, such as a running creek or waves crashing in the ocean. All you think about is that scene and nothing else for those few minutes.

Take a Lavender Bath

Baths in general can be relaxing, but there are certain essential oils that can be very beneficial. Lavender is one of the best ones for relaxation and stress relief. All you need to do is add a few drops of lavender oil to your bath then enjoy the calm you feel. You can also try lavender bath salts or bubble bath for the same effect. 

Eric Dempsey

MS, Stress Management Coach

Dempseys Resolution Fitness

for 

The Chaplain Paul Voorhees Ministry

Identifying Stress Triggers

Stress is something everyone deals with, though each person usually has a different level of stress. In order to put a stop to yours, you need to figure out what is causing it. This is done by identifying the stress triggers, which might be situations, people, or events that lead you to feeling stressed out and anxious.

Journaling

A very common way to figure out what is causing you stress is by keeping a journal or diary. This is where you record all of your thoughts and feelings each day, then look back on it when you have a stressful day. You should be able to pinpoint people or situations that led to your increased stress on those days. Remember to look back on your journal entries often to try and find a pattern to discover what was causing your stress. It may be a co-worker you work with often, eating too much junk food and feeling guilt because you are on a diet, or personal issues leading to your stress.

Consider Your Physical Changes

Your body can also be showing signs of stress, even though you might not realize this is what is going on. For example, do you notice that after dealing with a certain person, you tend to get really bad headaches or muscle tension? This is your body's response to the stress that this particular person causes. You might also find that when you are having a bad day at work or your car breaks down, you suddenly have stomach aches or other digestion issues. These are other physical signs of the stress. When you know the physical signs of stress, you can then try to figure out what was going on just before you got those migraine headaches to figure out what was causing your stress.

Notice Your Behavioral Changes

You can also look at how your behavior changes and then narrow down why you think you are behaving in a different manner to figure out what is stressing you out. For example, if you are suddenly not sleeping very well or are sleeping too much, try to think about what was happening on those days of insomnia. You should be able to narrow it down to something that is causing you stress. Some other behavior changes to use when finding your stress triggers are anger or resentment towards others, lashing out, being irritable, eating more or less than you used to, or having changes in your work performance.

Once the critical stress triggers are identified, then you can devote time to truly working on managing, and controlling these triggers. It can be done. Do not ever lose hope!

Eric Dempsey
MS, NESTA Certified Stress Management Coach
Chaplain Paul Voorhees Ministry