While trying to accomplish the goals you have set for yourself in life, it can be easy to overwork your body. Most of the time, people don’t realize how much stress they are going through until they start to notice their bodies shutting down from extreme exhaustion, fatigue, and the utter lack of sleep – and in severe cases, a mental breakdown.
Taking the time to manage your stress by giving your mind and body a break it deserves helps to mitigate these occurrences. Your body is not a machine working at a hundred percent efficacy; it is human and deserves a break.
1. Book Yourself a Massage
That tension in your shoulders, neck and every other body part will not relieve itself. You might have also noticed that by now, every type of muscle relaxant just doesn’t work on you. If you can, schedule a professional massage for yourself. Make it a weekend getaway plan, throw your worries to the wind and think about only yourself in that time.
Another alternative would be to engage your friends or a partner. This can also be a great way to bond with them as they give you a massage. Whatever alternative you choose, make sure you can free yourself from the tension in your body.
2. Take a Relaxing Bubble Bath
Hot showers can go a long way in helping alleviate stress. However, something in those bath salts and the floating bubbles makes you feel like royalty. It helps your body relax and relieve you of fatigue and muscle tension.
Including essential oils in your bath helps to engage your olfactory nerve and induces a sense of calm. Consider adding a couple of drops of eucalyptus, tea tree, lavender, bergamot, etc., to your bath for the best experience. Then sit back, relax, and imagine you are a queen in ancient Rome getting a well-deserving milk bath.
3. Yoga and Meditation
Don’t underestimate the power of yoga and mindfulness meditation exercises. Yoga is a form of a strength training exercise involving a series of targeted body movements that work to relieve your body’s physical tension. On the other hand, meditation has been proven to release mental tension through a series of breathing exercises while maintaining a specific bodily position.
When you are feeling stressed, your body will naturally go into a fight or flight response. Involving yourself in meditation and yoga helps your body activate a relaxation response. The slow and targeted breathing resets the rhythm in your body, making you feel freshly energized for the day. If you are a beginner in these relaxation exercises, you can always enroll in online yoga classes and engage with the best professionals in the field to relieve the stress that you are experiencing.
4. Find a Hobby and Do It
When mental stress reaches a tipping point, it often manifests as physical tension. The best way to work through it would be to involve your mind in one of your favorite hobbies. Often, hobbies are a default stress-relieving activity. They include baking, cleaning, painting, gardening, knitting, playing chess, cooking, reading a book, etc.
Cooking, stress baking, and binge cleaning your entire house are all exercises that can be performed using muscle memory. This gives your mind a chance to sit back and relax. Besides, doing things that you love and that make you happy helps to trigger the release of happy hormones in your body.
You can also decide to listen to music while carrying out these activities. Having a soulfully relaxing playlist goes a long way. If you are up for it, you can switch up the music’s vibe into something that will engage your body through dancing.
5. Involve Your Body in a High-Energy Activity
Stress can easily make you tired and exhausted, so getting out of the house to run or play a sport already feels like a mountain of work. However, activities that require your body to be physically engaged in an intense workout increase your heart rate, which helps to improve your breathing and promotes the release of good endorphins.
You can make it much more fun by engaging your family, friends, or co-workers in team-building exercises and spots to help you all relieve the tension from that day. The worst that can happen is you will get a good night’s sleep that day.
Conclusion
Unmanaged stress has the potential to cause a number of life-threatening physical problems. Progressively taking initiatives to handle it ensures you maintain a healthy mind and body. Remember to check with your physician before beginning any form of stress-relieving activity.