Tips to Stress Management: Simple Ways to Improve Daily Mental Wellness

Stress is a normal part of everyday life. Sometimes personal experiences drive us into very stressful situations which can affect our physical and mental well-being. Here are some tips to stress management that may give you tools to handle the stresses of everyday life.

Be Analytical and Determine Where Your Stress Comes From.

Does your stress come from work? Is it a personal relationship with someone that is stressing you out? Maybe it’s something simple like a change in your environment or an unexpected change in your circumstances. To deal effectively with stress, determine its source and develop a plan to deal with it.

Stress affects different people in different ways. What may be a minor irritation to one person may be a big event to someone else. Only you can diagnose what may be an overly stressful issue for your personal mental wellness.

A health condition or a major life-changing event can be a major source of stress. For major events such as these, it can be healthful to talk to a trusted adviser such as a doctor, or counselor, or spiritual adviser such as a minister. Don’t let personal stress around events like these fester inside you as it only makes matters worse.

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Regular daily stress is a different matter. Little bits of stress from your daily activities can build up into major stress if you don’t deal with it. Some techniques for relieving stress can make your life more pleasing and bearable.

Get Rid of Harmful Habits and Develop Positive Reinforcing Ones.

When I talk about harmful habits, I am referring to habits that can decrease your physical or mental wellness. When you think about health in general, you want to emphasize what helps you and try to eliminate what hurts you.

For me, I really work on eating unhealthy foods as the one harmful habit I want to eliminate. By controlling what I put into my mouth, I promote my own personal wellness.

Some other harmful habits may include things such as smoking, drinking alcohol excessively, spreading yourself too thin with too many projects at a time, obsessing about anything too much, or items that are a tic such as biting your nails, picking at your nose, or skin, and others. Examine those nasty habits you want to get rid of to improve your wellness.

Now, let’s talk about reinforcing habits that are good for reducing your stress. Exercise is a good habit that improves both physical and mental wellness. Aerobic exercises such as walking, running, or any other activities that get your heart pumping or blood moving are great habits to form to deal with stress.

Yoga, meditation, and deep breathing are good habits that specifically deal with stress. Find what relieves your stress the best and focus on making it a regular habit. Getting rid of stresses when they are small can really boost your mental wellness.

Being involved in a favorite hobby or activity can get your endorphins flowing from being involved in something that gives you great pleasure. For me, being involved in my favorite computer game or a word game like Scrabble gets my mental processes going and provides me with a great sense of satisfaction.

Build a Support Team for Your Daily Mental Wellness.

Friends, family, and professionals can provide a great support team that can help you deal with stress. Instead of keeping things in, having an outlet to vent can be an effective method of dealing with stress.

When it comes to friends, they are a vital part of what I call “social wellness”. Everyone has different social circles of friends that they associate with. Examples may be church friends, friends who share your favorite activities, or close friends with whom you share your inner thoughts and ideas.

Family can be a mixed bag, but family provides a unique support system that cannot be ignored. Often families share unique experiences with one another that no one else can relate to. Sometimes family can be a source of bitterness and regret but keep in mind that life is not perfect and neither are all of our experiences.

Sometimes, sharing sources of stress with professionals can be helpful. A mental health professional can help deal with issues such as depression, anxiety, or others. A pastor or other spiritual adviser can help you deal with those issues you struggle with as a part of your moral compass or relationship issues with others.

Find Your Favorite Hobbies and Activities and Endeavor to Give Time to Them.

When I think of hobbies, the word fun comes to mind. Spending time on the beach, listening to your favorite music, or devoting time to your chess game are all examples of pleasurable activities that can help you handle stress.

The term “all work and no play” comes to mind when it comes to devoting time to pleasurable activities that give you a break from the daily grind of stress. Being under constant stress will eventually break you down so budget time in your schedule for those hobbies and fun in your life.

One of my techniques in dealing with stress involves finding some personal care time during the week to get away from work and responsibilities. This may be as simple as a road trip to a favorite destination, bath time, or jamming to my favorite music. Personal time does not have to be elaborate. Anything that gives you a sense of satisfaction will do.

Use Time Tested Stress Management Techniques

I have mentioned meditation and deep breathing as two strategies I use regularly to deal with stress. Meditation can come in many forms and is a great way of improving your focus daily. Meditation can also provide a good way to visualize things from a different perspective and can provide what I call good mental hygiene.

Deep breathing can provide a good short-term technique for any stressful situation you encounter. First, place your hands one on your chest and the other on your stomach. Close your eyes and take a deep breath through your nose. Hold your breath for four to five seconds and then breathe out slowly through your mouth.

This technique helps slow down your heartbeat and oxygenate your blood. The lungs get a lot fuller when you breathe and it definitely reduces your stress.

While it may not be for everyone, I find that saying a prayer to myself or saying it out aloud when the situation allows gives me a great way to manage stress. I find that doing this allows me to turn over things that may be a little heavy for me to handle by myself to a higher power and manage them effectively.

Handling and managing stress can be quite effective when you learn how to identify it and apply personal techniques to relieve it. First, identify the sources of your stress. Relieve daily stresses to avoid them piling up and affecting your mental and physical wellness. Have a support team so you can vent stresses rather than holding them in.

Doing these things will effectively allow you to keep stress at a manageable level in your life. Try these tips and see if they are helpful for you and increase your life satisfaction.