Stress?
Ain't Nobody Got Time Fo' That!
7 Simple Ways To Naturally Relieve Stress
1. Count your breath. Taking deep breaths and lengthening your exhale relative to your inhale will calm your sympathetic nervous system, which is responsible for triggering your fight or flight response, says Timothy McCall, author of Yoga As Medicine: The Yogic Prescription for Health and Healing (Bantam, 2007). Counting the length of your inhale and exhale and gradually lengthening how long you take to exhale will help counter this stress response. If you take four seconds to inhale, for example, work to lengthen your exhale so that it lasts eight seconds. While every person's breath count will be different, taking 10 breaths like this can help calm your mind and body.
2. Sing it out. If sitting quietly and counting your breaths sounds impossible or unappealing, you can sing or hum to achieve a similar effect. When you sing or hum, you are naturally lengthening your exhale, which will slow your breathing and help calm you, McCall says. Be sure to breathe in and out of your nose as you do this. If the idea of singing or humming in the office seems silly, do it in your car on the way to work.
3. Drink more water. When your hydration level drops by even 2 percent, your ability to do simple math and make decisions is disrupted, says Mike Collins, founder of the Perfect Workday, a Raleigh, N.C., company that focuses on workplace effectiveness. "The more hydrated you stay, the better you think." Try keeping a pint-sized container of water by your desk that you refill three or four times a day.
4. Do a body scan. Redirecting your focus away from your worries and toward your physical body for a minute or two can help alleviate stress, says Andy Puddicombe, a former Buddhist monk and co-founder of Headspace, a U.K.-based company that teaches meditation and mindfulness techniques to business professionals. Close your eyes and take half a minute to do a mental scan of your body starting at the top of the head. Notice the sensation of your feet on the floor, your body in your chair and your hands on the desk. Repeat this scan two or three times. Rather than being stuck in your loop of worries, you're turning your attention to the sensations of your body. "By shifting the focus to physical senses, you are stepping out of the thinking mind and bringing the mind into the body, which immediately has a calming effect," Puddicombe says.
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