How to de-stress
How to de-stress
Everybody goes through a stressful time at some point in their lives. Whether you have a lot of work on your plate or you’re facing some difficulty, the stress can bomb you out… Worse, stress can be detrimental to your health if you don’t learn to manage it.
Here are five tips to help you manage stress more effectively:
- Identify the stressor: This is the thing that’s making you stress. Is it that you’re working too hard and not getting enough time off to recharge? Or, a relationship that’s going south? Often, people deny that there’s a problem until it becomes an extreme situation. In the meantime, they stress about it.
- Decide on an action-plan: Once you know what the stressor is, make a list of the ways you could resolve it. Then put a plan together to either remove the stressor from your life or manage it so that it doesn’t stress you out anymore. For example, if you’re struggling to cope with your work, speak to your boss to reduce your workload or reduce your other commitments so you have more time for work, or manage your time better.
- Keep positive: The more you freak out about it, the bigger it becomes. Keep a level head and try to detach your emotions from the problem.
- Eat healthily: It’s important to eat a balanced diet (containing carbohydrates – mostly in the form of vegetables, protein and healthy fats like olive oil, avocado, nuts and fatty fish).
- Get enough sleep: Adults need 7-8 hours of sleep every night.
- Exercise: This is one of the best stress-busters there is. When you exercise, your body produces ‘feel-good’ chemicals in your brain which help you cope better with stress and to think clearly.
Use these tips to help you manage stress so that you can make good judgements and avoid illness.