Stress less (and disconnect)

What a drag stress is, I stick my fingers up at it.

Stress is a killer, literally. It kills dreams, happiness, relationships and in the end you, yikes!

Stress is something that we all experience in some form or another. A little bit of stress is not a bad thing but a lot of it means you could be knock, knock, knocking on heaven’s door. YOU do not want that.

Before we begin here, have a think about the following questions:

🙁 Do you often wake up tired?
🙁 Do you have regular headaches?
🙁 Do you feel overwhelmed by work?
🙁 Do you rarely have time to exercise?
🙁 Do you find it hard to have regular holidays?

If you answered yes to these five questions you need to change my friend.

Thankfully, it’s pretty easy. And we have everything we need already, it is within us.

Start with your breath. (Yes, that thing you do thousands of times a day).

Breathing deep slows the heart rate, relaxes the muscles and focuses the mind. Breath brings us into the present moment and a centred place. By concentrating on our breath, there’s time to reflect on our priorities, problems and focus on what is important.

I find the following works really well.

Find a comfortable and quiet place to sit. Put your hands in your lap and breathe in and out. Don’t try to control it, let it happen naturally. After a few minutes, start to inhale through your nose and hold it. Then open your mouth and let it all rush out (you can even make a swooshing sound). Let the exhale become your release, let all of that stress out through your mouth.

Do this ten times. You WILL feel uplifted at once. Try it.

Get outside, yes, that big wide world that we don’t see when we work 10 hours a day in an office.

Make it a daily habit to get outside at least once. Lunch breaks are a good time. I’m sure that your neighbourhood has a park, walking track, garden, bench seat somewhere.

Twenty minutes is all you need (now that’s not much to ask is it?) Getting out into the sunshine has magical properties; we need it, not only for Vitamin D but to improve our mood. If you get the chance to go somewhere with grass, take your shoes off and walk in the grass, it is one of life’s pleasures.

Stop, yes stop (I like to call it the pause button) whenever you feel stressed, just pause, don’t do anything for ten seconds. Create space, pause, think of it like a moment in time that gives you awareness of your surroundings and gives you access to choose a different course (very handy if you are about to say something you might regret).

Laugh. This is the easiest one. Download your favourite comedies and have a good ole belly laugh.

These are my favourite stress relievers and they are SUPER easy to do.

Lower your stress levels today, your life depends on it my friend.

Big Love Jane x