How to eliminate and avoid stress

7 steps to protect yourself from stress....

Stress management is crucial for optimal functional health

Eat healthily:

· Eating healthily can reduce the risks of diet-related diseases and health stressors

· There is a growing amount of evidence showing how food affects our mood and the way eating healthily can improve this

· You can protect your feelings of wellbeing by ensuring that your diet provides adequate amounts of brain nutrients like essential vitamins, minerals, and water.

Reducing smoking and drinking alcohol:

· Try not to, or reduce the quantity you smoke and drink alcohol.

· Even though they'll seem to scale back tension initially, this is often misleading as they often make problems worse.

Exercise:

· Try and integrate exercise into your lifestyle because it is often very effective in relieving stress.

· Even just going out and getting some fresh air, and taking on some light exercise, like going for a walk can really help in relieving stress

Getting out:

· Take time to relax, and try to do it outdoors if possible.

· Strike the balance between responsibility to others and responsibility to yourself, as this will really reduce stress levels.

Be mindful:

· Mindfulness may be a mind-body approach to life that helps us to relate differently to experiences. It involves listening to our thoughts and feelings during a way that increases our ability to manage difficult situations and make wise choices.

· Try to practice mindfulness regularly.

· Mindfulness meditation are often practiced anywhere at any time.

· Research has suggested that it can reduce the consequences of stress, anxiety and related problems like insomnia, poor concentration and low moods, in some people.

· Our website features a specially developed online course in mindfulness

Get some restful sleep:

· Are you finding you're struggling to sleep? this is often a standard problem when you’re stressed.

· Could your physical or psychological state be impacting your ability to sleep?

· Could you amend your environment to improve your sleep?

· Could you rise up rather than staying in bed when your mind is worrying at night?

· Could you create small changes to your lifestyle to assist your get a restful sleep?

Don’t be too hard on yourself:

· Try to keep things in perspective.

· When your inner critic or an outer critic finds faults, attempt to find truth and exception to what's being said.

· If you stumble or feel you've got failed, don’t beat yourself up.

· Act as if you were your own best friend: be kind and supportive.

· Take a couple of minutes every day to understand yourself