Tips for reducing stress and anxiety
5 ways to manage your stress better
If you are feeling stressed and overwhelmed, you are not alone. The holiday season can be a time for joy, but it can also be a time for sadness, anxiety, and stress.
What I've learned over the years is that there will always be one more thing to do. My to-do list will never be finished. So it is up to me to incorporate self-care techniques to manage my stress better and feel less overwhelmed.
Today, I am sharing 5 techniques that I am incorporating to manage my stress better.
Tip 1: Practice breathwork
Breathwork is an excellent antidote to anxiety because it pushes our body out of fight-or-flight mode and back into a more restful state. Most of us are not breathing properly, especially if we are sitting at our desks all day.
Our body doesn’t know the difference between the stress of a busy day to the stress of running away from a saber tooth tiger.
Because of that, our body experiences stress and anxiety much the same way - by going into that fight-or-flight mode.
Breathwork is a form of meditation but solely focused on your breathing. When you can control your breath, it naturally calms the body down, telling it, “I’m okay, I'm safe, no need to panic.”
This signal puts your body back into a restful and relaxed state where it can heal and repair.
There are lots of different ways of practicing breathwork, here is a list of the 3 techniques that I like and I will expand on them further below:
Box Breathing
Relaxed Breath from Dr. Andrew Well
Coherent Breathing from Dr. Stephen Elliot
Box Breathing:
Box breathing is a breathing technique that originated in Navy Seal training. It helps slow your heart rate and regain concentration during high-stress situations.