10 Natural Stress Relief Hacks That Are Better Than Any Medicine

Stress can be one of the most difficult parts of life to deal with. Whether you are an important businessperson who has to attend a lot of meetings and presentations every day, mixed with a lot of travel, or you have children as a stay-at-home parent who is trying to keep the home clean and organized, we all struggle with the hustle and bustle lifestyle that has become so common.

Some will turn to their doctors for a prescription to provide what they hope will be a quick fix. But the truth is that there are a lot easier ways to remove the effects of stress without having to deal with prescription slips, pharmacies, or medicines that might contain artificial chemicals that can harm you.

Forms of stress

The first type is acute stress, a very common type that can be developed from the expectations and pressures of work, family, school, and other things in our daily lives.

Sometimes, it can be caused by something exciting or negative – too much of either kind will actually cause psychological issues and other symptoms, like headaches from built-up tension or even intestinal damage.

There is also episodic acute stress, where the person might be overwhelmed with several different things and has the belief that they have a million different things to do because if they don’t, everything is going to go wrong.

Consider it self-inflicted damage caused by work, school, and other goals. The symptoms of episodic acute stress include a shorter temper, some irritability, tension, anxious behavior, and the inability to organize things.

The third type is chronic stress, which can wear someone out over time and will continue to have negative impacts on the mental and physical state.

Usually, someone is unable to deal with what seems to be never-ending tasks and the pressures that come with them, which can cause a lack of optimism that can lead to depression and can cause several conditions like heart attacks, strokes, and some forms of cancer. There’s also the higher chance of self-inflicted violence that could eventually lead to suicide.

Remember that all of these types of stress will create several emotional, behavioral, cognitive, and physical conditions—there is no such thing as perfect immunity for any part of your body.

The various symptoms are that some are quickly noticeable, and some can sometimes go undetected unless people know what to look for—ranging from minor side effects that last moments to long-term health concerns that can shorten one’s life over time.

Common symptoms of stress

Emotional

Some of the most notable effects include the ability to become aggravated much more easily, becoming more frustrated, and the occasional mood swing to the negative within moments. Part of that is feeling overwhelmed by so many things to do between work and home that you might not be able to control everything at the same time.

This can cause you not to be able to relax or keep your mind quiet just long enough to enjoy rest. Because you begin to feel you can’t do anything right, you begin to lose self-esteem, and you will eventually think you have become a burden to your friends, which leads to you becoming a lot more unsocial.

Physical

Eventually, you will find yourself lacking as much energy as before because you aren’t giving yourself the proper time to rest your mind, partly because of the insomnia that you may have developed.

Physically, you start becoming more prone to developing headaches and stomach issues like constipation, vomiting, and even diarrhea. Let’s not forget you might feel more pains, aches in your joints and muscles, and even chest pains caused by a much faster heartbeat.

There are also a lot of problems with becoming more prone to different illnesses like the flu and other infections. There’s also less desire for sexual intercourse. Other issues include different nerve effects – like ear ringing and sweating palms – and the constant grinding teeth with a clenched jaw.

Why natural remedies instead of prescriptions?

There are several different treatment methods that use prescription medications that may include harmful synthetic chemicals. While they may work in the short term, there are long-term health risks that can develop, such as cancer or the deterioration of vital organs.

The thing about using natural remedies for stress or any other type of health or mental condition is that you are less likely to have any of these and other negative side effects while receiving all of the benefits.

1 – Using the power of the passion flower

For centuries, tribes and people who have lived in nature have utilized the healing powers of flowers, plants, and herbs to help heal a number of different mental and physical conditions – whether ingested or rubbed on the skin or head.

The passion flower has a similar history of being considered more of a folk remedy method that helps deal with different issues related to stress, including anxiety and insomnia.

Like many of the other natural herbs and plants used for other conditions, the passion flower is actually able to help act more effectively than many of the different prescription drugs designed to help deal with all forms of stress.

While there is still a need to have independent clinical trial studies done to help provide unbiased and honest proof, there are a number of people who do strongly believe that passion flower helps your body increasingly create a higher level of the chemical gamma-aminobutyric acid – also known as GABA.

The chemical will accumulate in the brain to help lower the activity within your mind in an effort to allow yourself to become more relaxed. Now, there are a number of different ways to take passion flowers into your body, including a number of teas you can brew at home or a liquid extract to ingest orally.

Please keep in mind that none of these should be taken if you are a woman who is either pregnant with a child or is planning to breastfeed.

Also, don’t let your children ingest passion flowers. You should expect to meet with your primary health care physician to make sure passion flowers will not negatively interact with any of your prescriptions or your lifestyle.

2 – Get yourself a good massage

Do you ever hear about some people who feel they need a physical release that they can only get from a regular massage? For several centuries, massage has been a very common method for treating stress and relieving a number of negative side effects.

Besides, there are not that many people who would turn down the opportunity for a good massage – especially if they know about the many ways it helps reduce the number of stress-related issues.

Dating back to their earliest history, Chinese tradition has used massage as a great way to help with a number of blockages that impact the different energy channels throughout the body. Being able to remove those blockages will lead to a much better state of health.

In addition to massage, it is said that Hippocrates – known best as the father of Western medicine – used a number of treatment methods to use the friction from massage to heal the different physical parts of the body.

It’s no surprise that today’s society has found the different pressure points throughout the average body to help relieve and eliminate tensed muscles and the different pains in those and the joints.

Let’s not forget the fact that you will improve blood circulation to provide better capabilities to said muscles, joints, and the brain.

3 – Get some time to escape through meditation

Sometimes, we all just need a simple way to escape from the hustle and bustle of the world. Meditation can provide such an escape, and it doesn’t require too much time from your schedule—maybe 15 to 30 minutes each day at the most.

That should be a small enough time that you can fit it into your lunch break or between different meetings or assignments.

There aren’t any costs associated with meditation because all you really need to get that much-needed break is yourself in a quiet area where you can utilize your mind in a much more positive fashion.

Once you are in a room or spot outside, away from others, you can let your thoughts run free while you think only about your breathing.

Set your phone to an alarm to fit within that 15- —to 30-minute window you have scheduled for yourself so you don’t catch yourself breaking your meditation to check how much time you have.

4 – Increase your activity through exercise

There are more reasons to want to get a gym membership beyond the weight loss and muscle-building goals. Having a more active lifestyle is a great way to get stress relief benefits that are very similar to those you receive from simple meditation because you are having a moment to be alone with your thoughts – only you are able to use physical movements as a way to release those thoughts from your mind.

You can do this with weightlifting or Zumba, or you could do more relaxing yoga or Tai Chi – all of which will allow your body to release endorphins that will enter the brain and cause a lot more happiness and positive attitudes.

There’s also less stress when you know that your increased activity will drop any extra weight and reduce the number of weight-related health issues.

5 – Do some organizing of your life

Let’s face it: One of the reasons you might be extremely stressed is the inability to find anything on your desk and in your home. In a similar fashion, you want to reduce anything that might cause a large amount of clutter in your mind, which can impact your ability to maintain a good sense of control and peace of mind.

One of the best things you can do is make sure you aren’t running around without an idea or an outline of the things you need to do each day. That starts with making a list that you can keep to force you to be accountable for getting the most important things done first. That list can range from your job to things you need to get done around your house.

Housework can be a good way to improve your life’s organization because you don’t want your living space to have tripping hazards everywhere you walk. If you don’t do something, you will have a higher risk of being more stressed than before.

6 – Work on your diet and eat healthily

It’s no secret to anyone that eating a lot of food with no nutritional value is just artificial junk that doesn’t belong in your body because it won’t give you the necessary vitamins, minerals, and nutrients to boost your energy to get through the day.

Having a well-balanced diet with foods filled with whole grains and proteins will give you the energy to get through the day.

Some of the best foods you could include in your daily meals are blueberries, almonds, salmon, and vegetables. All of these foods have various tools that can help you battle stress without including too many calories.

Another thing you need to do is stop your coffee consumption to just one cup in the morning because the additional cups will lead to problems with your health that include increased anxiety and more jitters – eventually crashing into sleep randomly at what could be an inopportune time.

7 – Cut down on your time with electronics

An overly active mind can be one of the biggest contributors to those high-stress levels. In fact, the biggest problem in trying to reduce the symptoms of stress is when you try to disconnect yourself from televisions, the internet, and the use of cell phones because many people might make themselves very dependent on all of those items.

Doing such a task as shutting yourself down from electronic dependence can allow you to start blocking off some of the things that bring us unnecessary stress in our lives, and this will eventually allow us to become more appreciative of living in the moment.

It is really important to do this before going to bed so that you get enough sleep. Speaking of which …

8 – Getting rest through plenty of sleep

Having the proper amount of sleep is one of the most important things you can do for your body and your mind. In fact, it’s one of the best natural stress reducers you can do at home.

But you have to find the perfect balance because not having enough will cause one to be a little bit crankier or more irritable while having too much sleep can lead you to be more sluggish when getting out of bed and a little more depressed.

9 – Increase the amount of B vitamins

Having these essential vitamins will help you increase the functionality of your brain and the attached nervous system that connects all of the different parts of your body. There are also additional benefits from finding more ability to relax and have more energy.

Another thing to note is that you can get your B vitamins by consuming cereals with germ and bran grains, lentils, nuts, eggs, and most dairy foods.

10 – Use aromatherapy in your home and office

Sometimes, having a good scent around you will help reduce your stress and improve your mood to better eliminate any anxiety you may have while improving your focus and ability to think and concentrate cognitively.

According to experts, you are boosting the limbic system, which releases beneficial chemicals to promote a combination of feeling relaxed, calm, loved, and excited—examples include cypress, lavender, and rosemary.

None of these 10 natural methods to reduce the stress in your life will drain your wallet of large amounts of money. Remember that expensive treatments may contain a number of artificial and synthetic ingredients that might do some long-term damage to your overall health.

So there’s no harm in trying something that is much cheaper, can be done at home easily, and costs pennies on the dollar.

The important thing to remember is that you should not wait too long to start finding ways to eliminate your stress because the symptoms can accumulate beyond a point of “no return.”

Resources

http://www.foxnews.com/health/2012/01/27/10-ways-to-relieve-stress-naturally/

http://www.almanac.com/content/natural-remedies-stress-and-anxiety

http://www.wholeliving.com/135973/best-natural-stress-remedies/@center/136756/stress-relief-your-guided-tour#132210