De-Stress: Essentials For Better Well-Being

By Aliya Shrivastava
September 15, 2021
Anxiety, Stress

“If you feel like you’re losing everything, remember trees lose their leaves every year, and they stand tall and wait for better days to come”- Unknown (notsalmon.com)

Some similar things people tend to go through are anxiety and stress. But there are different mediums we can use to decrease our stress levels. They could be unique to each person, but the most common ones are:

7 Powerful Ways to De-Stress Your Body and Mind

Stress is a common problem that can have a negative impact on your physical and mental health. It is important to take steps to manage your stress levels and promote better well-being. Here are some essentials for de-stressing:

Exercise

Ironically, by stressing your body, therefore tiring it, actually decreases your mental stress, as you won’t be able to focus on that stress anymore. Religiously working out is always better for decreasing stress levels, as compared to not working out at all.

This is because: Working out helps in decreasing stress hormones. This provides us with endorphins which help better our mood and work like natural painkillers.

– Additionally, it improves our sleep patterns, which is often the cause of high-stress levels.- It helps to improve our self-confidence, in turn bettering our mental health. The best way to do this is to find something which you will actually enjoy doing, like fast-walking, running, swimming, yoga, dancing and more

Consider supplements

There are many supplements which help reduce anxiety and stress. A few of the most popular ones are:

– Lemon balm: it is a type of mint which is known for its stress or anxiety reducing characteristics.

– Omega-3 fatty acids: a study proved that someone who used these supplements showed a 20% decline in stress levels and anxiety symptoms.

– Green tea: It includes certain antioxidants giving health benefits. It helps in decreasing anxiety and stress. Though, if taken with medicine, it could negatively impact one’s health, so asking a doctor is always better.

Candles

Generally essential oils or scented candles are used to de-stress. Certain smells are specially used for calming purposes. A few of their examples are:

– Lavender

– Rose

– Bergamot

– Roman chamomile

– Neroli

– Frankincense

– Sandalwood

– Orange blossom

The process of improving one‘s mood and calming yourself through the use of soothing smells is called aromatherapy. This can majorly help in de-stressing and bettering one’s sleep pattern.

Decreasing your caffeine

Caffeine is known to be something present in coffee, tea, chocolate, and energy drinks. If taken in large quantities, it can inflate stress levels. Everyone’s tolerance for it differs. Signs signalling towards decreasing its intake are when it starts making you anxious or fidgety.

By decreasing its intake, it is often noticed that anxiousness and stress levels, along with sleep patterns gradually become normal.

Penning it down

Writing down your thoughts can help reduce anxiety in a creative and helpful way. A very helpful way of relaxing your mind is to write down things you are grateful for or maybe just what‘s causing you stress. Jotting down what makes you thankful helps in decreasing anxiety as it forces one to look at the good, positive things in life, which overpower the negative.

Having gum

A common and rapid de-stress is having a piece of chewing gum. A study proved that people who do this have better mental well-being and decreased stress.

A probable reasoning for this could be that having gum creates brain waves which are common to those with less stress and who are calmer. Also, a study proved that those who chewed gum with more strength experienced less stress levels.

Hanging out with close people

If one feels stressed, one of the best solutions is to be in the company of those who support you and are close to you. Like, having a close friend group provides one with a sense of belonging and emotional security, helping them sail through the hard times.

If your stress levels decrease by spending time with your close ones, it is a response called “tend and befriend”, which is the exact opposite of “fight or flight”. Whereas those who have lesser people to rely on are more prone to anxiety and higher stress.

These are just a few of the methods one can use to decrease your stress levels and anxiety, bettering one’s mental health and emotional well-being.

Aliya Shrivastava

Aaliya is an 11th grader from Delhi,India. She is an aspiring writer with big dreams, and she is passionate about film making, writing and photography. She has a personal blog (https://aaliyas2005.wixsite.com/blog), gave a TedX talk (https://youtu.be/rIsn5TooRKk), and is a writer in a UN initiative called GirlUp. Aaliya loves all forms of art, whether it is movies, music, photography, the art of words etc, and she believes that “life is short, but art is forever”.