Reducing Stress through Mindfulness
Stress is a reaction to something around you or your environment. It is what you feel when you are worried or uncomfortable about something. This worry in your mind can make your body feel bad. You may feel angry, frustrated, scared, or afraid — which can give you a stomachache, headache or a jittery feeling inside. Stress may also make it difficult for you to sleep at night.
Not all stress is bad. All people need a certain amount of stress because it is stimulating and motivating. It gives us the energy to try harder and stay alert. Stress begins in the brain and expressed in the body.
Although you cannot eliminate the things that can cause stress in your life, you can change the way you react to them to improve your health. You can make yourself healthier and stronger
through the choices that you make. Breathing is also important to remember when you are becoming stressed. If you control your breathing, it will help you control your emotions then you can
better ask for what you want.
Here are some tools and checklists you can use to reduce and eliminate stress, increase mindfulness, breathing and a deeper look into the affect on their affect on your body.
- Mindfulnes, Stress and You
- Mindfulnes, Sleep and your Body
- Mindfulnes, Breathing and Stress
- 10 steps to self care
Staying Active
Certainly modern devices can make life easier, but they also can rob you of needed exercise. Maybe it’s time to dust off the old push lawn mower. When you watch TV, try changing the channels by hand. During commercials, use the farthest bathroom, especially if it’s upstairs. Get in the habit of sweeping your sidewalk and scrubbing your floors.
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- Try new ways of doing things. Realize that for a 154-pound person even 10 minutes of light gardening and leaf raking can knock off 50 to 60 calories. Even bursts of activity like this can improve blood pressure and blood sugar control, and also put off depression.
- Declare war on labor-saving devices. Build in a certain kind of way of thinking, the kind that says, “I’m going to resist as many of these machines as possible.”
- Build your own low-tech exercise tools, inexpensively. For example, take a plastic, one-gallon milk jug and fill it with water. It now weighs 8 pounds. Now include that jug in a variety of stretching and pulling exercises that call for weights.
- Look for ways to make your surroundings exercise-friendly. When you’re doing brisk physical chores, play loud, upbeat music. Research shows that you’ll work faster and burn more energy.
- Try taking the stairs each day instead of the elevator, or park at the farthest corner of the parking lot. Get off before your stop on the subway and walk a few extra blocks.
- Before beginning any exercise program or increasing your level of exercise, always check with your healthcare provider.
Here are a few more ways to stay active: