Easy ways to manage stress
Stress is unavoidable energy in life and in essence very positive. We need it to get our body in gear, to focus our mind, to achieve and to deal with danger. However, it is of key importance to manage it, because too much of it threatens our emotional, physical and mental health.
Discover stress – Exercise
Easy ways to manage stress
Find a pint glass and fill it, with any liquid that takes your fancy. Then hold the glass in your hand, stretch your arm with the hand that holds the glass sideways at shoulder height and keep it there. Read further, but make sure you are keeping that glass in place. Imagine that your stress is a liquid, and that you are holding that stress in a glass, similar to the glass you are holding now. Over a period of time, it will be extremely challenging to keep that glass neatly in its position. Your muscles will start protesting, discomfort and even pain will present themselves and then your mind will start to be pre-occupied with the pain and it will be difficult to concentrate on the reading.
If you take a few sips of your drink (you can swallow it or spit out) and stretch your arm out again, it should be slightly easier to keep the glass in place. But soon, the pain will come back. When you keep on sipping, ultimately, your glass will be empty and it won’t be an effort to hold it in its place.
Imagine the glass as your stress container. The liquid is your stress. It becomes a real effort to hold onto the container for a long time, as it affects your body and your mind. It becomes easier when you take out a bit of the stress (sip by sip) and there is hardly any effort involved once the container is empty.
Stress management
This metaphor demonstrates the effect of regular de-stressing, little actions that reduce your stress levels. The more regular in time and the more in number of small actions, the lower your stress levels will become. As we continue to produce a stress response, we have to continue to de-stress, but if you make it part of your routines and create habits, it won’t be stressful at all.
Easy ways to de-stress are doing short mindfulness meditations, taking a few deep and slow breathes or stretch your body. To watch a video of de-stressing in 10 seconds, click here.
To receive my FREE ebook with 7 easy de-stressing techniques, click here.
If you know you would benefit from 30 minutes of quality ME time, each day, download the FREE ebook on ‘How to create 30 minutes of quality ME time each day and drive the stress away’. Click here.
