For the last decades, we experience more and more stress due to information overload and the demanding pace of life. Both my husband and I overcame burnout and anxiety at certain stages of our lives and we wanted to share some of the strategies that helped us to cope with it since we see how many people are struggling with stress trying to create something good in our world.
First of all, let’s think about what stress is. Depending on your circumstances, it can be an overload at work, or a conflict with coworkers, a deadline at school, or a demanding business. Most of the time though, stress doesn’t come from the outer world that puts pressure on us, it’s coming from us ourselves. It’s the way how we react to certain events that are happening to us and how much pressure we put on ourselves.
For example, if we want to succeed and achieve more, we work more and stress about deadlines. If we want our business to be successful, we stay up late at night working and worrying when things don’t go our way. When we want to change something in our relationships, sometimes we push partners too hard to move forward and forget to enjoy what we already have.
For the last couple of years, both my husband and I faced a lot of stress and anxiety after moving to Canada as immigrants, changing cities and jobs, while adapting to our new life. Last year my husband had to deal with panic attacks and I was coping with anxiety because I was worried about him, our life and work and all that didn’t allow me to sleep at night.
At one point it was time to change something and we started looking for ways to relieve stress and manage our emotional and physical state. And today I want to share a few simple strategies that helped us reduce anxiety and feel happier every day. You don't need a spa weekend or long vacations to get rest: you can try all of these techniques at home or wherever you are anytime.
1. Find ways to become present
Slow down and focus on the moment. Try to understand your own feelings. What created this stressful situation? What is bothering you? Can you change the situation or the way your feel? This pause will help you understand your responsibility and power in a positive way: you created your reality and made the choice to be in this job or business, relationships, etc. And yes, you can change it.
There are different ways to become present. It can be meditation or journaling, a yoga class or just a walk in the park.
Meditation is one of the things that helped my husband and me better understand that our stress was self-created and that we were too hard on ourselves.
If you are new to meditation, try the app called Headspace. It has 10 free 10-minute meditations to start with and will help you reduce anxiety and sleep better. All the recordings are done by a former Buddhist monk Addy Puddicombe who studied the art of meditation for many years.
Another way to stay present is journaling or practicing gratitude. It helps us focus on positive things in our life and feel happier while being grateful for what we already have. I like to use The Five Minute Journal every morning and night to write all the things I`m grateful for on a certain day and what I can do today to feel better.
Another way to feel present is savoring or tasting something. When I need a moment to relax and de-stress, I take a cup of matcha latte and slowly sip it in an old chair on my balcony watching the trees and the road outside. L-theanine in matcha helps promote the state of relaxation and my mind becomes focused and calm at the same time. You can also drink matcha before your meditation to experience calm alertness and feel awake and relaxed during your practice.
2. Cut Sugar Out of Your Everyday Diet
It might be surprising to you, but one of the biggest causes of stress is your blood sugar. When we experience anxiety, our adrenal glands produce more stress hormone called cortisol. If you blood sugar changes too much or too often (for example, from a high-carb breakfast or too much caffeine), your adrenal glands release cortisol to pull the sugar level back again. And you can feel more angry or frustrated.
If you have quite a stressful life at the moment, you can try to reduce sugar intake by following a keto diet which is high in fats and can help you stabilize your cortisol level or by taking less coffee every day. You can switch to matcha green tea which helps you control your energy and relax or decaffeinated teas.
Reducing sugar in your diet will also help protect ``good`` bacteria in your gut responsible for your good mood and feeling happy.
3. Sleep 7-9 Hours Every Day
Sleep deprivation directly affects our memory, mood, and stress level. Sleeping was one of the hardest things for my husband and me to change in our busy life. We used to go to bed at 1 am and spend all evenings in front of our laptops working or watching YouTube or TV-shows.
While dealing with anxiety, we started doing meditation and stretching every night at around 10 pm and then went to bed no matter how busy we were. And that was the best we could do for our health.
American Psychological Association did a research on sleep and found that Americans would feel much happier and less stressed if they slept an extra hour or 90 minutes every night.
4. Spend More Time in a Great Company With Positive People
There is no need to explain that if we are surrounded with negative people they can bring us down easily.
Thankfully, we have an amazing family and after moving to Canada we met some great supportive friends that help us create, laugh, and move forward. At the same time, we had to reduce the amount of time we spent with those people who had negative thinking and never wanted to change anything, no matter how bad it was.
5. Take Good Care of Your Body
When we allow stress to rule our life, we forget about taking good care of ourselves and letting our body rest.
My favorite way to relax after a tough day is to take a bath with lavender Epsom salts (that you can find in every drugstore) or essential oils. Lavender scent helps reduce anxiety and headaches, it improves sleep and heals dry skin. You can rub the essential oil directly on your neck and temples, diffuse in your bedroom, or add 15 drops in your healing bath.
When we feel restless or anxious, we also try to find time to go to the gym and do at least a 30-minute workout to calm down our busy minds while concentrating on the physical exercise. Very often, after the gym, we don't even remember what bothered us before and why we were so stressed.
Conclusion
If you are trying to cope with anxiety or panic attacks, the good news is that you can manage it. The only thing is that it requires time and effort. Try these strategies for a few weeks and you'll notice some positive shifts in the world around you.