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Today I’m talking about strategies to reduce stress levels. Taking care of yourself should always be a priority, and when things get busy and stressful it’s easy to neglect your own needs.
I’ve been so super stressed over the last couple of weeks and I’ve been taking it out in the pantry (stress and emotional eating).
So I thought I would pop in and chat about strategies to reduce stress levels.
You may have heard about some of these before, but if you haven’t, well, then you’re going to hear about them here today:
- Start Journaling
- Meditation, Hypnosis, and Tapping
- Exercise and Movement
- Fueling Your Gut
- Smile More
- Listen To Music
- Affirmations and Incantations
Start Journaling
Journaling can be an effective strategy to reduce stress. Writing down your thoughts regularly provides clarity and perspective, helping relieve any bottled-up negative energy that could be causing stress in the first place.
It does not have to be complicated or time-consuming, and can instead, be a few jotted-down thoughts every other day.
This is how I started in the beginning, and now do it every day. It’s kinda like taking the ‘figurative cap off the shaken pop bottle’ and releasing that build-up of pressure…
The surface pressure, as Louisa from Disney’s Encanto would say in her song Surface Pressure 👇
THAT’S what journaling does for me; it releases the pressure of holding onto all those pent-up emotions and stress of everyday life.
Journaling allows me to freely express my thoughts, emotions, and accomplishments for the week and stops me from stuffing down more emotions.
It prevents the ‘pressure build-up’. And research shows that bottling up emotions can lead us to become more aggressive. I have seen this firsthand…
Before I started journalling, I would become explosive taking things out on everyone around me because “the cap came flying off the bottle” and I couldn’t keep the emotions and stress in anymore.
If you've read the book The Body Keeps The Score by Bessel van der Kolk M.D. (Amazon CA/US), you know everything you experience, your emotions, your stress, everything, it's all cumulative in your body.
If it’s going to build up, regardless, next time you feel stressed try some journaling.
Meditation, Hypnosis, and Tapping
Meditation is one of my favorite strategies to reduce stress and can be a great way to bring more calm or peace into your day.
It involves paying close attention to your thoughts, feelings, and sensations while practicing an accepting, non-judgmental attitude toward them.
By taking a step back and observing our thoughts, emotions, and reactions instead of being overwhelmed by them, we gain more control over them. This can make it easier to tackle difficult situations again in the future.
According to Cleveland Clinic, other benefits include:
- Reduced symptoms of anxiety, depression, or PTSD.
- Improved ability to think, concentrate and solve problems.
- Ability to adapt to and overcome emotional problems
- And Because mental health is so important to health, those benefits can often improve:
- Quality of sleep
- High blood pressure
- Heart function
- & Much more!
So give meditation a try for yourself – you may be surprised at what it can do for you.
Check out my resource library to try a free 12-minute guided meditation called “Unstress”.
Also, I LOVE sleep hypnosis to reduce stress too!
Hypnosis, or Hypnotherapy, uses relaxation techniques to help you find a relaxed, peaceful, and focused state of mind.
Hypnotherapy, or clinical hypnosis, is a treatment where the therapist guides a person into a deeply relaxed state of highly focused awareness to affect change.
Choosing Therapy
You don’t have to go to a clinic if you don’t want to. Actually, you can find a TON of audio online, which is where I’ve found mine.
I access all my sleep hypnosis recordings and guided meditations through apps such as BOD, Scribid, and Audible (CA/US), which have a TON of paid content to choose from.
For free hypnosis content, check out Spotify, and just search ‘sleep hypnosis’… You can download it through my App store link if you like👇
For most people, it will typically make you more open to suggestions about behavior changes you’d like to make with your habits.
That’s why I use it; helps to program my subconscious while I sleep.
Here are some titles I use regularly 👇
So what do you think?
Will you give it a try?
As for tapping as a strategy to reduce stress, I stumbled onto it at the beginning of my wellness journey and really ended up loving it.
Tapping, also known as Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT), is a way to reduce stress by tapping on energy points, called meridian points, or energetic hot spots in the body.
Similar to the ancient Chinese technique of acupuncture, but done with your own fingers rather than needles. It is believed that restoring the balance of energy in your body can relieve negative symptoms or emotions you may be experiencing from stress.
Tapping can be used for a whole lot of things. I mostly tap when anxious or having cravings, but occasionally use it to relax too.
The Tapping Solution for Weight Loss and Body Confidence by Jessica Ortner (Amazon CA/US) is one of my absolute favorite books on the subject of weight loss. She also gives a lot of tapping scripts for specific situations like cravings, body image, emotional eating.
BUT her brother wrote a full book on tapping to relieve stress! It's called The Tapping Solution: A Reveloutionary System for Stress-free Living (Amazon CA/US).
Exercise and Movement
I know, I know, everybody’s heard this.
Experts say it all the time and it’s everywhere.
That’s because it’s true!
Check out what the Harvard Medical School has to say about it:
Regular physical activity will lower your blood pressure, improve your cholesterol, and reduce your blood sugar. Exercise cuts the risk of heart attack, stroke, diabetes, colon and breast cancers, osteoporosis and fractures, obesity, depression, and even dementia (memory loss).
Harvard Medical School
So next time you’re feeling stressed out, try engaging in some physical activity—you may even find yourself more relaxed.
But remember, as always, check with your doctor first before starting any workout programs!
If you are looking for something to help get you moving, I have over 30 full-length workouts in my free resource library, or if you just want to workout page head here.
Fueling Your Gut for Less Stress
Did you know that your gut is sometimes referred to as your second brain?
The majority of our feel-good hormones, such as serotonin and dopamine, are actually created in the gut – not just in the brain.
Hidden in the walls of the digestive system, this “brain in your gut” is revolutionizing medicine’s understanding of the links between digestion, mood, health, and even the way you think.
Johns Hopkins Medicine
The gut-brain connection is a HUGE deal in the medical community these days, and a ton of research has been/is being done.
Researchers and doctors say they always thought anxiety and depression, and the mixup of your happy hormones, is what is causing a digestive upset in patients, but turns out they are starting to lean a different way:
Researchers are finding evidence that irritation in the gastrointestinal system may send signals to the central nervous system (CNS) that trigger mood changes.
Jay Pasricha, M.D.
Since completing my gut health program, The 4 Week Gut Protocol, I believe that 110%. I am in LOVE with how my body felt during those 4 weeks and will be chasing that gut health feeling from now on. I will save my full review for another blog post, but man oh man do I love it ❤️
I also did a Gut Health 101 free challenge in my community a little while back and is still in the guides section. If you want to learn a little more, you can grab the link in the free resource library, or join the community here now.
Smile More To Reduce Stress
Did you know that smiling can also be an effective way to reduce stress levels?
This may seem strange but smiling, even if it is forced, triggers the release of “stress-fighting hormones”. These hormones naturally help manage stress and may lead to a feeling of reduced tension, and faster stress recovery.
So the next time you are feeling overwhelmed, try cracking a smile – it just might lower your stress levels!
I love that ❤️
Listen To Music
I don’t know about you, but music always gets me moving and gives me a little pep in my step. it’s always one of my go-to’s to change my state and flip my mood.
As I mentioned in my post How To Get More Energy In The Mornings, according to UPMC, some studies, like this one, have found that
Listening to music you enjoy may increase the release of pleasure-causing substances in the brain like norepinephrine and melatonin. It may also decrease stress-causing hormone production in the body.
UPMC
Also, listening to a variety of types can have different effects on us too:
- faster music can help increase alertness
- upbeat music can make us more optimistic
- slower tunes are better for calming the mind and relieving stress
If you’re feeling overwhelmed or anxious, putting on some soothing music can help reduce your anxiety and melt away those feelings of pressure.
I do have a Happiness Playlist that I listen to all the time on Spotify in my free resource library if you want to check it out.
Affirmations and Incantations
The final strategies to reduce stress are Affirmations and Incantations.
By repeating a supportive, uplifting phrase, it can become as real in our subconscious minds as the stressful thoughts that may plague us. This is exactly why I use affirmations, to help redirect and train my inner critic into a helpful and loving inner mentor instead.
Affirmations boost both self-worth and confidence in ourselves and our ability to achieve our goals. They also help combat feelings of anxiety, panic, and doubt that often accompany stress.
If you want to try it you can begin the process by jotting down the negative thoughts you keep having, then flip them into positive statements that are loving and supportive instead.
Make sure to grab some printable affirmations in the free resource library.
And this brings me to incantations.
Incantations, which include actions, can also help reduce stress by
Tony Robbins speaks a lot about incantations for your morning routine, and he prefers them over affirmations:
You can recite something uplifting, but if you aren’t embodying it physically, you are only skimming the surface. Incantations are about embodying the meaning behind the words, which is why they are so powerful. With incantations, not only are you speaking words of empowerment, you are using your body and your voice. You are changing your physiology and changing your state, leading to a different and more positive outlook and approach to each day.
Tony Robbins
Cool hey?
When I hear the word incantations, my brain immediately goes to the episode of Grey’s Anatomy👇
Amelia, does a superhero pose before performing surgery because a study saidit would help her perform better. This right here is the study she was talking about if you are a super geek like me and need to know where she found that out (🤓 lol)... thanks Her Camups for finding it!
Or the High 5 habit, have you heard about that ?👇
The High 5 Habit by Mel Robbins (Amazon CA/US) is all about the science backed research behind giving yourself a hi-five every morning in the mirror. The high 5 is the incantation you do every day. An incredible book, and in true Mel Robbins Fashion, she tells it to you straight with a few curses in there too (lol, my fav).
Anyway, try it, you may just like it!
All The Free Resources I Mentioned Above
All the resources I mentioned during this post are in my Free Resource Library if you already have access to them, or you can click the button below.
Some things in the resource library now:
- 30+ Full-Length Workouts
- Guided Meditation
- 21-Day Health Habit Tracker
- Affirmations
- 15 Kids Snack Recipes
- Free Community
- And So Much More…
Check out the free resource library here!!!
Need Help Implementing These Strategies To Reduce Stress?
I’m taking people under my wing every month in our community or business mentorship. You can do this all from the comfort of your home. We will all support each other and of course, I’ll be there to guide you as your coach.
I’m looking for women who are DONE WITH EXCUSES and want to improve their life in EVERY way; Mindset, Heartset, Health set, Family Life…
It has improved every aspect of my life.
Reach out and take the step, if you commit to joining the crew, it will be one of the best decisions you have ever made, learn more here!!
