5 Ways to Release Stress
You are not your stress.
When you’re in the middle of your busy life, it is so easy to begin to think that stress is just the “new normal”. Maybe stressed is the only normal you’ve ever known, and living without stress is so foreign that even imagining that seems stressful. Let’s just say this together.
“I am not my stress.”
You are not your stress. It’s something that you have a choice about. No, you cannot control much of anything or anyone outside of yourself, but the best chance of creating the change you want to see on the outside is to first control the inside anyway. How your body, heart, and mind respond inside can change the actual situation because you change the filter you make decisions through, how you interact with others, and even how they respond to you.
Stress is something we can actively choose to release.
And when you live a life of continually choosing to release stress, you have the potential to rewrite your future. It’s not just daily relief. It has momentum, and you get to decide which direction it’s going.
There are many proven options for releasing stress, but just to give you a few starting places, here are some of my favorites.
1) Identify your stress.
This one doesn’t come naturally, but I’m listing it first. If you can’t do this one, you are bound to a merry go round of the same stressful situations every single day of your life. No matter where you go, there you are with the same stress. Here’s what I mean.
Imagine you’re doing the dishes and you can feel yourself getting more frustrated with every dish you pick up. Is it just that you hate dishes? When you finish the dishes, are you relieved that they’re done and the frustration is gone? Or is there something else still nagging at you? Were you angry at someone while doing the dishes? Was there an underlying thought of having to do things alone, feeling like you lack support, or maybe even a frustration that your time is worth more to you than doing dishes?
These are crucially important clues to the bigger picture of your life. Listen to stress. Ask it questions. Don’t avoid tackling deeper underlying beliefs that lurk under superficial things like dirty dishes.
Helpful tip- your brain isn’t always organized or focused enough to stay on track and think about your own thoughts. Get this stuff down on paper. It will help you see it more clearly when it’s looking back at you.
2) Give your senses a break during the day.
Did you know that you aren’t designed to work constantly, going from task to task without at least a moment to transition? Your mind is constantly receiving signals through your senses while you work and go about your day, and your brain is processing that information and making decisions.
Every 1-2 hours it’s helpful to wrap up or pause what you’re doing and turn off a few sources of sensory input. If you work around others, go to a quiet room, close your eyes (even light is information to the brain), take a few deep breaths and just decompress. Not thinking is easier said than done and maybe even uncomfortable the first few tries. But this little reset during the day can make a huge difference when you’re surrounded by busy stimuli.
3) Move your body.
I’m not using the word “exercise” here on purpose. We’ve all heard the benefits of exercise, but exercise often gets associated with a way to discipline the body into shape. That’s not the purpose here. Moving your body can be dancing, taking a walk with a nice view, swimming, or even jumping on a trampoline.
The main point is to move in a way that not only mechanically moves stagnant lymphs in your body, releases stress hormones, and triggers endorphins, but also gives you an elevating source of joy and inspiration because you enjoy it.
4) Diffuse high quality essential oils.
Science is releasing new studies all the time on the effects of inhaling pure essential oils as a means of reducing stress. First of all, just a pleasant scent, essential oils or not, can shift our mind into a different place by triggering the limbic system in the brain to send calming signals throughout the body. Research has even found that organs in our body have smell receptors!! How cool is that?!
Essential oils that are free of contaminants and fillers have a special extra effect on the body and mind. Breathing in the aromatic compounds that make up essential oils can even enter our bloodstream and have a powerful effect in the body without the extra strain and stress of toxic chemicals found in synthetic fragrances.
Lemongrass is one of my favorites for releasing tension. In a study, participants showed lower signs of tension after inhaling lemongrass and tea tree. Not only did they release tension, but they also recovered more quickly to stressors during the study than the control group.
Follow me on Instagram for more stress releasing and managing diffuser blends.
5) Reduce toxins and support your liver.
More and more information is coming out about the mirrored effects of emotional stress on the body and, likewise, physical stress affecting our ability to manage stress. The connection between physiological stress and the liver has been shown even in situations where a liver disease isn’t present.
What in the world does that mean for relatively healthy people trying to reduce stress?
Basically, our body’s ability to process and eliminate excess stress hormones falls on the liver. Being in a daily state of frustration can stress the liver, making it even less resilient in processing daily stress and therefore beginning a chain reaction where stress has more control over you than you do over it.
Eat fresh and living foods with plenty of digestive enzymes in them or take a digestive enzyme supplement, like TerraZyme. D-limonene also greatly supports the liver. Adding 2 drops of lemon essential oil to a glass (not plastic container) of water is a great way to get d-limonene in! Just drinking the water alone will allow the body to hydrate and perform normal daily detoxification. The lemon oil just gives it a major boost!
While stress may be very real part of reality, how it affects you is totally in your control.
I hope that gives you hope! The quality of your life can be measurably improved just by carving out a little time and energy devoted to taking care of your body and mind.
Check out some of my favorite self care collections. These give you a great start on some of the most commonly used essential oils, and along with them, I’ll help you create your own personalized daily self care routine.