Top 10 tips for reducing stress

Stress is a factor that impacts everyone. With our busy bustling lives between work and home life people’s minds often tend to wander with thoughts and concerns that can impact their day to day. In honour of stress awareness day, we have compiled some top tips on how to reduce stress.

Identify the cause

Being able to identify the cause of the stress is key to helping you deal with it. Whether its work or personal stress being able to point at the main cause is the first step to being able to resolve the problem.

Taking a step back

Sometimes when we are fixated on resolving an issue, we get consumed by it which makes it more difficult to resolve, leading to more stress. By taking a step back from the problem you can take yourself away from the stressful situation, allowing you to evaluate the cause and come back to resolve the issue with fresh perspective.

Journaling

Journaling is a great way to get your thoughts out on paper. It can help in breaking down the problem and helping you find solutions, or for some it just helps to get the thoughts out of their head. Journaling regularly can also help you monitor and identify causes of stress to help you better prepare and deal with them in the future.

Setting goals

Stress often comes out when an issue feels too big to handle making it difficult to visualise a solution to the problem. Breaking down the cause of your stress and setting smaller more realistic goals to achieve can help you focus on one thing at a time, reducing stress.

Movement

While exercising doesn’t make worries completely go away, it can help do reduce stress and can help you come back to the problem with a fresh prospective. Exercising outdoors can also be very helpful allowing you to get some fresh air while you think.

Mindfulness

Practicing mindfulness can help to reduce stress. Whether its meditation or yoga practicing these can help you centre yourself and start to relax.

Connecting with others

Stress can feel very isolating at times, which is why its important to have a support network around you through difficult time. Spending time with friends or loved ones can help take your mind off the cause of stress and allow you to recentre yourself.

Avoid unhealth habits

Using coping mechanisms like smoking, drinking, overeating or using caffeine can help provide temporary relief from stress but they do not tackle the actual root of the issue. In the short run they won’t help the immediate cause of stress and in the long run they may create new causes of stress.

Sleep

Getting adequate sleep and being refreshed is vital to helping you deal with stress. If you get enough sleep and have a clear mind you would be better prepared to resolve the issues causing your stress.

Talk to someone

Some stress can be too much to handle, and you may feel overwhelmed dealing with it to the point where you cannot see a way to help yourself. That’s why it’s important to reach out to a professional if you feel that you can’t deal with this alone. If you feel like you need further support talk to your GP who can help guide, you to where you can get local support.

Other support can be found through the following organisations:

• Every Mind Matters – Offers advice on how to cope with stress
• Anxiety UK – Call the helpline to speak with volunteers who have personal experience with anxiety.
• Citizens Advice - provides free, independent and confidential advice for a range of problems as well as providing information on your rights and responsibilities.
• StepChange - provides help and information for people dealing with a range of debt problems.
• Samaritans - offer emotional support 24 hours a day - in full confidence.