Tips For De-Stressing

After reading yesterday's blog, I know at least one of you is wondering, "How can I beat this stress game?" Chronic stress is an epidemic that runs rampant through American society. There's no doubt this "work till you drop" mentality takes its toll on our personal health and wellness. I am going to share a few tips you should consider if you are overworked, burnt out or just plain stressed. First, let's talk about some techniques you can use while at work:

Take Your Breaks - This may sound ridiculous, but I know a lot of friends, family and people I used to work with that often skip their breaks. In California, it is required by law for hourly employees to get a ten minute break for every four hours of work and a thirty minute meal break for every five hours of work. These labor laws are put in place to protect you the employee from exactly what you're experiencing: long days, with no rest and being worked all hours of the day. To help alleviate stress, take your breaks no matter how swamped you are and remove yourself from your work area for the ten or thirty minutes you are allotted.

Eat Lunch In Peace- Let's face it, when you are overwhelmed at work misery loves company. There's a good chance if you take your lunch to the break room or hang around the office you will likely search out co-workers and wallow in your office-bound sorrows together. I believe a healthy practice is to take your lunch somewhere removed from your work area, in a quiet or more relaxing space where you can just let yourself go for the half-hour or forty-five minutes. Removing yourself from the environment that has you in fight or flight mode all day is a great way to let your mind and body relax just a little.

Here are some tips for reducing the effects of stress outside of work:

EXERCISE - No surprise here that physical activity can help relieve stress. One of the ways exercise helps is by channeling that fight or flight induced response into the physical activity it was meant for. Not only is exercise physiologically beneficial to fighting stress related weight gain, but the release of endorphins and the  body's feel good neurotransmitters are a great way to de-stress the mind and leave you feeling great.

Meditation and/or Hobby - I put these two together because the truth is many hobbies can turn into a form of focused meditation or purposeful action. The goal of meditation is essentially to quietly contemplate or to silently focus the mind on being calm, clear and present. The idea of quiet contemplation is to learn how to be present in the current moment; free of worry, anxiety and fear. Hobbies such as painting, playing musical instruments, knitting or reading are other forms of active meditation if you will, that help bring your conscious mind to be fully present while you complete the task at hand. Learning to focus the mind on purposeful thought and action is a great way to cut through the cloudiness we can find ourselves caught up in during the daily grind.