How To Reduce Your Stress Levels Effectively?
How to reduce your stress levels like a stress expert. As someone who specialised as a stress management trainer and coach for over 20 years and has studied in this field for another decade. I have more than a little bit of knowledge on what tends to work for most clients and what doesn’t. Despite having trained in all sorts of top stress management techniques. I can honestly say that often the most simple stress management tools and techniques are the most effective.
We all want a more simple and easy life and that is why learning how to reduce your stress levels and anxiety, should be as simple as possible.
What Is Stress?
When we bring stress back to it’s basic level. Stress is our innate response to a perceived threat mentally, emotionally and physically. The Stress Response is our survival response designed to help us cope or protect ourselves from life threatening or dangerous situations.
Modern Day Stress
The problem with modern-day stress is that most people’s stress is simply a product of fear and distorted conditioning. A mixture of unhealthy beliefs, distorted conditioning, and resistance. So many people are running away from the present moment into a future that must be better. You will never reduce your stress by ruminating over past pain or hurt that they have not healed. Or reduce your stressors by constantly looking at the future.
Our monkey mind is our biggest stressor, our biggest saboteur.
Chronic Stress Is Not Normal Or Healthy
We live in a society where many people have actually came to believe that chronic stress is normal. They believe habits like multi-tasking, hustling, push, push, pushing is not just normal but the way you achieve life success. Now thankfully these ideas are slowly dissolving but in my opinion, not quick enough. As still tens of thousands of people suffer from chronic stress and stress-related conditions. And health challenges that are hard to repair.
Chronic Stress On Your Health And Wellbeing
Chronic stress is not only one of the biggest causes of mental and emotional health challenges. Chronic and long-term stress is the biggest cause of disease today. That is why learning how to reduce your stress is a necessary life skill of modern day life.
I know too well, at only 22, I became so seriously chronically ill and disabled because of burn- out, I spent a large part of the next seven years house and bedbound. Being a typical type A personality, I was highly driven and highly motivated. I was also highly empathic, highly sensitive and highly intuitive.
But I was so focused on my career goals and easily influenced by other people’s view of my life and my health. I didn’t listen, didn’t listen to what my body, my inner guidance was telling me. My drive to succeed in what at the time appeared to be my dream career nearly cost me my life. And ended up costing me 30 years of chronic and rare health challenges.
Reduce Your Stress Before It Destroys Your Health
Stress can destroy and impact your life, your health, and your potential in so many ways. Chronic stress can destroy your career, put extreme pressure on your relationships and so many other aspects of your life. It is vital that we learn how to manage and reduce our stress. In my opinion managing, your stress is a necessary life skill in the modern world.
The Most Simple Ways To Reduce Your Stress
STOP Rushing & Multi-tasking
Learn how to slow down, recognise when you are rushing to the next moment, next task, next thing, next dream, goal. Everyone is in such a hurry through life they tend to rush through life, multi-task every day things which not only causes a lack of focus, extra anxiety and stress but a lot of mistakes.
In many ways, most of us have been conditioned to have a very distorted perception of time. That many people unconsciously view time as an enemy instead of a friend.
STOP and Be In The Moment –
Learn how to live more in the moment. The easiest way to do this is to STOP every so often and become fully present with the present moment. Rather than allowing your mind to run away with all sorts of thought’s and stories.
Meditate–
Learn how to meditate, make meditation at least a daily practice. Meditation increases awareness and helps you become more in the moment. Meditation nurtures a deeper connection with the self and your inner guidance. When I talk about meditation I am talking about more traditional based meditation techniques than guided meditations. The most popular technique I taught over 18 years was my 5 Minute Meditation Tool. Loved by busy executives, anxious stressed out mums, carers and even struggling teenagers.
Unplug-
Learn not only to switch off from your phone throughout the day but consciously take days or weekend when you unplug from the media and technology to reduce your stress levels.
How many times a day to you automatically answer your mobile phone or respond to a text? Even, when it is not actually at the most convenient time?
How many times do you scroll through Facebook or watch TV just as a distraction?
Most people today are a slave to their phone or technology and don’t even realise it. Now be honest how much time do you scroll through Facebook, Instagram or Twitter? When you could be doing something so much more worthwhile or healthier. Social media addiction is simply another unhealthy distraction that keeps us from living in the moment. And leaves us mentally confused, exhausted and overwhelmed. Unplugging regular is a an easy way to reduce your stress and anxiety.
Reduce Or Eliminate Stimulants –
Where do you get your kicks? Stress is not just a product of our fears, our thoughts but toxic stimulants we consume. Caffeine, sugar, nicotine may give you an initial boost of endorphins at the time of consummation. But after that initial kick, well it’s all downhill, the body struggles to get back into balance. In-fact many stimulants can play serious havoc with the central nervous system. That is why if your suffering from chronic anxiety or stress. You should be completely eliminating all stimulants from your diet. These substances can cause serious dis-ease and can play a big part in adrenal fatigue, burn-out, diabetes, and depression.
Learn To Relax–
The ability to relax deeply and effectively. The body needs to be able to relax to come off the stress response. The body needs to relax to heal. The inability to relax is one of the reasons, why so many people keep themself busy or distracted. It is something so many people need to re-learn and do not know how to do properly. And the main reason why I taught Relaxation Therapy to coaches and therapists who seriously wanted to help their clients who struggled with anxiety and stress. Muscle Relaxation techniques are highly effective to not only to encourage the body into the relaxed response but to help reduce pain and inflammation.
The Quickest Way To Reduce Your Stress Levels
As you can see above, it doesn’t matter if you are a stressed-out executive, an anxious teenager, a single mum with chronic health challenges. These are a wide range of stress-busting tools we can apply to our daily and or weekly routine. But the most popular fast and effective my clients and students love to start with is my less than 5 Minute Meditation to learn more CLICK HERE
Would LOVE some extra one to one help to reduce your stress or anxiety book a non-obligation chat with Eileen.
[This post was originally published April 2019 and was updated April 2020]
