Stress is one of the root causes of almost all health issues we face today. Here are some of the best ways to lower the stress in your life.
By the Lily Pond, Arthur Parton (1842-1914)
Stress can be detrimental to your life and to your body. In fact, it is one of the root causes of almost all health issues our country is plagued with today. These are things like hormonal imbalance, anxiety and depression, heart attack, acne, gut issues, and even cancer.
The worst part is, we don’t seem to be doing anything about it. We know stress is bad, but we continue to push the “hustle” lifestyle. Get up and “go go go” all day long. If you even think about resting, you’re being lazy and not working hard enough. That mindset and the push for that lifestyle from our society has to stop. It is literally killing us from the inside out. Or, at least making our lives a lot harder and worse off than they need to be.
Just like most things, we have to take matters into our own hands. Here are some of the best way to lower the stress in your life.
the best ways to lower the stress in your life
go against the narrative
First things first. You have to recognize that the lifestyle our society pushes is fuel to your stress fire. The popular thing is to be a “boss babe,” always working hard and hardly ever resting. If you want to lower your stress, you first need to be okay with going against the grain. Your life will look different than a lot of other women, but that’s okay. It’s likely that your health will be a lot better in turn. Put your overall health above your concerns for what others think of you. You may be labeled as being “lazy,” but at least you won’t be suffering from chronic fatigue and exhaustion.
prioritize spending time with God
This is by far the most important thing you can do in order to lower your stress. Of course, there are other things that you need to do physically to take care of your body, but prioritizing time with God will take care of your soul, and will greatly improve your stress. I firmly believe that a holistic approach to health is the best way to go about supporting your body. That means we need to focus on all aspects of our being: physical, mental, and spiritual. You may not realize it, but your spirituality plays a huge role in your overall health.
As Christians, if we are prioritizing our faith and our relationship with God, our lives will be filled with a lot more peace and joy, rather than stress and turmoil. We were created to need God. If we don’t spend time with Him consistently, it will be apparent that something is missing.
We can’t expect to feel joy and peace if we aren’t going to the One who gives us those things.
It’s also important to recognize that our health and stress levels will be affected when we aren’t dealing with sin and conviction. If we know that we shouldn’t be doing something, there’s no doubt that that inner conflict will create internal tension and stress. We need to go to God in prayer regularly to acknowledge these things and repent, not only because it’s what He commands of us, but also because it will take a huge weight off our shoulders.
consider working less
This might be a controversial one, and I know it’s not feasible for every person. But, really consider working less. That might mean changing from working full time to part time. It might mean getting a more flexible job, or one that you can do from home. Or, it may even mean quitting work altogether for the time being.
Of course, the alternative of not having enough money to support your family may cause even more stress. So really consider both outcomes of this. Forget about what is expected of you in today’s world. Think about which situation works better for you, your health, and your family. Would it be better for your family to have two incomes? Are you single, and therefore need a job to support yourself? Or, will your family survive if only your husband works full time or brings home a paycheck?
With the push of the feminist movement came the notion that a woman who doesn’t work outside of the home is essentially worthless. If all she does is take care of the home, the farm, and the children, she’s not doing anything to improve society. But in reality, she’s doing more than the average American worker. The things she’s working on at home, especially in child rearing, are doing far more for society than what she could be working on at almost any corporate job out there. Not to mention, the house work and child rearing are a full time job in itself. It’s just a full time job that has no monetary reward. (At least outright. There’s definitely some monetary value to doing all of that yourself, but that’s a whole post on it’s own. We’ll save that explanation for another day).
All that to say, really consider what is more valuable to you and your family’s goals right now. Is it better to have more time and flexibility so you can have a slower paced life and potentially better health? Or, is it better to have more money? There is no right answer collectively. You have to decide that without worrying about judgment from outsiders who don’t fully understand your situation or your health.
get outside more
God created nature perfectly. It has everything we need to support our bodies naturally. So why do we spend so much time inside and out of nature? Getting outside can greatly help with stress and with your overall well-being by getting some fresh air in your lungs and some sunshine and vitamin D in your body. Plus it’s just so relaxing to sit outside feeling the warm sun on your skin and hearing all the many sounds of nature.
It is also thought that grounding is very important for your health as well. Grounding, simply put, is when you walk around outside barefoot. Have you ever walked around outside with no shoes on and wondered why it felt so good? The earth and our bodies both have electrical components to them. When your bare skin comes into contact with the earth, free electrons are taken up into the body. These electrons work as antioxidants to help neutralize damage in your body caused by free radicals which in turn cause inflammation and oxidative stress. (Maybe I’ll make a whole post on free radicals, oxidative stress, and inflammation soon because the science is so interesting). The water and minerals in our bodies are great conductors of these electrons.
Some more specific benefits of grounding include:
- Improving inflammation
- Reducing chronic pain
- Improving sleep
- Increasing energy
- Lowering stress and helping the body to relax
- Normalizing the body’s biological rhythms
- Thinning the blood and improving blood pressure and flow
- Relieving muscle tension and headaches
- Decreasing hormonal and menstrual symptoms
- Protecting the body against EMFs
move your body (but don’t over-exercise)
Exercise and movement are great for your health. Not only do they improve your strength, cardiovascular health, metabolism, and weight management, but they can also greatly reduce stress. What’s better is if you can get your exercise or movement in outside. That’s like a two-for-one deal in reducing your stress.
Exercise reduces the amount of stress hormones your body creates, such as adrenaline and cortisol. It also increases the amounts of endorphins your body creates, which are natural stress relievers, pain killers, and mood elevators. The best types of exercise for stress relief are low intensity cardio like walking or hiking, strength training, and yoga.
It’s important not to do too intense of workouts if your body is stressed. While exercise relieves stress, it is also a stressor to the body because it activates the same systems involved in responding to an external threat. Think of raising cortisol and blood pressure. I know I just said that exercise decreases cortisol, but that’s where you have to become smart about the type of exercising you’re doing. Running is going to trigger much more of that stressed state than walking will. It uses up more of the bodies energy in a shorter period of time, and also raises the heart rate, which in turn will raise cortisol levels to help you resolve that “threat” that is causing your heart rate to quicken.
That doesn’t mean you should never run. It just means you should be smart about it. Get good at observing your body. If you are feeling a little extra stressed one day, maybe opt out for a lower intensity activity like walking or yoga. Especially for women, the type of exercise that is best for your body can vary from day to day. Depending on what phase of our menstrual cycle we are in, there will be different forms of activity that will be better for us. I’ll make a whole post dedicated to that topic soon as well.
reduce the amount of caffeine you consume
Reducing caffeine is key to lowering stress. Caffeine can raise blood pressure, raise cortisol levels, and can stimulate the adrenals to release adrenaline. This is especially true when caffeine is consumed on an empty stomach.
Three in four Americans drink coffee everyday, and 49% of people drink three to five cups of coffee a day (Drive Research- Coffee Survey). It’s also important to note that it can take up to 10 hours for caffeine to leave your system. No wonder everyone is so stressed. It’s obvious that our culture has become physically dependent on coffee. It’s all too common to hear of people talking about not being able to function in the morning without coffee. There are mugs that joke about not talking to the person before the coffee is to a certain line on the mug. We all laugh, but that’s a serious problem. That dependency can also increase your stress levels by causing your body to not function properly without caffeine.
Start by decreasing the amount of cups you drink a day. If you drink four now, try to drink three tomorrow, and keep slowly decreasing each week until you reach one cup. Studies have shown that the amount of caffeine in one cup only causes very small effects, but if you are someone who is very hyper-stressed right now, cutting caffeine completely (at least for a little while) may be better for you.
Once you get to one cup a day, start decreasing the amount of caffeine in that cup by 1/4 each week. Start with a cup with 3/4 caffeinated beans and 1/4 decaf beans and keep going until it’s all decaf. After a while of this, you can slowly start reintroducing more caffeine into your body. If you feel fine and your stress levels are still low, then you should be able to continue to drink it with no problem, at lower levels of course.
spend time in red light & in saunas
Red light and saunas are becoming all the rage right now, but I think it’s for good reasons. Saunas are great for destressing and detoxing because they heat the core temperature of your body, which helps with the detoxification of your cells. Specific benefits of saunas are:
- Recovery of sore muscles
- Detoxification
- Increased metabolism & weight loss
- Less muscle & joint pain
- Skin health & antiaging benefits
- Improved sleep
- Reduced stress
- Overall relaxation
- Improvement in depression symptoms
- Reduced inflammation & decreased cortisol levels
Red light therapy seems to be a little more recent trend in the holistic health world. It is a treatment that uses low wavelength (660 nm to 890 nm) red and near-infrared light to work on the mitochondria in your body’s cells. The most common thing that people remember from their biology classes is that the mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell. (I can’t tell you how many times I had people say that to me when I told them I was a Biology major haha). The majority of your cellular energy is produced in the mitochondria. When they are supported with red light therapy, they can produce more energy. With more energy, your cells can do their work more efficiently.
Red light therapy is most commonly known for it’s positive effects on the skin, but studies have also shown that it can decrease depression and anxiety symptoms, stress, headaches, and insomnia.