Think You can't Take it Anymore? Take a Pause and Try these Stress Relief Home Remedies 2020

The word “stress” brings to our mind what is in medical terms known as distress. Stress is our body’s reaction to harmful or threatening situations. These situations can be real or perceived. Whenever our body feels threatened, a chemical reaction takes place which prepares the body to meet that harmful situation and prevent any untoward injury. This chemical reaction to real or perceived stressful situations is in layman’s term known as “fight or flight”, and in medical terms it is known as stress response. Stress response involves increase in heart rate, breathing becomes heavy and intensifies, there is a tightening of muscles and jaws getting clenched and your blood pressure rises. Now you are ready to act and protect yourself from harm. When this stress reaction goes out of hand, it becomes distress. Distress is extremely harmful to you and is a cause of concern. Medical help is recommended if you ever experience distress.

All stress is not bad though. There is something called “good stress” or eustress as it is known in medical terms. This type of stress is extremely beneficial to you as it is the driving force behind your accomplishments. This stress is the feeling of urgency that spurs you into completing tasks. This type of stress is also felt when we are excited like when we are on a roller coaster ride or some adrenaline sports, when we are on our first date, during competing for a coveted position in your profession etc. Eustress in reality makes us feel alive. It is largely responsible for what we call the “human experience”. It prompts us to live life to the fullest.

One defining feature of stress is that it is always there in our lives. It is not a disease that afflicts us for a period of time before being healed. Eustress is not a problem but distress definitely is. While eustress helps you achieve your dreams and aspirations, distress takes you farther away from them. It is almost impossible to live a normal life when you have this type of stress.

On top of that what will trigger distress varies from person to person. What might cause stress in one might not cause stress in another. This makes diagnosis of distress highly difficult. You might be distressed and you do not even know it, all the while your stress will gather momentum and finally lead to an anxiety attack or depression or personality disorders or other mental health problems. For ease of conversation, let us term distress as stress here.

Following are some of the signs of stress. If you find that you are experiencing most of them then it is time to get help:

Long term stress is extremely harmful to us. It will lead to mental health problems like anxiety, depression and other crippling mental disorders. Blood pressure would increase and so would the chances of heart attacks and strokes. Menstrual problems, sexual dysfunction, skin and hair problems like psoriasis, acne, eczema, hair loss etc., gastrointestinal problems like GERD, ulcerative colitis, gastritis etc.would become common. Thus stress affects almost every aspect of our body making our lives a living hell. As has already been said, stress will always be there in our lives and so it is important to adopt stress relief methods in our daily lives. Follow this BP Guide for some stress relief home remedies:

The calming effects of meditation are widely known. Medication is like a stretch of calm sea in between sea storms. Our lives with its ups and downs are like a ship caught in a sea storm battling its way out of it. After having escaped a sea storm, a ship requires a period of calm sea when it assesses itself, repairs the damages, collects its bearings and redirects itself to the correct route. Similarly our lives too require that period of calm sea to set right what has been damaged. Meditation gives you that stretch of calm sea. It is important that you set aside 15 minutes each day for meditation. Give yourself this 15 minutes of calm sea to prevent a shipwreck.

Some of the symptoms of stress and anxiety are involuntary clenching of the jaw and the muscles becoming tense. Stress adversely affects your nervous system and it responds to stress by putting pressure on your blood vessels. This results in reduced blood flow and the muscles tightening. If you experience this involuntary tightening of muscles then lie down in a comfortable position and slowly constrict and relax each muscle group in your body. Start with the jaw and end with the toes until you feel a loosening of the muscles.

Time management is really important to prevent stress. One of the major reasons of people getting stressed is because of pending workload. Procrastinating and putting off tasks for a later time results in too much of work to accomplish in too less time. This not only affects the quality of the work but also causes stress. Of course there are people who produce the best of what they are doing when they are under the stress of an impending deadline but even they do not cross the line. They might start late but not too late. Proper time management is easier said than done but it is one of the most potent method of stress relief. Make a time table according to your lifestyle and schedule and try to stick to it as much as possible.

It is a proven fact that the sights and sounds of nature act as a stress relief balm. That is why views, photos and paintings of nature appeal to you more than views, photos and paintings of any man made marvel. Given a choice, you would definitely choose to look at the surreal aura of the setting sun on a sea side than stare at the Taj Mahal. Nature is at its most beautiful self during sunrise and sunset. The sky is a riot of colours and the land is a playground of light and shadows. These two times are the best times to take a walk. So set either or both of those times aside to take a walk in the nearest park.

Oxytocin is a hormone that makes us feel good and is responsible for positive mood. This hormone is released when we encounter living beings, objects and sights that we love. It has been seen that small fluffy animals, especially kittens, induces release of oxytocin. Spending time with them is like a therapy session where all your stress and anxiety are washed away. It is recommended you keep a pet at home be it cats, dogs, rabbits, hamsters, and spend 30 minutes every day with it. Play with it, feed it, cuddle with it. In short be involved with your pet. Your pets need not only be those furry mammals which are popular as pets in general. People with allergies can keep pets that are not furry.

Research has found that excessive amounts of caffeine intake can increase stress and anxiety levels. Tea, coffee, energy drinks, soft drinks contain caffeine and we must limit our consumption of them. How much caffeine can be tolerated by the system varies from person to person. If you notice that you feel jittery and anxious after consuming caffeine, reduce your intake of it. Ideally have no more than 2 cups of coffee or tea a day (one cup a day if its black coffee), a can of cola once per week and ignore the existence of energy drinks altogether.

There is no way to sugar coat this unfortunate fact that there are some people whose family members are the main reason for their increasing stress levels. You can avoid a toxic acquaintance but it is difficult to avoid a toxic family member especially if you live in the same house as them. Such people have no other way than to bear them until they have the resources to settle somewhere else. On the other side are family members who are supportive and are a blessing to have them in our lives. Spending time with such family and friends doing activities like playing board games, going on vacation trips or simply conversing over tea can help alleviate stress.

Most of us are stressed because we have not learnt to say “No”. It is a simple two letter word but that which requires the most psychological strength to pronounce. Right from our formative years we have been taught that rejection is equal to rudeness, putting blame on whoever utters the word “No” for being disrespectful. We have to unlearn that. A single human being can take a limited amount of workload and responsibilities. In that respect, saying “No” when you cannot take a responsibility is not rude but practical.

Most of us follow a schedule which goes like this: submerged in work from Monday to Friday and leisure during the weekends. It might be hard to believe but this schedule is an unhealthy one and a recipe of slow poisoning. A human mind is not a machine that you can switch it off and on again according to need so we must stop treating it like one. It requires constant re energising to function properly and this reenergising happens during leisure time. There is this misconception that leisure hours are unproductive and hence a waste of time. So we feel guilty to involve in leisure activities frequently, but we need to chuck this misconception in the bin for a healthy and stress free life.

The more you work, the more reenergising you need and by that logic you need to have at least an hour of leisure time every single day. Listen to music, watch half of a movie or an episode of a series, take a hot water bath, smoke a cigarette while viewing the city skyline from your window or the terrace, read a book, play a video game for an hour, chat with your favourite person, do whatever relaxes you in that hour every day.

Doodling is one of those minor activities that give far reaching results. This spontaneous form of drawing is remarkable in the sense that it keeps us occupied but also doesn’t exhaust us. Just take a piece of paper and start putting your random thoughts on it with the help of lines not words. “Mindful” doodling, otherwise known as Mandala art form, Zentangle, alleviates psychological distress. These art forms involve drawing a simple outline of any object then drawing line patterns inside it. The key feature is that the drawing shouldn’t be pre-planned. Whenever you find time, draw an outline of any object around you, could be a chair, a plant, a utensil, a book, and start doodling line patterns in it.