It’s easy to let life tense those muscles and make you lose sleep. Sometimes, we as humans get caught up in the moment and often forget to take a minute and just RELAX. Here are some quick tips on how to take the stress and tension to zero in less than five minutes.
- Take a break and take a bite
You are what you eat right? Drinking green tea has a natural ingredient that reduces anger hormones. Having a bite of honey can lower brain inflammation, which fights depression and anxiety. Chewing gum, especially bright and minty flavors, can help reduce stress and anger levels. - Outside war doesn’t mean no inner peace
Meditation sounds cheesy, but it can be as simple as just closing your eyes and concentrating on your breathing. Taking a moment to focus on your breathing can help those outer stresses fade away. Taking deep, long, and slow breaths can lower your blood pressure and heart rate. Having trouble sleeping? Try progressive relaxation that is often used by actors. It’s achieved by tensing the muscles in one body part at a time to achieve a state of calm. - Treat your armor
A great way to relax your muscles is to give yourself a hand massage. This can provide instant relaxation for a pounding heart. If you’re one to be on a keyboard all day, apply some lotion and knead the base of your thumb to help relieve stress in shoulders, neck, and scalp. Also, dripping cold water on your wrists and earlobes can hit major arteries and cooling these areas can calm the whole body. - Change of scenery
There’s no need to pull a Henry David Thoreau and go into a cabin in the woods, but a simple five minutes of alone time can collect your thoughts and clear your head. Try to find a place with sunlight; just like superman, you yourself can be charged by the sun. Bright light can be an effective treatment for people who suffer from depression, and vitamins in the sunlight can help your body feel healthier. - Let’s get physical
There’s no need to become a gym rat or a yoga master, but some simple poses and stretches can make a world of difference. One move to try is to put your feet up against the wall while lying on the ground. Blood flow and stretched muscles in the pose can create some zen in your world. Running in place or rolling those tense muscles in some basic exercises can help push you through that last mile of stressful work. - Art it out
Finding your favorite song and genre can help regulate your brain levels and lead to a more peaceful state of mind. Dancing to such music is a good way to physically release some of that stress. Also, writing in a journal can help you express your problems to make them appear less intimidating and help find solutions. Even writing hate letters of your frustrations and disposing them can help drain them from your mind. This can also be done in forms of drawings or paintings or making your own music if you are so inclined. - Take time to smell the roses
Smells are very powerful when it comes to your state of mind. Literally stopping and smelling flowers can reduce your stress levels. If you are fresh out of fresh flowers, keeping a candle or lotion scent can help as well. Specifically, citrus and coffee scents can be a hormone releaser to help you relax. - Partner event
Sometimes stress can be caused by others, but it can also be fixed by them too. You don’t always have to do this alone. Cuddling with a pet or a significant other can help boost self-esteem and social anxieties. Being with others can lead to jovial conversation and laughter, which is always the best medicine, however, a good book of jokes or funny YouTube videos can do the same thing. And of course, just talking bout your frustrations to someone you feel comfortable to vent to can help you feel less alone in your troubles and more likely to get over them. If you have the means, going on a vacation with your friends and family can be a good way to combine all of the above.
