HOW TO REDUCE STRESS

 What is stress?

Your body reacts to stress by releasing hormones. These hormones make your brain more alert, cause your muscles to tense, and increase your pulse. In the short term, these reactions are good because they can help you cope with the stressful situation. This is your body's way of protecting itself.

When you have chronic stress, your body remains alert even when there is no danger. Over time, this puts you at risk for health problems.

How to prevent stress

Before defining some recommendations that help combat stress, it is important to know that a se
ries of strategies can also be developed to prevent it:

   

• Identify stressful situations and avoid them.
• Be aware of your own limitations and not assume responsibilities that you are not sure you can fulfill.
• Establish a criterion of priorities when facing the obligations and challenges that await you.
• If you decide to make major lifestyle changes, such as a job or home change, they should be planned in detail and well in advance.
• Maintain a positive attitude towards life.
• Develop fluent communication with others and share ideas, concerns, wishes, projects, etc.
• Sleep the necessary time to rest. No more, no less (between six and eight hours a day.
• Get regular exercise.

How to fight stress

When it comes to coping with stress, the most important advice that can be offered is to know how to stop to relax, reflect on the causes of this stressful situation, and calm down to make decisions or change attitudes that reduce the impact of stress.

• Enjoy the good things and moments that life offers: going out with friends, going for a walk, a weekend trip, going to the cinema or the theater ... There are many activities that allow you to break away from the stressful situation and, therefore, get away from him.
• Do physical exercise: physical activity helps to release tension and burn the energy generated by the increase in adrenaline, norepinephrine and cortisol that is generated by stress. At the end, a state of relaxation will be obtained that will remove worries.
• Delegate: this is especially important when stressful situations occur in the workplace. You have to learn to work in a team and to delegate to other colleagues. You cannot control absolutely everything or just take on the entire workload. A good organization is also essential.
• Laughing: Laughter is an excellent therapy against stress.
• Establish priorities: you have to learn to prioritize, relegating to last place those things that stress, since they have been identified as "toxic".
• Get enough rest: sleep is always restorative when a person faces a stressful situation, so it is necessary to maintain adequate sleep hygiene, eating dinner an hour before going to sleep, maintaining the appropriate dark conditions and temperature in the room. bedroom and not doing any other activities in bed, such as reading or watching television.

written by Christian Dodino