3 Ways To Reduce Your Stress Levels - By: Ellen Huston

It's no secret that stress can wear you down mentally, But it can wear you down physically as well. Here are a few ideas that can help you to lower the stress levels in your life and, in the process, improve both your mental and physical health.

Don't shortchange the amount of sleep you get - no one works their best when they haven't had a good nights rest. But, the lack of sleep is even more insidious when the sleeplessness goes on for a long period. Then we tend to become irritable, short tempered, and more stressed out.

Millions of people in this country have trouble sleeping. So many, in fact, that sedatives are one of the most sold drugs in the country. So, if you have problems getting to sleep, there are two things that you can do immediately to relax your body. The first is to slowly stretch your body while lying in the bed. Hold the stretch position for 30 seconds or so. And, do this three or four times. The second is to take deep, deliberate, slow breaths. Doing these two things together will help to relax your muscles. And this relaxation will make it much easier for you to fall into a sleep rhythm..

Give yourself more "me" time - most of us have to work to survive. But, if we are a workaholic, we miss out on a lot of family time. When we work too hard for too long, we can become stressed out without even knowing it. Taking scheduled time out for relaxation can help enormously in relieving your levels of stress. If you learn to take only 5-10 minutes out of each hour to meditate and reflect, and you do this regularly, you will be amazed at how relaxed you feel.

Learn to say no - how often have you given in and done something that you really did not want to do simply because you were afraid to say no or afraid to hurt someone's feelings? Everyone does this occasionally. But doing it continually will gradually cause you to begin to silently resent people. And suppressed resentment often leads to depression, rage, or both. Learning to say "no" will help improve your self esteem. It will also help to keep you relaxed.

Life is not always easy. In fact, for almost everyone, there are times when it is almost unbearable. However, to a certain degree, you have an amount of control as to just how much you are willing to let stress affect the way you live. And, even though I have detailed just a few things that can help you relieve stress, there are a number of other thins that you can do also. The secret is to find ways of decompressing that fit your personality and lifestyle. If you can do this and you can learn to live a stress reduced life.

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