Keep Your Stress Level Down
Good morning, Bounce Backers!
It’s Monday, and everyone knows what that means. It’s the beginning of a stressful and tense week, and the countdown for the weekend has begun. As we know, stress causes various health problems including increased blood pressure, which can damage your body for years before symptoms develop. What can we do about it?
Harvard Medical School suggests 7 tips (that we at BounceBackAbility strongly believe in) to reduce your stress, reduce blood pressure and improve your psychological and physical health.
1. SLEEP! One of the easiest tools to better health. Poor sleep may negatively affect your mood, mental alertness, energy levels, and even promote fat storage.
2. Relaxation Techniques. Using techniques such as meditation, yoga, breathing exercises or progressive muscle relaxation have shown to significantly improve quality of life and reduce stress.
3. Broaden Your Social Network. Challenge yourself to meet new people and try new activities. This could be as simple as attending a new class at the gym or joining a local organization.
4. Master Your Time. Efficient time management is an excellent way to reduce your stress load. Simply by creating balance you'll find that your stress level is easily managed and reduced. Check out the "Top 7 Management Tips" for time management.
5. Resolve Stressful Situations if Possible. Using healthy active and passive coping skills can be very useful in facing stress up front, and taking it down.
6. Nurture Yourself. You deserve it after working hard day in and day out. Schedule a massage or simply savor an experience such as fine dining. Refrain from drinking to "treat yourself" and do something your body will thank you for.
7. Ask for help. Sometimes we can’t handle everything on our own, and asking for help does not show weakness.
