How to De-stress After the Holiday Season Naturally

You’ve enjoyed the wonders of the magical time of the year, with the cities decorated in celebratory lights, and festive fairs at every corner. But are you facing again the stress that comes after the holiday season? The rush at work, hectic traffic, crowded malls, and the desire to make the most of the holidays are all factors that can trigger stress and anxiety after the New Year.

As we bid farewell to the passing year, let’s step into new beginnings stress-free! With some simple, practical tips, you can let go of any troubles and worries weighing you down:

Identify the causes of your stress

Do you know what stresses you out, what triggers anxiety? How do you react to stress? When you have the answers, you can start looking for natural solutions.

Take care of yourself

Learn to recognize your stress triggers, including financial pressures or family demands, so that you can deal with them. With careful planning and a healthy dose of optimism, you can find lots of joy and peace after the holidays.

Whenever you’re feeling stressed, call a timeout and spend some time on self-care – have a cup of tea, take a bubble bath, schedule a massage — whatever it is, enjoy the moment and pamper yourself. A daily self-care routine is essential to enjoy some well-deserved serene moments.

Give the gifts of memorable experiences

Don’t get stressed by looking for last-minute gifts in crowded stores. People tend to forget the objects, but the experience remains – a concert, a relaxing massage, a day at a spa, a board game evening with friends or family – those memories last longer than the 7th sweater or the 25th scented candle.

Meditate

Meditation involves clearing mind chatter and repeatedly bringing yourself back to the present moment. Meditation increases endorphin levels and reduces harmful stress. I have been joining a meditation group online at Self Realization Fellowship. This way, I can meditate with thousands of people around the world – and that is so fulfilling. There are various types of mediation; you can surely find the one that suits your needs and personality.

Exercise

After the holiday gatherings filled with celebratory meals, the first thing you want to do is to hit the gym. Exercising is an excellent way to stay in shape and manage holiday stress.

It can be anything that gets you moving; whichever form of exercise gets you motivated – pilates, thai box, dancing, yoga – you will get many benefits. It will make you feel (and look) better and improve your physical health and well-being. You can join a group to get to know others who share similar interests in the activities you enjoy. It’s a fun way to combine exercise with making new friends.

Laugh

Research has shown that laughing can decrease stress hormone levels. Laugh every day; it’s one of the best natural remedies you can find to beat the holiday stress.

Here is a simple laughter yoga to practice each morning in front of the bathroom mirror: make the H sound followed by each vowel sound three times, A-E-I-O-U. Say it out loud: Ha, Ha, Ha, He, He, Hi, Hi, Ho, Ho, Hu, Hu, and I can assure you, in a few seconds, you’ll be laughing out loud.

Get outdoors

If you’re stressed out by the hustle and bustle of the holiday season, head outside to the nearest park, forest, or beach. Spending time in nature can boost your endorphin and serotonin hormone levels, reducing your cortisol (known as the stress hormone) level.

You can squeeze in a 15-minute walk even in your most hectic schedule, either first thing in the morning, during your lunch break, or when you get home from work. A short walk in nature will clear your head and help you stay in shape both mentally and physically.

Be useful

We all need help sometimes, and the arrival of the New Year is best time for lending a helping hand. The holiday season can be challenging for many people for various reasons. If you’re feeling lonely, volunteering can be an excellent way to do some good while making new friends.

Practice gratitude

When it comes to stress relief, there’s no better way than practicing gratitude. Many scientific studies show that those who consciously focus on gratitude experience better physical health and emotional well-being than those who don’t.

These are some of the natural ways to de-stress after the holiday season. Implement the ones you prefer in your daily schedule, and may you enjoy a peaceful and blessed New Year!

About the author:

Shawna Allard is a gifted psychic medium and intuitive reader, spiritual coach, public speaker, award-winning author, and founder of the Divine Knowing Institute, offering seekers spiritual guidance and insight on developing and strengthening their intuition.

Hacks for Working Women to Banish Stress

Do you ever get the feeling that stress is eating away at your energy, serenity, and ability to enjoy life? If so, you are not alone. In fact, most professional women face the same problem and often fall into the pressure trap. Fortunately, there are numerous ways to meet the challenge head-on and get busy banishing stress for good.

For some women, all it takes is a readjustment of their personal lives by reemphasizing social connections with friends, neighbors, relatives, and others. Simply staying in touch with others can make life more enjoyable and bearable. For others, money is the source of worry. Cutting monthly expenses is the solution for them. In addition to taking regular breaks for mind and body throughout the day, here are some effective, practical hacks that can help any woman live in a more relaxed way.

Make Social Connections

Avoid becoming isolated, a common pitfall of a busy professional life. Too many women fall into the trap of being over-devoted to their jobs, which can lead to workaholic tendencies. Instead, make efforts to create several kinds of social connections, including work friends, neighbors, staying in touch with family, gym buddies, and others. The more interpersonal contact you have with other human beings, the better.

Reduce Monthly Expenses

Taking care of a common money challenge is one of the most concrete ways to add ease and mental relaxation to the average day. If you are carrying multiple student loans and paying on all of them, consider refinancing into a single obligation. You can do the whole process online in minutes.

But, the best things about a refi are what you don’t get, meaning that there are no prepayment fees, no late payment charges, and never an origination fee for applicants. Refinancing is ideal for working women who enjoy the choice of terms ranging between five and twenty years. Borrowing limits are liberally high, which means practically anyone can get help. To get started, it’s as simple as choosing the monthly payment amount, your personal student loan refinancing terms and the type of rate you prefer. Finally, as soon as you sign, the savings are locked in for the life of the loan.

Take Brain and Body Breaks

You need more than lunch and two 15-minute work breaks per day. To keep stressful feelings and thoughts at bay, consider daily meditation sessions, sitting in silence for 10 minutes each morning and evening, doing regular deep breathing exercises, praying whenever you have time, and just closing your eyes and doing a full-body stretch while standing up. Other breaks are mostly for the body, and they include nightly hot baths, occasional dry heat saunas, dips in a hot tub, daily stretching routines, therapeutic massage sessions, yoga classes, morning walks, and strategic napping.

Rework Your Daily Schedule

Take time to redo the daily schedule, being sure to incorporate some of the suggestions above for mental and physical relaxation. Create specific time blocks into your daily and weekly routines that are sacred hours in your battle against stress.

Four Practical Ways To Knock Out Your Stress Levels

Leveling Off Stress

Stress is an inevitable part of everyone’s life. You may face it due to work pressure, relationship issues, illnesses, and the list go on. At some point or another, you’re going to feel stressed. And thus, you must know how to punch stress out of your life.

When you know how to deal with stress and get rid of it, you can indeed lead a happy life. This blog shares with you practical ways to have a stress-free life.

A recent study by Australian Psychological Society (APS) found that 26 percent of Australians are experiencing above-normal levels of anxiety. Considering that a quarter of us Aussies are stressed and anxious, it becomes all the more important to embrace these pointers in our day-to-day life.

1 – Learn the correct breathing technique

You may not know, but the way you breathe widely affects your body as well as mind. By practicing stress-relief breathing, you can instantly feel better. The best part is anyone can practice breathing to calm their mind, from any place or any time, whatsoever.

Whenever in a stressful situation, you can practice stress relief breathing, and witness your stress response getting reversed. With the right breathing exercises, you can calm your mind instantly. It also has other benefits as mentioned below.

• Provides clarity:

When the stress response gets triggered, your ability to make decisions get affected. But when you practice the correct breathing, it instantly calms your mind and makes you more aware of the situation. It gives you more clarity and, thus, helps you find creative solutions to solve your problems.

• Relieves chronic stress:

You can diminish the effects of chronic stress by incorporating breathing exercises in your life. You may have a risk of chronic stress if your body is always under fire and having triggered stress response. But the correct breathing can help bring your body back to calmness.

• Minimizes overall stress:

If you are already in a problematic situation, then you may become emotionally vulnerable and quickly react to stressors around you. Using breathing exercises helps minimize the overall stress and makes you less reactive to future stressors.

2 – Eliminate stress with exercise

Exercise is one of the best ways to eliminate stress and feel better instantly.

The good news is, there are countless options when it comes to exercise. You can go swimming, running, cycling, weight training, and you can also start taking up martial arts classes it will not only eliminate stress but help you improve focus andalso make you feel more confident and powerful. Here’s how exercising helps reduce stress and is a natural way to feel-good:

When your exercise, your body releases endorphins that instantly make you feel good. And exercising is by far the most natural and healthy way to feel good. Exercise also distracts you from your problems and lifts your mood. It can, indeed, positively change your whole experience of stress.

• Provides an outlet to stress:

Often, when you’re stressed, you may not always have someone to speak to and let your frustration out. Exercising, thus, provides you with an excellent way to let out your anger and frustration in the right way. When you put all your emotions into working out, you will feel stronger physically as well as mentally.

3 – Get rid of stressors in your life

Many times, the things that cause stress are an integral part of your life itself. It can be a negative workplace, too-busy lifestyle, or any other situation the keeps triggering your stress response continually.

If you find yourself getting stressed out due to a particular situation, then it’s best to address the situation and reduce the stressors in your life. Below are the resources that can help alleviate stress symptoms and lower chronic stress.

• Relationship issues:

Your relationships can be the most significant stressors in your life. But good relations can give you massive support and be an endless source of your joy. Thus, you should either walk away from such relationships or work on improving them.

• Busy lifestyle:

You may be having an exciting job, but if your life gets too busy to pause and rest for a moment, then you’re inviting chronic stress. So, you must assess your schedule and prioritize doing things that make you feel better, like, family time, working out, etc.

• Work satisfaction:

Your workplace is the place where you spend the most time of your entire day. If the work environment is causing stress, then you must take the necessary steps to improve your work life. Or maybe switch to doing a job that brings you contentment.

4 – Embrace meditation in your life

Meditation has immense benefits, and it can change your life dynamically. But, you must properly practice meditation and apply its principles in all aspects of your life. You can meditate for 10 minutes in the morning and then stay distracted for the rest of the day.

You must practice concentration throughout each activity in your day, and it will magically keep the stress at bay. Below are some significant benefits of meditation.

• Reduces stress responses:

Many studies have noticed that meditation helps reduce the stress response and the way your brain reacts to stress. People who practice meditation regularly are not as reactive to stressors as people who don’t. Meditation reduces stress for the time being, but it also continues to help in the future.

• Betters your perspective:

When you meditate, you get more clarity on your thought process. It helps you see your flaws and weaknesses. Meditation calms your mind and provides you with a better ability to reason. It enables you to worry less about future events, and have more clarity while living in the present.

To put it all together

Stress has become a part of everyday life, but when you know the ways to eliminates stress from your life, you can have great peace of mind. You can incorporate the above stress-reducers in your life, and lead a happy life.

You can practice the correct breathing, get physically active with activities like, dancing, football, etc. By having an optimistic mindset and practicing meditation, you can experience significant relief from the stress.