Five Tips for Stress Relief

By Team Beachbody

Even for the most successful, fit, got-it-made-in-the-shade people, stress can ruin everything. It disrupts our ability to function at work. It messes with our moods. It upstages the things around us which we should be grateful for. Stress demands attention. And with attention, stress gains power in what becomes a vicious cycle of reacting to stress, and building on it.

That's why the ability to cope with stress is one of the most valuable tools you can have to be a positive, content, and productive person.

This issue is dedicated to helping you find ways to relieve stress, cope with it, or at least understand that you have the power to change your reaction to stress.

On the fundamental level, here are five real stress-relief solutions you should seriously consider the next time you find yourself spending more energy dealing with stress than you spend on the important things:

1. Take Time Off, even if you just started a new exercise regime. It may sound counter-productive but it's entirely the opposite. If you need to relieve some pressure, do it. More accurately, this should read "take time for yourself." Take a few minutes a few times throughout the day to focus inward and relax. And as we advocate in Power 90®, take a day of a week from exercise. Your body needs to recover too.
2. Exercise. Since you're reading this, chances are that you have already committed to exercise, but no study on stress ever leaves out its importance. Exercise makes your engine run smoother, removes toxins from the body, lowers anxiety, and makes you feel good about yourself. If you want stress relief, try a long walk, a jog, a bike ride, or even a hardcore dose of aerobics. It works if you do it with the right frame of mind.
3. Stop and Breathe. Not everyone has time (or interest) to work on meditation, but there is no doubt that more meditation would lead to a less-stressed world. Mini-meditation sessions focused on breathing can be stress reducers. It's as simple as taking a minute from time to time and just concentrating on your breathing. Sitting or standing quietly, take a deep breath, filling your belly up with air as you inhale. As you exhale, silently count "one" to yourself and empty your belly of air. Continue inhaling and exhaling until you reach the count of 10; repeat as often as you wish. It works.
4. Stretch. Yoga is a stretching-based workout that is gaining more and more popularity in the West. Whether or not you have time to do yoga, you can always just do some stretching and get similar stress relief. Starting each morning with 2 or 3 minutes of light stretching as soon as you get out of bed can do wonders for your outlook on the day. Go very easy and just hold a few different stretching poses for 20 to 30 seconds each. You will find that this not only gets your blood flowing, but regulates your breathing, centers you, and makes you more alert.
5. Drink Water. What, water again? We can't stress (pun intended) the importance of drinking water enough so we bring it up all the time. Water hydrates and cleanses your system, removes toxins and makes you less hungry. Forcing yourself to drink a glass of water a few times a day is the simplest body regulator there is.