Is stress and anxiety overwhelming you?

Stress and anxiety are pretty common. In fact, nearly half of Americans report feeling overwhelming stress at least once a month, according to the American Psychological Association. However, it's important not to ignore the symptoms of stress and anxiety. Stress can have a negative impact on your mental and physical health and other aspects of life.

Stress and anxiety are two terms that are used together frequently. This is because in today's fast-paced world, the stress levels of many individuals are high. A lot of this stress and anxiety comes from the workplace and general life situations. It can be hard to keep up with everything that life throws at you. For this reason, you may feel stress or anxiety over different aspects of your life. This can include work, school, family, and so on.

As part of the workplace, we often have to deal with stressful situations. In some cases, it can be a source of discouragement and can make us feel depressed, which in turn affects our performance at work and relationships. It is important to manage stress as a source of inspiration and motivation.

When you’re stressed, it may be hard to concentrate or feel like yourself. To relieve stress and anxiety, try these five steps:

1. Getting deep and Rem sleep is important because it renews your mind and helps you feel well rested. Rem sleep replenishes the feel-good chemicals like dopamine and serotonin. This helps your mood, memory, and concentration. Deep sleep decreases anxiety and stress by reorganizing connections in the brain. It’s not about the quantity of sleep you get; it’s the quality.

2. Transcendental Meditation doesn’t require you to empty out your mind, monitor your thoughts, or control your mind. This form of meditation allows your mind to naturally go inward with ease. It allows your mind to do what it needs to organically to release stressful and fearful thoughts/feelings. You’ll experience a more peaceful inner awareness and pure consciousness. To learn more, go to tm.org.

3. Walking and any kind of exercise promotes the release of endorphins that stimulate relaxation and improve moods. Even a brisk walk can alleviate stress and anxiety. It takes you away from what’s creating the stress/anxiety, relaxes the tension in your body, gets you out of your head, and clears your thoughts.

4. Earthing (aka grounding) in nature can significantly reduce stress and improve how you feel emotionally, mentally, and physically. Placing your bare feet on the grass, dirt, or sand for at least 30 minutes will transfer the energy in your body into the earth. The earth absorbs the toxins in your body and calms the nervous system. It releases any negative energy you’re carrying or might have absorbed from your environment or people you come in contact with.

5. Slower tempo music can soothe your mind and relax your muscles by lowering cortisol levels and calming the nervous system. When listening to music it puts you in the present moment and helps you release emotions. This leads to lowering your stress and bringing you out of anxious thoughts and feelings.

Practicing at least one of these steps will result in significantly reducing your stress and anxiety. You’ll feel more relaxed with a clearer mind.