Natural Ways to Relieve Stress

The convenience of modern life can come at a price. Feeling overwhelmed from the rush of daily living is a common occurrence in this day and age, but you don't have to take medications to help you to relax. There are many effective and natural methods to calm your mind and your spirit.

Natural Ways to Relieve Stress: Our Top Four Picks

Sleep

Sleep is number one when it comes to natural ways to relieve stress. Getting a restful night's sleep while stressed may be difficult, but it can also help to ease your stress levels. Ask anyone with a child about the link between sleep and mood. Children often become cranky when they are tired, and scientists have discovered that this is the same in adults. A sour mood could worsen stress levels.

According to the American Psychological Association, sleeping fewer than eight hours a night increased the chances of a person feeling stressed. In the same study, many people reported an inability to sleep due to racing thoughts from a stressed lifestyle.

The American Sleep Foundation provides the following tips for getting a more restful sleep every night. Create a healthy sleep environment to help you to relax at night. Use the bedroom only for nighttime activities and not for watching TV, updating your Facebook status or reading. Do these things elsewhere before going to bed for the night. At least one hour before bed, stop working and begin to relax before bed.

Meditate

Meditation does not always have to go hand-in-hand with spiritual practices. The Mayo Clinic outlines several highly-effective forms of meditation. One type is mindful meditation, which just means focusing on your breathing instead of your racing thoughts. Other meditation-related natural ways to relieve stress include yoga, transcendental meditation, qi gong, tai chi, guided and mantra meditation. Compared to other stress-reduction techniques, meditation is cheap, effective and it can be done anywhere.

Exercise

Getting adequate exercise helps reduce stress in the body in several ways. Exercise not only helps you to improve your muscle tone and cardiovascular healthy but it also boosts energy, helps support healthy hormonal balance and changes your brain chemistry. According to the American Psychological Association, studies on animals indicated a link between a rise in norepinephrine and exercise. Norepinephrine is a chemical that is considered a natural antidepressant.

Natural Supplements

When all else fails, many people seek out natural supplements to ease their stress symptoms. Products containing passion flower, maca and lavender could prove to help boost energy levels and are all great natural ways to relieve stress. Passionflower has a traditional use as a supplement to ease anxiety and calm people, according to the University of Maryland Medical Center. Maca root comes from a Peruvian plant and has been historically used to help maintain sexual health, enhance arousal, and boost energy levels, according to WebMD. The University of Maryland Medical Center notes that lavender has been used in the past as a pillow filler to soothe occasional insomnia or to ease stress. Results from herbal treatments may vary, but these supplements could be an effective means of reducing stress.

Fighting stress begins with improving your overall lifestyle by getting more sleep and taking the time to meditate and exercise, but natural supplements could help to also reduce high stress levels when other methods do not help enough.

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