Managing STRESS effectively: A fundamental skill for healthy living

We all face stress in our daily lives, managing stress effectively is fundamental to healthy living. When unchecked, excess stress can affect blood pressure, weight, emotional well-being, sleep, and increase one’s risk for heart disease. Therefore, it is important to learn to practice effective coping strategies to improve our awareness and response to stress.

Below are some tips and techniques to help you manage your stress.

• Exercise regularly.
• Limit alcohol and caffeine and don’t smoke.
• Keep your schedule manageable. Give yourself time to get organized, and learn to say “no”.
• Change how you respond to difficult situations by trying to be positive instead of negative.
• Learn to relax. Try different relaxation techniques that just take a minute or two.

Here are some that may work:

1. Deep Breathing: Exhale slowly, relax your muscles, and feel the tension flow out of your body.
2. Progressive relaxation: Tense every muscle in your body starting with your toes, hold for 10 seconds, and gradually release the tension.
3. Shoulder shrugs: Raise your shoulders up to your ears, hold for 4 seconds, release, and slowly rotate your head in a circular manner.
4. Focused breathing: Imagine that the air you are inhaling is coming to you as a cloud that floats away as you exhale; repeat very slowly and relax.
5. Time out: Pick something enjoyable where you are and focus on it for 10 seconds, admiring what you like about it, and breathing deeply.

These are only a few healthy ways of coping with the daily stress that most of us feel. Remember that is important to find a way to deal with the stress that we face in order to be more effective and accomplish our goals in every aspect of our lives.

About the Author
Orlando Vasquez is a Health Services Manager with Concentra Medical Centers, who have 8 locations in Northern NJ and over 300 locations nationwide.
Contact Orlando_vasquez@concentra.com or 201-206-4554.

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