Sleep is important for your growth, for your vision, for your sex life — for everything you’re trying to do in life, sleep plays an important role in resetting your body and getting your body and mind ready for the days ahead.
But stress can get your sleep off track.
Whether it’s stressing about this pandemic, how to pay the bills, or just your health in general, the fact is, everyone has some sort of stress in their life.
Ongoing, chronic stress can cause or worsen many serious health problems, including mental health problems, such as depression, anxiety, and personality disorders. Cardiovascular disease, including heart disease, high blood pressure, abnormal heart rhythms, heart attacks, and stroke, is all related to stressors put on the body.
In other words, your quality of sleep plays a direct role in your body’s ability to keep you safe from the novel coronavirus.
So what’s the solution? Check out these six ways to manage daily adversities, demanding circumstances, and the pressures of it all.
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When it gets hot in the kitchen, sometimes your only option is to literally breathe. Take a moment to sit down and gather your emotions by breathing in for a count of six and out for a count of six. This will bring oxygen into your body, helping you relax, lowering your blood pressure, and relieving stress and anxiety in your mind and body.
Some days you simply have to switch it up. Tired of looking at that same crack in the wall that almost always sends you into a downward spiral of worry, regret, and anxiety? It may be time to finally make that move and stop putting it off. In the meantime, make a plan and work towards it every day at a café, on how you’re going to finally get out of that house or apartment.
When your pressure is high and your emotions are even higher, a nice, warm tea or even soup will certainly soothe you for the time being. Sometimes excessive stress and anxiety may cause sleeplessness. Chamomile tea not only reduces stress and anxiety, but it also helps treat insomnia. Just like peppermint tea, chamomile tea has many benefits, including relaxing muscles and reducing irritability.
Sometimes, uncontrollable situations, things, or even people may cause our stress. In those moments when we feel no one understands or can relate, journaling how we feel will help. Having a chance to simply vent is all that’s needed sometimes. If you don’t feel comfortable or even have someone there to express your feelings to, hashing it all out on paper never hurts anyone.
Journaling can reduce stress by helping one get rid of negative thoughts. A study published in the 2011 Psychological Science journal found that writing down your thoughts and physically throwing away the paper you wrote them on can be an effective way to clear your mind.
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Honestly, everyone should schedule some “me” time every single day. Taking a little time for yourself refreshes and re-energizes you. It not only allows you to sleep better and feel less fatigue, but it also helps with depression and anxiety.
It also builds greater resistance to sickness and relieves tension. After a moment to yourself, you will start to think more clearly and make better decisions, building your self-esteem over time as you come to realize that you are important and deserve to have a little time to yourself.
Working out has some direct stress-busting benefits. Physical activity not only helps pump up the production of your brain’s feel-good neurotransmitters, called endorphins, but it also increases your overall health and your sense of well-being, which puts more pep in your step every single day.
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