Think positive and do positive!

In a world, as focused on speed and productivity as ours is, it’s easy to get swept up in that drive and get overwhelmed by too many tasks and events. You get stressed. But what does that even mean, to “get stressed”?

What is stress?

As much as we today associate the word “stress” negatively, the physical reaction known as the stress response that is triggered by stressful situations is not actually entirely harmful.

In response to stress our muscles tighten and stress hormones such as adrenaline and cortisol are being released. All of this prepares the body for a fight or flee situation that would help you get to safety. In a more ordinary situation, it can improve athleticism or motivation.

But if you happen to constantly get stressed out, the stress response can cause real harm to your body and mind like chronic inflammation which constantly activates the immune system and increases the risk of dementia, heart disease or a stroke.

What are symptoms of stress?

In everyday life, stress can be recognized in physical pain in the head, back or chest, as well as mental problems such as difficulties in concentration and quick decision-making. Other stress symptoms include:

- emotional vulnerability with mood swings and irritability

- general feeling of sadness

- insomnia

- frequent illness

In a stressful situation it is easy to ignore these signs and try to push through the task or difficulty at all costs but stress is not without reason defined as a type of psychological pain. It hurts and you are valid in feeling that pain, whatever way it might express itself.

Ignoring signs of too much stress can only lead to further harm and should be stomped out at their root in the best-case scenario.

How to deal with stress?

The best starting point for doing so is to learn yourself. Learn what triggers stress for you and how you tend to react to that. Some of these causes of stress can be avoided as a whole or slightly modified to be less stressful.

Sometime it helps to just organize everything that needs to be done. Try making lists and be aware of the importance of your tasks. Maybe plan what you want to get done in your day and when that would fit best.

But organisation is not everything and not all stresses can be lessened in such a way. In that case you have no choice but to accept them as they are. The only thing that can be changed is your behaviour around them.

Here are some ideas to do so:

Try relaxation techniques like meditation, guided imagery or exercises for deep breathing. These can help you to lower your blood pressure as well as your breathing and heart rate.

Another thing that could help you relax is Dr. Bronner’s Lavender Range wherein all products are scented with pure lavender and lavender oils that calm the mind and soothe the body. This includes products such as:

- Pure Castile Liquid and Bar Soap

- Organic Hand Sanitiser

- Organic Sugar Soap

- Organic Hair Creme

- Organics Lotions

- Organics Shaving Soap and Hair Crème

These products are also helpful with my next advice of taking a mindful break. Relaxation can come from breaking through the amount of stressful thoughts by being mindful and anchoring yourself in the present moment.

To achieve this, you can try to concentrate and take in everything your senses can pick up on around you while doing something calming. Such as taking a slow shower with the wonderful lavender scent of Dr. Bronner’s soaps or taking an attentive walk.

Taking a walk for even just a short amount each day can work wonders for your stress management and overall health. This goes for every kind of exercise but walking is often the most convenient and it gets you out into nature, to fresh air and sunlight.

To heighten your Vitamin D intake, we also recommend Better You Vitamin D Oral Spray. The spray provides a quick and effective maintenance dosage for adults and teenagers.

Containing only vitamin D and coconut oil, this incredible pure and simple formulation provides optimal nutritional delivery, the micro-sized droplets will coat the soft tissue of the inner cheek and deliver the essential nutrients into the rich vein system below.

This allows the formulation to quickly enter the bloodstream for optimal absorption.

Another helpful exercise is to stretch your muscles that have tensed up under the stress. There are several possible ways to do so but we recommend to search some simple ones that you can do every now and then throughout the day. Even while sitting at your desk.

For example, intertwining your hand behind your back and stretching them as far as you can or grabbing your elbow over your head and stretching it in the opposite direction.

There is one other way of exercising that can be done while sitting down. It is to simply laugh. This has also been once called “internal jogging” by Dr. William Fry and it really just encourages you to watch, read or do something that makes you laugh. It will make you joyous and optimistic about the future. Which is never a bad mindset to adopt.

Coyne Healthcare’s Felix Advanced can help you with doing that. Felix® Advanced is a feel-good supplement with a highly specialised saffron extract made from the saffron crocus.

Saffron is well known for its culinary gift as a spice and has also traditionally been used for centuries as a medicine in ancient Persia to help enhance mood and relieve stress. In combination with the mood-enhancing properties of BCM-95® it helps to maintain a positive, healthy mood and relieve mood swings!

In the same lane, you should also try to counter negative thoughts with positive ones. Especially if it concerns yourself. Being self-critical will only lead to further stress so you should try being more self-affirming and praise yourself. Try to find good things in each stressful day and be mindful of them.

Something that doesn’t concern your personal thoughts but rather your surroundings is to reduce loud noise that might make it hard to think for you. In case of traffic or other unavoidable sounds, you could use earplugs or noise-cancelling headphones.

You could also use these to listen to soothing music that can help you further relax. But you have to make sure that the music is fitting and that you actually give it attention. Having mindless background noise on will not help you relieve stress. If done right music will be able to help you. 

More generally speaking, a good sleep schedule and healthy eating with a lot of plant-based meals will improve your overall stress resistance. For this, we can recommend Coyne Healthcare Vitamin B Complex.

This product combines all the individual Vitamin B’s in a new formulation to give you all their individual benefits in one. Because of that Coyne Vitamin B can improve the function of your brain and nerve cells and strengthen your muscles as these are advantages of Vitamin B12 and B1 respectively.

You should also always take good care of your social contacts. Going out and meeting up with friends can always boost your mood and maybe get you through tough times. 

Don’t be afraid to ask for help from friends like these. There is no problem in getting someone to listen to your struggles or asking for a bit of help with a stressful task.

Do stress balls or similar toys work for you? Don’t shy away from trying them out but be careful not to get too distracted by them.

It might also help you to engage in a creative outlet like journaling your thoughts of the day or painting to calm yourself. Don’t try to perfect these media as that would be counteractive. Let the progress of being creative make you relax.

And lastly, try to be more mindful of the reality of your task. How much does it really matter in the grand scheme of things? Some things are built up in our mind to be so very big and impossible when in reality they might not even be so important and not worth so much stress over them.