STRESS….
These days, stress is something everyone seems to talk about all the time.
Whether it’s our friends and family telling us about their stressful jobs, people we follow on social media talking about stress relief tactics or the news reporting statistics of how the pandemic is affecting people’s stress levels! It’s everywhere!
So today, I just want to encourage everyone to take some extra time to relax and breathe to let your parasympathetic nervous system bring your body into homeostasis. Here are some good activities I can recommend to destress that aren’t too time consuming and can definitely be squeezed into a busy day but really make a difference.
Take a five to ten minute walk without your shoes on and without your phone.
Looking at our phones is shown to increase our stress levels quite a bit! Especially with social media. The apps are actually designed to get your sympathetic nervous system active so you stay on them longer! This kind of walk will stimulate your body by having direct contact with the ground and relax your mind by taking your eyes off your phone.
Take five minutes to stretch.
There are lots of ideas on our Instagram feed and our blog about different stretches to do. Some of my favorites would be to stretch your quads and hamstrings to relieve tightness in your lumbar spine, lacrosse ball your pectoralis muscles to relieve shoulder tension, and lay on a foam roll for your thoracic spine to reverse the rounding and stiffness in there caused by chronic sitting!
Laugh!!
Take ten minutes to watch some stand up comedy, call a funny friend, recall some funny memories and allow yourself to really laugh out loud and enjoy the feeling of laughter. It’s so very healing.