Whether you’re running late getting the kids to school, behind on homework, or scrambling to get dinner on the table, stress can have a huge impact on your health and wellbeing.

Life isn’t easy, so stress is unavoidable, but there are ways you can reduce it, and even make it work in your favor! Check out our five tips for reducing stress in your life below.

Eat a Healthy Diet

Eating a healthy diet isn’t just something you do to trim your waistline or manage cholesterol and blood sugar. Making sure you’re giving your body the nutrients its needs everyday is integral to every facet of a healthy life -including managing your stress!

For example, including complex carbohydrates in your diet will enhance the amount of serotonin your brain produces, making you feel happier for a longer period of time.

Stress itself is also related to how well blood flows throughout your body and to your brain, so making sure you get enough Omega-3’s and leafy greens will help to cut your stress in half!

Exercise Regularly

There’s no getting around it -regular exercise will improve your overall health and wellbeing, and will certainly help to reduce stress in your life.

Whether you take a brisk walk down the street, or spend some serious time at the gym, you’ll benefit from having a boost of endorphins followed by positive feelings, enhanced appetite, and better sleep.

If nothing else, exercising can be cathartic, allowing you to get all of that built up stress out in a healthy and productive way!

Meditate

If you’re feeling overwhelmed, can’t think clearly or stay focused, then contrary to what you might think, meditating can bring you right back to a calm and centered state of mind.

There are many ways in which you can meditate, and they all work well for different people. Here are some common methods of meditation:

• Count your breaths
• Body scanning
• Mantra repetition
• Guided visualization

No matter what method you try, your mind will wander. The key is to make sure that when this happens, you gently return to the meditation. Staying present is the most difficult part, but the benefit of meditation comes from accepting your mind as it wanders and effortlessly guiding it right back to the present.

Meditating will help to slow your heart rate and breathing, lower your blood pressure, and improve the efficiency of your oxygen utilization (just to name a few things). If you’ve never practiced before, try a quick guided meditation and see how it goes! -But to reap all the benefits, you should practice daily!

Try Cannabis

Medical marijuana has become legalized in many places across the country. It’s currently legal in 36 states, and that number is likely to continue to grow.

Medical marijuana has been shown to not only reduce stress and anxiety, but it also improves lung capacity, appetite, and can help you sleep better at night. If you’re interested in learning more about the many benefits of medical marijuana, check out this article on Veriheal.

If you don’t live in a medical marijuana state, you still have options. CBD products are a great way to help reduce the unwanted physical sensations that stress can cause. Add a high quality broad-spectrum CBD oil to a hot cup of chamomile tea to help you wind down before bed, or mix a few drops into your salad dressing at lunch to give yourself a relaxed afternoon.

Broad-spectrum and CBD isolate products are legal everywhere, as they don’t contain any THC, so don’t worry about breaking the law -that’s just one less thing to stress over!

Change Your Perspective

Did you know that there’s a positive and a negative form of stress? The positive form is called eustress, and the negative is called distress.

Stress itself is just your body’s response to change. When new events occur, or when new demands are made of you, your body reacts according to those changes, and you feel stress. In other words, stress is just stress, and the way you mentally report to the sensation of it will determine whether it’s a positive or a negative experience.

For example, if you’re feeling stressed about approaching deadlines or heavier workloads, you’ll likely feel distress if your mind is caught up in the fear of failure. On the other hand, you can experience the joy of eustress with a simple shift in perspective. Get excited about the opportunity to challenge yourself, exceed your boss’ expectations, and be successful! The mind is a powerful thing if you know how to wield it!

Conclusion

Stress can be detrimental to your quality of life if left unchecked. It can either cripple you to the point of stagnation, or thrust you forward into a life of excitement and overcoming challenges.

So whether you’re feeling overwhelmed or just a little uneasy, follow these five tips, and you’ll be on your way to a stress-free life!