By Reese Leonard
Most everyone knows that to feel healthy, you have to live healthy. This could mean a multitude of things like your eating habits, how much water you drink in a day, your average hours of sleep per night, keeping your body moving and active, and the list goes on. People get so caught up in everyday lifestyle choices and even unconscious habits that we settle into a baseline feeling of “healthy”. In reality, just because you drank a liter of water or got a full eight and half hours of sleep, there is a key aspect to life that many people neglect. This is your mental health and more specifically, I am talking about stress.
No one wants to wake up or walk around everyday feeling stressed. We start to lash out, forget little details, and overall just feel like a worse version of yourself. These are more common side effects of stress, but what’s happening at a more internal, cellular level is actually more damaging than eating a double bacon cheeseburger with a large side of fries and a chocolate shake, which of course I love too every once in a while. The entire tract of nutrient flow in our body becomes disheveled, our hormones are no longer properly regulated, inflammation automatically increases, our digestion completely shuts down, we are unable to burn calories, have an increase in blood cholesterol, and once again, the list goes on.
Thankfully, stress is something that can be regulated and maintained with some very easy everyday tricks.
- Check your breath
- If you are not fully inhaling and exhaling through your nose, you are not able to properly oxygenate your blood and your brain. This makes getting into fight or flight mode easier on a daily basis.
- Setting goals
- Having small little goals for each day and making sure to write them down somewhere to keep track can make the big things in life feel slightly more attainable.
- Stay active
- Being active for 20 minutes every day is shown to activate our “happy hormones” and keep us more level headed.
Sources:
The Effects of Stress on The Body, 2019 Health Coach Institute
Exercise and Stress, 2022 The Mayo Clinic