Emerging research suggests certain scents can alter brain wave activity and decrease stress hormones in the body. So whether you enjoy candles, diffusers, or body products, consider incorporating some aromatherapy into your day. If you aren't into drawing or painting, consider coloring in a coloring book.

Adult coloring books have risen in popularity, and for good reason—coloring can be a great stress reliever. Research consistently shows that coloring can have a meditative effect. One study found that anxiety levels decline in people who were coloring complex geometric patterns, making it a perfect outlet for stress reduction.

What can you do to calm mental stress over the long term? Certain habits can promote resilience to stress and increase overall wellness.

For example, those who exercise or meditate regularly tend to become less stressed in the face of a difficult challenge. So it's important to create a lifestyle that will help you ward off stress and deal with challenges in a healthy way.

A poor diet can bring greater reactivity toward stress. Emotional eating and reaching for high-fat, high-sugar foods can provide a temporary sense of relief that adds to your long-term stress. Refined carbs, like cookies and potato chips, can cause a spike in blood sugar.

When your blood sugar crashes, you might experience more stress and anxiety. Consuming a healthy diet can help you combat stress over the long haul. Foods like eggs, avocado, and walnuts support mood regulation and energy balance.

Some vitamins and supplements may have benefits for stress relief. What vitamins help with stress? A daily multivitamin may help address nutritional deficits and ensure you get the necessary vitamins and minerals to feel your best.

Other supplements that may help relieve stress include:. Leisure activities can be a wonderful way to relieve stress. Yet, many people feel as though their lives are too busy for hobbies, games, or extra fun.

But building time for leisure into your schedule could be key to helping you feel your best. And when you feel better, you'll perform better, which means leisure time may make your work time more efficient. Whether you find joy in caring for a garden or you like making quilts, hobbies and leisure are key to living your best life.

The way you talk to yourself matters. Harsh self-criticism, self-doubt, and catastrophic predictions aren't helpful. If you're constantly thinking things like, "I don't have time for this," and "I can't stand this," you'll stress yourself out.

It's important to learn to talk to yourself in a more realistic, compassionate manner. When you call yourself names or doubt your ability to succeed, reply with a kinder inner dialogue. Positive self-talk can help you develop a healthier outlook.

And an optimistic and compassionate conversation can help you manage your emotions and take positive action. Yoga combines physical movement, meditation, light exercise, and controlled breathing—all of which provide excellent stress relief. And while you're likely to reap immediate benefits from a single yoga session, you're likely to receive long-term benefits if you incorporate it into your life in a consistent way.

Yoga offers a variety of physical, psychological, and spiritual benefits. To get started, you might take a class, enroll in an online program, or use an app to help you begin practicing. Gratitude helps you recognize all the things you have to be thankful for. Whether you're grateful for a sunny day or thankful you arrived at work safely, think about all the good things you have in life.

Gratitude also reminds you of all of the resources you have to cope with stress, which can be quite empowering. Studies also show grateful people enjoy better mental health, lower stress, and a better quality of life.

So whether you decide to make it a habit to identify what you're grateful for as you sit around the dinner table or you decide to write down three things you're grateful for in a gratitude journal every day, make gratitude a regular habit.

Physical activity is key to managing stress and improving mental health. And the best news is, there are many different kinds of activities that can reduce your stress.

Join a gym, take a class, or exercise outside. Keep in mind that there are many different ways to get more physical activity in your day too. Walking, strength training, kayaking, hiking, and spin class are just a few different examples of ways you can get stress relief.

Most stress relievers focus on changing your emotions. But sometimes, you won't necessarily get relief until you change the environment. This is referred to as problem-focused coping as opposed to emotion-focused coping. Problem-focused coping involves taking steps to remove the stressor from your life as opposed to changing how you feel about the stressor.

If you're trying to squeeze 20 hours worth of work into 16 hours, you're going to feel stressed. Reducing your workload could be key to helping you get through the day feeling better. Whether that means stepping away from a committee you joined or it involves hiring someone to complete some of your household chores for you,.

Honing your time management skills can allow you to minimize the stressors that you experience, and better manage the ones you can't avoid. When you are able to complete everything on your "to do" list without the stress of rushing or forgetting, your whole life feels easier.

Having supportive people in your life is the key to stress management. If you lack emotional support and friendship, it's important to get it. That may mean reaching out to your existing network. Perhaps confiding in a family member or distant friend can help you become closer and it may give you the social support you need.

You may also need to expand your network. Join an organization, attend a support group, or get professional help if you lack supportive people in your life.

Sometimes, the best way to reduce your stress is to cut something out of your life. Get rid of the things that are adding to your stress so you can experience more peace. Watching the news, being constantly connected to your digital devices, drinking alcohol, and consuming too much caffeine are just a few of the things that may add more stress to your life.

Making some changes to your daily habits could be instrumental in helping you feel better. Finding the best stress relief strategies may take some experimenting. Some strategies may take practice too. But it's important to keep looking for the tools that will help you manage life's inevitable ups and downs in a healthy way.

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Stress is something that just about everyone knows well and experiences often. It's that feeling of pressure, typically a result of too much to do and too little time to do it in.

In a busy life, stress is almost unavoidable. Stress is caused by events that are positive — new job, vacation or marriage — as well as negative — job loss, divorce or death in the family.

Stress is not the event itself but rather, your psychological or physical reaction to the event. Anxiety is a tense feeling that often accompanies stress. It's typically directed toward the future — toward something that may happen soon.

Some Anxiety can motivate you or help yo respond to danger. However, if you have ongoing anxiety that interferes with daily activities and makes it hard to enjoy life, then anxiety can be a problem. There's no way to predict for certain what will cause someone to develop an anxiety disorder, but you can take steps to reduce the impact of symptoms if you're anxious:.

February is American Heart Month. Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death in the U. African Americans are significantly affected by heart disease, resultingRead more.

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