5 ways to quickly reduce stress

Why do I stress so quickly?

We run, fly, pursue successful careers, have thriving family lives and maintain our social contacts. We are busy, sometimes way too busy. And then we get a lot of stimuli from social media, advertisements, news. So it's actually not surprising to experience constant stress. Our lives are full. Our head is full.

More and more people are suffering from stress symptoms:

• Faster irritability
• Pessimistic
• Low energy level
• More prone to anxiety
• Difficulty concentrating
• Little inner peace

Not to mention the physical symptoms of stress. These symptoms are not only bad for your body and environment, it also hinders your success, whatever goal you're pursuing. You are more irritable, toward yourself and those around you. You are less daring to take steps because you have low energy levels. Anxiety reigns supreme.

Ways to reduce stress

Reducing stress is good, but it is even better to prevent stress and go for a preventive approach. Should you still find yourself feeling stressed, try one of these 5 strategies to relieve stress.

1. Meditate

If you meditate before you really suffer from stress, you can prevent yourself from suffering the disadvantages of it. But meditation can also help relieve stress. Meditating allows you to hit the pause button and quiet all those little voices, stimuli and thoughts in your head. A few minutes of real quiet, where you breathe very consciously and just be. You can more easily find peace within yourself.

This doesn't have to be hours, but can be as little as three minutes a day. It is quite normal to need this time for yourself. Everything needs a moment of rest in order to then continue at full speed. Even your phone needs to be plugged in once in a while to be able to work 100% again afterwards, and you refuel your car regularly as well. The crazy thing is that we find this very normal, but find it harder to hit the pause button with ourselves.

Try this meditation against stress

The Meditation Moments app has a number of meditations that you can listen to when you really need a break, for example when you are very tense for an appointment. The more often you meditate, the more benefits you experience and the less susceptible you are to stress. You will find that you get inner peace faster and problems have less grip on you. You can let them slip away from you more easily.

You don't have to sit on a meditation cushion for hours to meditate. You can do it anytime, anywhere. Sitting in the sun during break time? Then close your eyes, take a few good breaths and let your thoughts flow away. But it can also be done while cooking or while waiting in line at the supermarket.

Want to start meditating and reduce or prevent stress? Try the meditation Focus on this moment from the Meditation Moments app and notice how you can reduce stress in 5 minutes.

2. Exercise

It's not bad to experience stress from time to time. Our bodies are made to handle small amounts of stress. But if you experience long-term stress, stress can cause physical consequences. You may experience headaches, abdominal pain, nausea, insomnia and sore, tense muscles.

Restlessness in your head is often a sign that your body is dysregulated. Moving your body is therefore a good way to restore the balance between body and mind. Moving is not only good for your mood, but also lets you literally shake the tension out of your body.

While all forms of movement are good (it's just a matter of finding what feels right for you) there are also forms of movement that are specifically designed to get out of your head and into your body. Yoga and Flow are examples of this.

3. Spend time on self-care

Spending enough time on self-care will keep you from getting burned out. Some examples you can apply in your daily routine are:

• Walking in nature
• Taking a hot bath
• Cooking healthy meals
• Practicing yoga
• Reading a book
• meditating for 3 minutes
• Taking a day offline

4. Breathing exercises

Have you ever noticed that the way you breathe changes when you are stressed? Stress and anxiety cause rapid, shallow breathing - which can even lead to hyperventilation or a panic attack.

By changing the way you breathe, you reduce stress immediately. Not in a few days or weeks, but now. This is because breathing exercises turn off your body's fight-or-flight mode and activate the "rest and digest" system. This is especially helpful if you feel too stressed to sit on a cushion for meditation.

Here are examples of 3 breathing exercises you can do to instantly relieve stress.

5. Practice mindfulness

Mindfulness is the ability to be present in the here and now. But how can this help reduce stress? Most worries are most likely playing out in your head (and therefore aren't actually real). Take a moment to think about this: of all the worries you've had, how many of them have actually come true?

Most of the things you worry about often don't really happen and so are really just playing out between your ears. Worrying often happens in the moments when you are trying to take control of the future. But the truth is that you often have no control over what will happen. So by worrying, you are actually creating a kind of "false security" for yourself.

Minfulness brings you back into the here and now. You don't get lost in the past and you don't worry about the future. You take life as it is, no more and no less. Simple ways to practice mindfulness are:

• Body scan
• Focusing on your breathing
• Walking meditation
• Conscious eating
• Focusing on your senses