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The Key to Reducing Stress: A Healthy Lifestyle

Reducing stress is more than just learning some stress management techniques, because human beings are more than just physical beings. We are also emotional, mental, social and spiritual beings. Stress is a mind-body phenomenon: your mind’s perception of a threat stimulates your hypothalamus to begin the physical cascade of the stress response. Reducing stress involves a healthy lifestyle in all aspects of being human.

Emotional Health

People with mood disorders are especially prone to the effects of stress. Stress and mood feed on one another and can trigger a downward spiral into anxiety, fear, and depression. Treating and managing mood disorders, whether with medication, counseling or other means, makes you more resistant to stress.

Even if you do not have a mood disorder, there is interplay between mood and stress. Focusing on the positive and cultivating a grateful heart go a long way toward reducing stress.

Mental Health

Stress perception begins with your mind’s interpretation of events. There are cognitive techniques, such as reframing an event, which can stop the stress response before it starts. Mental stimulation in ways that you enjoy, such as reading or doing puzzles or playing mind games, not only helps with reducing stress, but it also has been shown to prevent dementia when you get older.

Social Health 

Good social support is one of the strongest factors in reducing stress. People who have family and friends who support them are more stress resistant, and they don’t bear the stress alone.

Relationships take time and work, so you have to make it a priority and be intentional about it. Cultivate relationships with your family and friends, and be there for them, so they will be there for you, reducing stress during difficult times in life.

Spiritual Health

Whether we practice a religion, or if we don’t, we are spiritual beings. Spiritual practices like meditation and prayer have been shown, in scientific studies, to be helpful in healing and health whether you believe or not.

People who do have a strong faith in God, gods, or a Higher Power have more stress resistance than people who do not. Once again, they do not bear the burden of a stressful life alone, instead they can share it with God and with other people of faith. People who practice a religion also have built in social support.

Physical Health

We are physical beings, too. Good physical health makes you more flexible, resilient, and resistant to stress. Part of the reason our society is so stressed out is because we do not have healthy lifestyles. Eating a healthy diet and getting some exercise and fresh air are helpful in reducing stress.

Reducing stress involves all aspects of being human, and developing a healthy lifestyle reduces stress holistically. It’s not a matter of managing the body’s stress response, it’s a matter of being a healthy human being.