But stress can get your sleep off track.
Whether it’s stressing about this pandemic, how to pay the bills, or just your health in general, the fact is, everyone has some sort of stress in their life.
Ongoing, chronic stress, can cause or worsen many serious health problems, including mental health problems, such as depression, anxiety, and personality disorders. Cardiovascular disease, including heart disease, high blood pressure, abnormal heart rhythms, heart attacks, and stroke are all related to stressors put on the body.
In other words, your quality of sleep plays a direct role in your body’s ability to keep you safe from the novel coronavirus.
So what’s the solution? Check out these 6 ways to manage daily adversities, demanding circumstances, and the pressures of it all:
Use Breathing Exercises
When it gets hot in the kitchen sometimes your only out is to literally breathe. Take a moment to sit down and gather your emotions by breathing in a count of 6 and out for a count of 6. This will bring oxygen into your body to help you relax, lowering your blood pressure and relieving stress and anxiety from the mind and body.
Switch Environments
Some days you simply have to switch it up. Tired of looking at that same crack in the wall that almost always sends you into a…downward spiral of worry, regret and anxiety? It may be time to finally make that move and stop putting it off. In the meantime, make a plan and work towards it every day at a café of how you’re going to finally get out of that house or apartment.
Drink Something Warm
When your pressure is high and emotions are even higher, a nice warm tea or even soup will certainly soothe you for the time being. Sometimes excessive stress and anxiety may cause sleeplessness. Chamomile tea not only reduces stress and anxiety, but it also helps treat insomnia. Just like peppermint tea, chamomile tea has great benefits in relaxing the muscles and reducing irritability.
Write It Down
Sometimes uncontrollable situations, things or even people may cause our stresses. In those moments when we feel no one understands or can relate, journaling how you feel will help. Having a change to simply vent is all that’s needed sometimes. If you don’t feel comfortable or even have someone there to express your feeling to, hashing it all out on paper never hurt anyone.
Journaling can reduce stress by helping one get rid of negative thoughts. A study published in a 2011 Psychological Science journal noted that writing down your thoughts and then physically throwing away the paper that you wrote them on can be an effective way of clearing your mind.
Take Some “Me” Time
Honestly, everyone should schedule some “me” time every single day. Taking a little time for yourself refreshes and re-energizes you. It not only allows you to sleep better and feel less fatigue but it helps with depression and anxiety.
It also builds greater resistance to sickness and relieves tension. After a moment to yourself, you will start to think more clearly and make better decisions, building your self-esteem over time as you come to realize that you are important and deserve to have a little time to yourself.
Workout
Working out has some direct stress-busting benefits. Physical activity not only helps pump up the production of your brain’s feel-good neurotransmitters, called endorphins, but it also increases your overall health and your sense of well-being which puts more pep in your step every single day.