13 Ways to Bust Stress, Instantly

We all feel stressed from time to time and, unfortunately, stress has a way of affecting your entire well-being. It can cause headaches, insomnia, and cause changes to your appetite.

The effects of stress tend to build up over time. Long-term stress weakens your immune system and can cause a number of health problems or exasperate existing problems.

Since stress is an inevitable part of life, how can you protect your health? Here are 13 things you can do today to relieve stress. These 13 shorter exercises allow you to relax and/or release tension quickly in a variety of different settings (IE: at lunch break, at a meeting, while waiting in line at a store, at a red light, etc.)

You can use these short exercises to release your calm before, during or after stressful situations, and maybe even prevent a stress response.

13 Stress Busters

  1. Take a few deep belly breaths
  2. Sigh
  3. Laugh
  4. Yawn, unclench or move your jaw
  5. Shrug your shoulders several times
  6. Relax your shoulders
  7. Gently massage your temples
  8. Raise your eyebrows and hold them up until the count of 3; release and repeat several times
  9. To relieve eye strain, rub your palms briskly together, cup hands and place them over open or closed eyes
  10. With open or closed lids, rotate your eyes in circles slowly, top, right side, bottom, left side; relax and reverse. Repeat 3 times
  11. Neckroll: Always move your neck very gently and slowly. Let your chin drop down to the center of your chest. Keeping your chin close to your body, slowly move your head to look over your left shoulder. Slowly return to center and repeat on the right side
  12. Stretch
  13. Use prayer or positive affirmations.

If you’re feeling overwhelmed by stress, you may need some extra support. Call us, at 306-757-6675. Our no-cost, call-in counselling service, Thrive Walk-in Counselling- is open 5 days a week from 12:30 pm-4:00 pm.

This blog post was created as part of our response to the Covid-19 pandemic. For more information about our response, including changes to our service delivery and other resources, please visit: https://familyserviceregina.com/covid19-a-message-from-the-ceo/