Healthy Habits To Manage Stress: Mental health has a pivotal role to play in maintaining the overall health and well-being of an individual. It is necessary to practise habits that help in minimising daily stress levels to live a healthy, happy and longer life.
Mental health formulates as one of the most important aspects of our lives. It is an integral component that plays a pivotal role in determining our overall health and well-being. Good mental health refers to emotional, psychological, and social well-being, how we think, feel, and act and helps determine how we handle stress and make healthy choices. With sedentary lifestyle choices, it becomes quite a task to handle everyday hassles and deal with regular stress. It is necessary to practise habits that help in minimising daily stress levels to live a healthy, happy and longer life.
Healthy Habits To Manage Stress
1. Good Sleep
Prioritising a good night’s sleep is extremely important to manage stress daily. Adequate sleep lets your body rest, relax rejuvenate and store energy for carrying out its functions. Health experts suggest that about 7 to 8 hours of sleep is a must for an individual to let the body rest. A good night’s sleep makes you feel relaxed and full of energy and enhances your ability to deal with stress effectively.
2. Regular Exercise
Including exercise in your regular routine is one of the healthiest habits that you can adapt to. Regular exercise according to Mayo Clinic pumps up the endorphins and may help bump up the production of your brain’s feel-good neurotransmitters, called endorphins.
3. Healthy Diet
A healthy diet rich in necessary nutrients including vitamins, minerals, fibre, protein, calcium, iron and many others helps in promoting a healthy body. According to the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, a healthy balanced diet can promote a healthy immune system and provide the body with extra energy needed to cope with daily stress. Certain foods like polyunsaturated fats including omega-3 fats and vegetables may help to regulate cortisol levels.
4. Nature Stroll
If you are stressed out and do not want to do anything, just go out in nature for a 30-minute walk. Many studies have shown that taking a 15-30-minute stroll in nature can increase positive feelings, relax your mind, reduce stress and enhance productivity.
5. Meditation
According to Johns Hopkins Medicine, fast, shallow breathing and erratic thoughts occur in response to stress. Therefore, take slow deep breaths to reduce muscular tension, lower the heart rate, and calm the mind. Whenever you feel stressed, breathe slowly, focusing on each in and out-breath.
