7 Science-Backed Ways You Can Reduce Stress Today

Sean is the founder and CEO of Rype, a language learning app. He's an entrepreneur and blogger. Read full profile

We all feel stress in our lives. Some of united states experience stress once in awhile, while others face it on a daily basis.

Whether you're one of the few people who perform better under stress or not, the side effects of stress are clear. Stress has been shown to increment the risk of disease or illness, atomic number 82 to premature crumbling, and weaken your immune system.

Here'due south a helpful diagram of how chronic stress works and how it tin can act equally a negative feedback loop in our encephalon.

If you're worried about the level of stress you experience, you're not solitary. Over 54 percent of Americans feel an urgent need to reduce stress levels on a daily ground.

The practiced news is that in that location are science-backed ways that have been proven to reduce stress, starting today.

1. Exercise Your Power Poses

I of the most popular TED Talks to date is called"Your Trunk Language Shapes Who You Are"by social psychologist Amy Cuddy.

Cuddy'due south enquiry reveals that adopting the torso language associated with authorisation for just 120 seconds is enough to create a twenty-percent increment in testosterone and a 25-percent subtract in the stress hormone cortisol. In other words, your posture can brand a significant difference in your mood, emotions, and more than importantly, reduce stress levels.

"If y'all experience similar y'all shouldn't be somewhere: Fake it. Do it not until you make it—just until you become information technology." — Amy Cuddy

Cuddy makes a distinguishable contrast by presenting the departure between a "High Power" pose and a "Low Power" pose. In the image beneath, discover how relaxed and comfortable the people in the height row expect (and experience) versus the bottom.

The reason why we bring up Cuddy'south research is that most of us are stuck in a "Low Power" pose throughout the solar day (i.e. typing on our computer, in meetings), which inevitably enhances our stress levels and reduces our energy levels.

Endeavour to have regular breaks during your piece of work, and put yourself in one of the power poses above for ii-3 minutes. You'll be surprised at the level of touch on this has on your mood and stress levels. As we shared in our post on productivity, you lot can try using the Pomodoro timer to work in 25-minute, intensive segments to strength yourself to have breaks.

What would exist even improve is to experiment working while standing up. A 2012 study found that if the average American reduced his or her sitting time to three hours per day, life expectancy would climb by two years.

If you've never worked while standing upwardly, you lot can refer to this photo every bit a starting guide.

2. Express mirth More

Laughing each 24-hour interval keeps the doc abroad.

According to the Mayo Clinic:

"Laughter enhances your intake of oxygen-rich air, stimulates your heart, lungs and muscles, and increases the endorphins that are released by your brain."

This is probably why comedic videos are by far the most popular videos online, because laughter releases dopamine in our brains, encouraging us to seek more of this sensation.

What's even more interesting is that we don't necessarily take to watch or witness anything funny to gain the benefits of reducing stress, equally the apprehension alone can boost endorphins in our brains.

3. Practice Gratitude

Gratitude tin sometimes be placed in the same category equally spiritualization or positive psychology, which is non often associated with science-backed inquiry. This is probably because throughout history, philosophers and religious leaders take extolled gratitude as a virtue integral to health and well-beingness without any scientific research backings.

But this has inverse, co-ordinate to Robert Emmons, a psychologist professor at the University of California Davis, who says that "Research on gratitude is beginning to advise that feelings of thankfulness have tremendous positive value in helping people cope with daily problems, especially stress."

The main reason for this is that it's very hard to experience the feelings of fear and gratitude at the aforementioned time, since we're naturally more optimistic when we're grateful for what nosotros have.

In another research performed at the University of Utah, researchers compared the immune systems of healthy, showtime-yr law students under stress. By midterm season, students characterized as optimistic (based on survey responses) maintained higher numbers of blood cells that protect the immune system compared with their more pessimistic classmates.

A helpful tool I've been using personally is the v-minute journal, which helps you practise daily gratitude by answering specific questions about your twenty-four hours and the day ahead of you.

4. Get Moving (Fifty-fifty For vii Minutes)

If you've been sitting downwardly all day (similar I take), then this is a tip to seriously consider.

Exercise has been proven to improve our mental health, decrease hazard of diseases, and improve our quality of sleep, which is a primal factor to reducing stress.

The problem for most of us, which applies to learning a linguistic communication just as much as exercise, is finding the time in your schedule to practice it. Luckily, you tin showtime by spending just seven minutes in your day.

The science-based 7-minute workout is hard, merely short plenty to fit information technology into your schedule. These elementary exercises do non require any weights, which makes it possible for y'all to practise at home, at your office, or outside.

5. Develop A Growth Mindset

Ane of my favorite books on personal development and growth isMindsetpast Carol Dweck, a social psychology professor at Stanford University with over twenty years of defended research in the field of psychology.

"For 20 years, my inquiry has shown that the view you adopt of yourself profoundly affects the fashion you lead your life." – Carol Dweck

In her volume, Dweck talks about the 2 dissimilar types of mindsets that an individual has, which is the fixed or growth mindset. Which mindset yous choose to practice can have a significant touch on on your optimism, levels of stress, and how yous make important decisions in your life.

Dweck describes the deviation between the two mindsets:

"A stock-still mindset comes from the belief that your qualities are carved in rock – who you are is who you are, period. Characteristics such as intelligence, personality, and inventiveness are stock-still traits, rather than something that tin be developed.

A growth mindset comes from the belief that your bones qualities are things yous can cultivate through effort. Yes, people differ profoundly – in bent, talents, interests, or temperaments – simply everyone tin alter and grow through application and experience."

The point here is that no matter what situation you face, you can choose to believe that this is the beginning of ameliorate days ahead of you, or the showtime of the worst days alee of yous.

half-dozen. Use Stress As Fuel

The scientific research on the growth mindset shows the level of bear on our mindset has on reducing stress levels. To take this on another level, you lot tin can shift your unabridged perspective most what stress means to you.

If you think most it, experiencing stress often means you're pushing yourself to abound out of our comfort zone, because you have a deeper pregnant that goes across your current emotions. While no one wants to have more stress in their lives, how nosotros perceive the stress that enters our lives is crucial, co-ordinate to health psychologist Kelly McGonigal.

In the 2012 newspaper "Improving Acute Stress Responses: The Power of Reappraisal," published by scientists at Harvard'due south department of psychology, inquiry shows that treating common stress responses as a positive might even exist expert for the heart.

seven. Learn Something New

The last tip we have to reduce stress is to spend your fourth dimension learning something new that interests you, whether it'south a new skill, a new linguistic communication, a new industry, etc.

Accept you ever watched a documentary, read an article, or participated in a fascinating conversation that got your encephalon fired up, even though you felt stressed or tired just moments earlier?

Recent enquiry shows that finding twenty-30 minutes a solar day to do something you're interested in can be one of the all-time ways to reduce stress and increase your levels of happiness. These findings share that "interest" doesn't but keep you going despite fatigue, it really replenishes your energy. And and so that replenished energy flows into any you practice next.

It likewise recommends that you go on these two points in mind:

Offset, interesting is not the aforementioned thing as pleasant, fun, or relaxing (though they're not mutually exclusive). Taking a lunch interruption might be relaxing, and if the food is practiced it will probably be pleasant, just unless y'all are eating at the hot new molecular gastronomy eating place, it probably won't exist interesting. Then information technology won't replenish your energy.

Second, interesting does not accept to mean effortless. The aforementioned studies that showed that interest replenished energy showed that it did so even when the interesting task was difficult and required attempt. So, you actually don't take to "have it like shooting fish in a barrel" to refill your tank.

In conclusion, finding things that interest you lot while challenging you mentally is the way to go if yous want to reduce stress levels.

Next Steps

Share with us below what you lot've tried or are doing today to reduce stress levels in your life, and let us know which one y'all resonated with the most!

Also, if y'all enjoyed this post, you'll want to check out the 17 Best Productivity Apps That Will Boost Your Productivity and Happiness and this Complete Guide to Reprogramming Your Mind to Form Good Habits.

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Source: https://www.lifehack.org/395739/7-science-backed-ways-you-can-reduce-stress-today