floodsTheyk7 Stress-Busting Rituals To Live By

7 Stress-Busting Rituals to Live By

Take a deep breath. Things are not as wrong as it feels. Nothing is worth weakening your all-important health. It’s not worth choking yourself into stress, anxiety, and despair. Do you have your stress-busting daily rituals in place?

Your mind can go many directions under stress. It can be positive or negative: on or off. Where your brain will go under stress influences your emotional strength and training.

Mental Health Professionals That Help You Form Stress Busting Daily Rituals

Over the years, Dr. Bernard Kim and his team of highly trained mental health professionals, have analyzed and tested dozens of strategies that successful people employ when faced with stress. Still, in this article, we want to tell you about seven of the most effective strategy we’ve experienced. Some of these strategies may seem obvious at first. Then you realize the real challenge lies in recognizing when you need to use them, and having the discipline to do so despite your stress. Let’s take a look.

Stress-Busting Daily Rituals

Managing stress when you’re under pressure directly affects your overall performance in all walks of life. There are many scientific studies over the years have found that successful people, in various fields of education, are highly skilled at managing their emotions in times of stress to remain calm and in control.

New Research On Stress And How To Relieve It

There’s new research that shows there is a significant upside to experiencing momentary stress. The same study then reinforces how important it is to keep long-term stress under control. The recent research (From Cal Berkeley) found that the beginning stages of stress challenge the brain. The brain then grows new cells responsible for improved memory and cognitive ability. However, we see this effect when stress is temporary. As soon as the pressure continues beyond a few moments into a prolonged state, it starts to interfere with your brain’s ability to function and grow new cells. That’s kind of scary, isn’t it?

And there’s more to the story too. Besides decreasing your brain cells and mental performance, this type of stress will increase your risk of things like heart disease, depression, and other ailments. Fortunately, unless a wild animal is chasing you, the bulk of your fear is unnecessary. Many successful people have well-honed coping strategies that they employ in stressful situations. They lower their stress levels regardless of what’s happening in their environment, ensuring that the stress they experience is temporary and not prolonged.

We here at Pondworks have implemented many strategies that we’ve witnessed that humans use when faced with stressful situations.

Here are the seven best stress-reducing rituals that successful people we know live by:

Monitor And Suppress Negative Self-Talk

One big step in managing your stress involves stopping negative self-talk dead in its tracks. The more you focus on your negative thoughts, the more power you give them. And most surprising of our negative thoughts are just that – thoughts, not facts. Next time you see yourself believing the pessimistic things your subconscious mind says, stop and take a deep breath.

Then ask yourself these questions: “Are these negative thoughts true? Are they facts?” Take a minute to slow down your thoughts and negative thinking, and you will be clear-headed in evaluating the reality of the situation. Eliminating this self-talk is foundational to your stress-busting daily rituals!

Try And Refocus On The Positives

At times you have to give your wandering mind a little help by consciously selecting something positive. Positive thoughts will refocus your attention to things that matter. When things go well, and you’re in a good mood, this is relatively easy. When times are tough; however, your mind floods with negative thoughts; this is a real challenge. These moments, you should think about your day and identify a positive thing that happened, no matter how tiny. Or reflect on the previous day or even another recent time that you remember.
The point is to have something good and positive, no matter how small, that you’re able to shift your thoughts to when your negativity starts in your mind. At times you will have to look a little deeper than usual, but it still exists.

Avoid The “Should Have” And “What If” Traps

These statements just add to the fire of needless stress and worry. Things can go in so many different directions in your life. If you spend time worrying about the missed opportunities (should have) and negative possibilities (what ifs), the less time you’ll spend on taking decisive action. The actions that will calm you down and move you forward. People know that the “should haves” and “what ifs” will only take them to an emotional state of mind they don’t want.

Reach Out To Supporters When You Need Them

It’s entirely ineffective to do everything yourself, but so many of us do. If you want to reduce your stress and increase productivity, you must recognize your weaknesses and ask for others fo help, or just someone to listen to you. Something as little as talking about your fears will help you overcome them. Often its other people can see a solution that you can’t because they’re not emotionally investing in your situation.
Remember that everyone has someone who is in their corner and cheering for their success. These people will be ready to help you figure out a difficult life situation when it arises. Make sure you know who these people are in your life and make a real effort to ask for their insight and assistance when you need it most.

Practice Mindful Relaxation Stress Relieving Rituals

You know by now that mindful relaxation is the key to mental and physical regeneration. There are hundreds of ways to do this, but the real foundation of all of them is breathing. Something as simple as breathing is a simple but powerful way to meditate. Breath unites your body and your thoughts together. When you’re feeling stressed and down, make sure to take a ten-minute break. Then quietly and focus on your breath. Sit back in a chair and relax with your eyes closed and breathe. No distractions.
The goal here is to spend this time focused only on the feeling of inhaling and exhaling, which will prevent your mind from overthinking and wandering. It is very challenging to do this for more than a minute or two, especially when you’re just starting with this stress-busting ritual. And it’s perfectly okay when random thoughts sidetrack you, and this happens to expert meditators. Simply bring your focus back to your breathing.
The bottom line is this; Whenever your thoughts become saturated with the worries and stress of life, use your breath as a powerful means to take hold of your mind. Simply breathe, and be present for a moment. You will feel better.

Sincerely Appreciate What You Have

Take time every day to think about what you’re grateful for isn’t merely a great practice to do; it also will help you be more relaxed. Gratitude reduces the stress hormone cortisol by over 20%. Research conducted at the University of California, Davis found that those who worked daily to express their appreciation and gratitude openly experienced higher moods, energy levels, and physical energy and health. Sometimes even during bouts of stress! It’s highly likely that their lower cortisol levels played a significant role in this.

Take A Walk, Take A Breath, Relax

Take a walk around Town lake – Walking while practicing ‘social distancing.’

So there you have it, seven stress-reducing rituals we’ve seen work wonders in the lives of some of the most successful people we’ve interacted with over the years. If you feel like your life has been too stressful lately, it’s time to follow in their footsteps.
Today we challenge you to apply one of these stress-reducing rituals to your routine. Please contact us and let us know if you would like to talk about strategies for your mental health and stress reduction strategies. Which ritual you want to implement in your life.
And finally, ask yourself, “What’s one small step I can take TODAY to get started?”

***ATTENTION COVID-19 – We are now offering web-based, virtual “telemedicine” appointments that are now available to meet the demands for social distancing to prevent the spread of coronavirus. ***

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