How To Reduce Stress Naturally: The 7 Best Ways to Do It

Stress is fatal. No, really… It doesn’t matter how healthy a person in mind and body is. A high level of stress can derail your health, then your productivity, for days, weeks, and even months.

Unfortunately, acknowledging that stress is a problem doesn’t make it go away. Your to-do list gets even longer as you attempt to reduce stress or anxiety. Laundry… check! Do the dishes… check! De-stressing…well, that’s a different story.

While I’m still a long way from flawless in my quest for better health, it doesn’t stop me from looking for solutions.

I’ve made it a point to be purposeful about dealing with stress and anxiety, especially during these moments where tension has become ubiquitous among all of us. Let’s face it: our new normal differs from what we are accustomed to, and it may be highly stressful for some of us.

Whenever I feel stressed, I try to reduce stress the natural way; these are effective ways of coping whenever I feel a wave of emotions coming on, regardless of the reason.

What Is Stress?

Stress is a term that refers to the reaction of your nervous system to any perceived threat. It can range from mild distress up to total panic and anxiety.

Stress is something that everyone suffers to some degree. How you respond to stress has a significant impact on your general well-being.

Sometimes, changing your response to a scenario might be the best approach to stress, but it is not always the best strategy.

Developing a clear understanding of how stress impacts your physical and mental health is important. It’s also important to recognize how your mental and physical health affects your stress level.

What Causes Stress?

Various physical, emotional/mental, and chemical variables can trigger stress responses. Bad news for us, because these sources are abundant these days!

So, what makes people so stressed in life? It isn’t easy to pinpoint one factor, but a few stand out:

1. Lack of Good Diet

Being on the go, we are not always in a space or place to eat good, healthy meals. As a result, it is typical for people to grab fast food or skip a meal altogether. This leads to eating foods high in sugar, sodium, and fat. The result is a body that becomes stressed because it has unhealthy fuel.

2. Too Many Toxins in the Body

Another cause of stress is the toxins that accumulate in the body. It’s no secret that the modern lifestyle does not leave enough time to remove toxins from our bodies. The result is a body that is not functioning as it should.

3. Emotional Stress

This is perhaps the most significant cause of stress! In general, the constant bombardment of media, politics, work, and life in general, can leave us with too much negativity in our hands. Many people turn to alcohol or drugs as a form of escape. Unfortunately, this only makes the problem worse!

4. Physical Trauma

This is the most prominent and immediate cause of stress, yet it’s one that most people forget about. Any physical trauma can be a huge source of anxiety, from car accidents to surgery. Even a traumatic experience that happened years ago can trigger stress responses in the body long after any physical damage is gone.

Considering all of these reasons, it is understandable that we are under more stress now than when life-or-death events (such as invading armies, wild animals, or starvation) presented themselves.

The truth is that we do not have a clear understanding of how to relieve stress… because we do not understand how to combat something we couldn’t see.

Stress harms our physical health, and this is something that is evident and is most definitely not a figment of our imagination.

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How to Reduce Stress and Start Feeling Better Today

I wanted to share the things that I do, hoping they will help you as they have helped me. Each method below has been hand-picked because it is straightforward enough for anyone to do now… right this moment!

1. Consume Foods That Lower Stress Levels

Poor diets high in processed foods, carbohydrates, sweets, and toxins put immense stress to the body.

Grains can be pretty stressful on the body for many people (some experts estimate as high as 85 percent), as they can induce an immunological reaction, damage the gut lining, and even lead to severe disease. This can also take place if you eat too many carbohydrates because the sugars in carbohydrates make insulin rise if they aren’t used right away as fuel.

Getting your nutrients from fresh, whole foods as close to their natural source is key to eating for stress reduction and adrenal nourishment. Consume plenty of water and, yes, even avoid caffeinated beverages.

2. Cut Down Exposure to Toxins

Toxins can come from our “food.” If the body is under a lot of stress, the liver and kidneys aren’t working as well as they should, making it hard to get rid of toxins.

Toxins can also come from chemicals in toothpaste, personal care products, deodorant sprays, medicines, and cleaning products, among other things. Toxic buildup in the body can also happen if we are exposed to a lot of plastic, especially plastics that have melted in the microwave.

Here are some of my top steps in reducing toxins:

Do not heat plastics in the microwave.

Do not eat any food or drink that contains bleach.
Reduce and eliminate exposure to plastics (laundry bags, plastic water bottles, shopping bags).
Wash all kitchenware, plates, cutlery, etc. with a natural-bristle brush in the dishwasher.

Go green and detoxify your home by eliminating all toxic products from our environment.
Go natural with your cleaning products and personal care products.
Eat clean and avoid processed foods.

3. Make Sure to Get Enough Sleep

Serotonin and melatonin help the body regulate good sleep and alertness during the day. These hormones can be out of balance if you don’t get enough sleep or if your sleep is interrupted. This makes you tired during the day and sleepy at night. Poor sleep can also cause fatigue, brain fog, memory problems, and more stress on the body, so it’s crucial to get enough sleep.

4. Get Some Exercise

When you are having a hard time, exercise can help. It won’t get rid of stress, but it will help you feel better by releasing endorphins into your body to boost your mood and concentration. You can do yoga, stretching exercises, or just go for a walk.

5. Get Out of the “Mood” and Fight Back Negative Thoughts

Negative thoughts can cause so much damage to our bodies that we often don’t even realize it. The ideas we have about the world can inflame our stress.

They can cause us to feel depressed, anxious, and even sad… When there is no reason for these feelings, recognizing your negative thoughts will help you realize they aren’t real.

6. Increase Your Antioxidant Intake

When confronted with stress, the body responds by increasing the rate of adrenaline production. This causes us to consume vitamins and minerals way faster, and if we do not replace our stores with antioxidant and nutrient-dense meals, we may experience depletion. If you’re feeling stressed lately, you may want to intake additional vitamin C, vitamin E, magnesium, and potassium supplements.

Some of these nutrient requirements can also be met by drinking herbal teas, which I find particularly beneficial during stressful days or illnesses. Drinking green tea, yerba mate, and even peppermint tea might be helpful for stress relief due to the high concentration of antioxidants and vitamins in these beverages.

7. Listen to Music

Music has a powerful way of influencing the body physically, emotionally, and mentally. The release of acetylcholine in the brain is associated with musical pleasure. This is why listening to uplifting music can help reduce stress levels. Music therapy can also help lower blood pressure when performed at low intensity, which is helpful for those with hypertension.

Author’s Note

There can be times when stress cannot be avoided. But with a little bit of research and attention to the various factors that may play into your health and well-being, you will find that the power to conquer stress is within your reach.

Do any of these stress-relieving techniques work for you? What are three strategies that you’ve discovered to be effective in reducing stress levels in your life? We’d love to hear your views in the comments section!

Disclosure: This is not personal medical advice, and I encourage you to consult your doctor about your specific situation. This article is for informational purposes only and based on my real-life experiences.