Calm Store have a huge kids’ section, designed to help with anxiety relief, emotional regulation, learning and having fun! Kids’ products include fidget toys, sensory & focus tools, putty, weighted blankets, social/emotional learning products, chew pendants, and quiet activities and games.
Once the initial threat subsides, the parasympathetic nervous system reduces the stress response. Cortisol levels drop and blood pressure and heart rate normalize. Although the body begins to recover, it remains on alert until the stressful event is no longer an issue.
But if it’s a chronic stressor (e.g. a demanding job or an unhappy relationship), your body remains in a state of heightened alert and stress hormones remain high.
If the stress remains and you can’t complete the stress cycle, the body repeats the stress response. This can lead to prolonged and chronic stress. Eventually, it can cause long-term health issues like:
The key to breaking free from the stress cycle is to identify healthy coping mechanisms and add them into your life.
Stress can be scary. The good news is that there are lots of effective ways to complete the stress response cycle, avoid chronic stress, and protect your health. Here are some tips to help you break free from the stress cycle.
A good night’s sleep is essential for managing stress. When you’re well-rested, you’re better able to handle stressful situations. Also, good sleep helps reduce the physical effects of stress, like inflammation.
If you have trouble drifting off, try elevating your sleep hygiene. In other words, create an environment that’s conducive to sleep with a bedroom that’s dark, quiet, and cool. And, disconnect from electronics at least 30 minutes before bedtime.
Grab a pen and paper and make a list of your top priorities. Then, say no to anything that doesn’t fall into one of those categories. It’ll help you focus on what’s important and avoid taking on too much.
For work-related projects, discuss your responsibilities with your boss and make sure you’re on the same page. They can help you delegate tasks to other members of the team or adjust your workload.
When it comes to personal commitments — like social events or volunteer work — only say yes if you have the time and energy. It’s okay to put yourself first!
Physical touch can calm you and change how you handle stress. Research suggests that physical comfort from someone you care about communicates that everything is okay and you’re safe. It can support mental and physical health and reduce fear and stress responses.
Hugs trigger oxytocin release, which is sometimes called the cuddle or love hormone. This hormone can help reduce anxiety, lowers blood pressure, and slows the heart rate. It also improves sleep quality, digestion, and immunity.
So, the next time you’re feeling overwhelmed, ask for a hug from a loved one, pet your dog or cat, or try some self-massage.
It’s crucial to release your emotions healthily. When you keep everything bottled up, it can lead to unhealthy coping mechanisms, like overeating, drinking alcohol, or lashing out.
Find an outlet that works for you. Maybe that means talking to a friend, writing in a journal, or venting to a therapist. Some peeps find that channeling their emotions into a creative outlet, like painting, drawing, writing, or cooking, can help them feel better.
When you’re feeling stressed, your breathing becomes shallow and rapid. This type of breathing activates the sympathetic nervous system, which is responsible for the fight-or-flight response.
Deep, diaphragmatic breathing helps you calm down by activating the parasympathetic nervous system, which promotes relaxation. Try this simple breathing exercise:
You can also try tai chi, qi gong, or yoga. These mind-body practices help you focus on your breath and connect with your body, which can lead to a sense of calm.
If you feel consistently stressed, you may want to talk to a mental health care provider. Talk to your doctor if you’re experiencing:
Meditation tools for relaxationBreaking free from the stress cycle takes time and effort. But, it’s worth it to feel calmer and more in control of your health and well-being.
And, if you’re still feeling overwhelmed or stressed, talk to your doctor. They can help you find the resources and strategies you need to feel better.
Managing stress isn’t a one-size-fits-all system. Depending on the type and regularity of your stress, your stress management regiment will look vastly different from another individual’s. But it’s helpful to have a toolkit of stress management techniques on hand should you need them.
If you need to know how to relax fast and reduce stress, you’ve come to the right place. We’ve rounded up a comprehensive list of 20 stress management techniques.
And 78% say the pandemic is a significant source of stress in their life. And this stress is on top of the daily stressors we already experienced before. Stressors such as work, health, finances, family, and relationships.
A little bit of stress can be healthy. But chronic stress, as we’re seeing, can negatively affect your mental health and physical well-being.
You may experience one or two of the above symptoms while your friend is grappling with five of them. Both responses are entirely normal but require different stress management techniques.
You may experience one or two of the above symptoms while your friend is grappling with five of them. Both responses are entirely normal but require different stress management techniques.
Learning to manage stress effectively is crucial for your long-term health and well-being. Here are four of the main benefits of using stress management techniques:
A stronger immune system. Stress weakens the immune system and makes you more vulnerable to illness. Relaxation and stress reduction help strengthen your natural defenses.
It is easier to maintain a healthy weight. Stress can cause us to eat or drastically reduce our appetite. And it doesn’t usually have us reaching for the salad. Instead, we go for junk food loaded with sugar, saturated fat, and salt. This reaction to stress can cause weight gain. But reducing your stress levels can help control your appetite and cravings.
Better sleep. Stress makes it difficult to sleep due to the excess adrenaline it releases into the bloodstream, causing muscle tension. Stress management can increase endorphins, which help with muscle relaxation and promote sleep.
Improved mood and relationships. Stress can cause you to be moody and irritable. These attitude changes affect the way you react to those nearest to you. As a result, it can put a strain on your relationships. Reducing your stress levels can help restore balance.
One study even found that stress can be as bad for you as smoking five cigarettes per day. Let’s take a closer look at three of the main risks associated with stress.
Burnout is a result of prolonged stress. According to Gallup, 8 out of 10 employees experience burnout at least some of the time.
But while we tend to associate burnout with work, it can also be caused by other extended stressful situations, such as caring for an elderly parent.
When your stress response activates, your heart rate is higher than normal. This increase is not a problem if it only lasts a short time. But when stress dominates your everyday life, it can put pressure on your heart.
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If you’re open to it, try talking about mental health with a coworker. Sharing how you feel can provide relief, and also create an open culture that enables everyone to express how they feel and improve on it collectively.
If you find yourself feeling stressed or close to burnout regularly, sign up for free to The Reignite Project. This is a Calmer-led project, created to support 600,000 entrepreneurs and business teams in reducing stress and burnout by 2023.
While it may seem a little indulgent, a massage or trip to the spa can provide welcome relief and relaxation in the mind and body.
No matter your flexibility, you could take a few minutes to try practicing yoga at your desk and see the benefits in reduced physical and mental tension.
Explore our range of new Mindfulness Ecourses to inspire good mental health in all aspects of your life. Choose from Sleep, Stress Relief, Daily Kindness or Daily Mindfulness and enjoy a collection of audio meditations, breathwork and movement videos, book recommendations and more.
When it comes to dealing with stress we have to consider addressing both the cause of stress and the symptoms caused by it. The symptoms of stress include tension, anxiety, difficulty sleeping, exhaustion, pains and aches and muscle stiffness. To help you manage those, we have prepared a selection of products that can help you relieve the symptoms of stress and improve your overall wellbeing.
The products we have chosen revolve around massage – and that’s because massage is a fantastic technique for managing symptoms of stress, and comes with numerous health and wellness benefits. Let’s name some of them…
What comes with stress, and especially stress in the amount we’ve been experiencing since the pandemic started, is tension. A stiff neck, back pain, tensed body and muscles… you name it! A Massage Gun is the perfect tool to come to our rescue! Of course, it can’t eliminate the cause of your stress, because we all know it’s more complex than that, but it’s fantastic at relieving the symptoms of stress.
You can use it to massage the trigger points in your neck, back, thighs to loosen tension in your body and reduce muscle pain. It will increase the flow of oxygen and blood in your system, which will boost your energy, remove waste and toxins from your body and increase your mental clarity.
The powerful vibrations relax your muscles relieving pain, soreness, stiffness. Therefore, you will sleep better, improve your mobility and flexibility and enhance your range of motion. Additionally, massage guns are lightweight and portable so you can easily take them with you or store them after your massage.
The BodyMax Massage Gun comes with 5 different attachments so you can properly address the place of tension. It offers 3 vibration levels from the lightest to most powerful, so that you can increase the intensity of your massage over time.
When it comes to stress relief, massage chairs will act similarly to massage guns – except they require minimum effort and target the maximum amount of muscles in your body all at the same time. Sounds quite perfect, doesn’t it? All you need to do is sit back and relax while the machine does its job, and a few minutes after, you come away feeling relaxed and tension-free.
Aside from supreme relaxation, which nobody can argue, massage chairs come with numerous health benefits – and many of them relate to combating symptoms of stress. Massage chairs stimulate oxygen flow and improve blood circulation, which (as we mentioned with the massage gun) boosts energy levels and helps eliminate toxins from your system.
Getting a massage stimulates your body to release serotonin and dopamine (aka “feel-good hormones”) and decreases cortisol (the stress hormone); consequently, relieving stress, anxiety and promoting an overall feeling of wellness. Stress often comes with insomnia and massage chairs are great at helping you overcome that as well. Some of the other benefits include relieving pain from sore muscles, decreasing muscle stiffness in the neck area, reducing lower back pain, improving the body’s immune system and decreasing headaches.
There’s a variety of massage chairs and their sizes, which directly impacts the areas of the body they can target (usually the bigger the chair, the more places it can massage) so we recommend checking out our Massage Chair Buying Guide to find more information about the differences between various models.
These are the simplest, most budget-friendly, and portable options for trigger point massage. Of course, they’re not as powerful as massage guns and massage chairs as they rely purely on human power, but it’s a good start!
Massage balls are used for self-massage and acupressure of the tensed muscles and points in your body. It’s a simple product that will help you reduce that tension, stiffness at a minimal cost. They come in different sizes and hardness levels so you can choose the most appropriate one to target your area of pain. They’re suitable for targeting glutes, thighs, back, neck, and shoulders. Massage balls can increase your range of motion, decrease muscle soreness and improve your muscle performance.
We’re sure you’ve already heard of foam rollers. Lately, they’ve become popular in reducing muscle soreness after workouts. Now vibrating foam rollers take it to the next level, providing even more benefits. The vibrations are fantastic at muscle relaxation while stimulating blood and oxygen flow.
Regular use of a vibrating foam roller will improve your muscle health and recovery time after training. With the vibrating foam roller’s variable settings, it enables you to deliver different levels of vibration intensity, depending on your needs and targeted muscle groups.
Stress relief productsSome of the other benefits include improved sleep quality, reduced body pain, increased mobility and flexibility, and enhanced performance during your workouts.
As we mentioned in our previous blogs – Relaxation Techniques for Stress Relief, Stress Awareness Month 2021 – Where to Begin, A Chat With Gordon Reid – Rugby, Stress and Challenges and Meet Lauren – Beating Booze, Dealing With Stress & Home Workouts – exercise has a significant influence on stress management. It stimulates your body to release endorphins (happy hormones) that improve your mood and reduce anxiety. Exercising clears your mind, improves sleep quality and boosts oxygen flow and blood circulation increasing your energy levels, so it’s safe to say that training equipment can support you in dealing with stress.
The most important part here is to find the type of activity you like and enjoy – and that can vary drastically from person to person. You may enjoy walking, yoga or light cycling – or you can take pleasure in intensive HIIT workouts or functional training. As long as you move – it counts. So of course, depending on your preferred type of exercising you will be looking at different training equipment. Some of the equipment you may want to consider includes treadmills, bikes, rowing machines, cross trainers, functional training equipment, weights, boxing gear and trampolines.
We all know that effective stress management takes more than purchasing the right products – it’s a combination of a healthy lifestyle, stress management techniques, a balanced diet and many other factors… However, there are products that can definitely relieve some symptoms of stress and help you manage them better. Above mentioned massage equipment will help you relax and relieve stress, anxiety and tension; consequently, improving your wellbeing. So make sure to give it a try and massage the stress away!
Two of every three U.S. adults say their stress levels are up because of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to The American Institute of Stress[1]. But one positive side effect is people may now realize the importance of taking care of their mental health and overall well-being.
If you want to cut out stress and boost your morale, there are some practical methods to try. Here are seven ways to relieve stress, and how to add them to your routine.
Stress is a “feeling of emotional and/or physical discomfort caused by your body’s reaction to a real or perceived challenge,” says Angela Ficken, a psychotherapist based in Boston.
Stress is a “feeling of emotional and/or physical discomfort caused by your body’s reaction to a real or perceived challenge,” says Angela Ficken, a psychotherapist based in Boston.
While many of us may view stress as harmful, small amounts are proven to be beneficial to behavioral and cognitive performance in some cases, like when we compete in sports or host an event. Still, when our body is stuck in a prolonged period of stress or overreacts to a stressful stimulant, it can negatively impact our health.
The nervous system decides if we are safe through the messages it receives from our mind and body. In tense situations, it outputs a fight-or-flight response that frequently keeps us out of harm’s way. But external triggers such as the pandemic could cause stress to linger internally.
There are many symptoms of stress, which vary in severity and duration. Some signs, according to American Institute of Stress, include:
Reduce triggers. It may seem obvious, but begin to notice stressors in your life and acknowledge if there are any opportunities to reduce contact with them.
Practice mindfulness and relaxation. Mindfulness and meditation may help to reduce stress while enhancing mood and self-esteem, according to guidelines by the American College of Chest Physicians. Practice drawing in all of your senses, suggests clinical neuropsychologist Kendal Maxwell, Ph.D., who practices in Los Angeles. “You can take a short walk or just sit outside for five minutes. What do you hear? What do you see? How many things can you touch and what do they feel like? This activity helps you get into the present moment,” she says.
Exercise. Even a short walk can improve brain chemistry, improve cardiovascular health and brighten your mood. Dr. Maxwell suggests a practice called “awe walks,” where “the individual focuses on deep breathing paired with exploring the environment in-depth and focusing on things that are beautiful [and] expansive.” He points to research that found adults who took 15-minute awe walks for eight weeks had less stress and increased positive emotions[2].
Unplug. Screen time is shown to increase stress across all age groups, according to a study in Environmental Research[3]. Logging off and spending time away from screens is proven to have health benefits, including less stress. Whether working from home or catching up on memes, it’s important to establish boundaries that fit your needs.
Cultivate a holistic view. Stress doesn’t touch only one system of the body and it doesn’t come from only one place in our life. In addition to the usual relief techniques, be social, invest in spiritual inspiration and find ways to serve your loved ones and community. “If proximity to friends or family is limited, get a pet,” suggests South Carolina-based psychiatrist and founder of Pursuit Executive Coaching Pete Loper, M.D. “Interactions with your dog or cat can have a similar effect on our overactive stress response and are proven to decrease stress.”
Learn about your nervous system. Learn how stress works in your body so you can better recognize it and care for yourself through stress episodes. This can include keeping a journal of the times you’re feeling stressed and when you’re feeling particularly relaxed. Note what happens before you get stressed, such as irritability after an extra cup of coffee.
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