Best Ways to Relieve Stress

Best Ways to Relieve Stress

Hello weary traveler, we’re so glad that you are here! Today, we have one goal: to provide you with the necessary information to help ease your worries and put a smile back on your lovely face.

It goes without saying that the years 2020 and 2021 have been tough on all of us. Indeed, these trying times have proven chaotic, scary, and uncertain. And to make matters worse, we’ve recently undergone the added stresses of the holidays. If you’ve found yourself carrying the weight of the world on your shoulders, you’re not alone. We all go through it, especially with everything that is expected of us on a daily basis. Luckily, you don’t have to feel powerless over stress any longer. There are unlimited activities and techniques that are proven to thwart those negative vibes and empower you to take back control of your life. Oftentimes, we simply accept discomfort rather than look for ways to rise above it. While it’s perfectly okay to sit in your feelings for a short while, you must not let your spirit stay broken. There’s too much beauty to be seen, too many wonderful memories to be made, and far too little time for do-overs. So, let’s take a deep breath - inhale, exhale - and get into the best ways you can begin relieving your stress. What better moment to initiate your transformation than now? With 2022 just beyond the horizon, this New Year can be the start of a new you!

Meditate

Meditation tends to be the first thing people think of when they contemplate how to curb their stress, but it’s often considered intimidating for new beginners. Why is that? A lot of the anxieties associated with meditation stem from our inability to shut our brains off. We spend most of our energy worrying about bills that need to be paid, about that overdue work assignment, or about our significant others and children. Have you ever tried transcending to a state of tranquility when you have your afternoon conference calls stewing in the back of your mind? It’s no easy feat! Being a newb to meditation might be unnerving, but we can assure you that, once you get the hang of it, you will be hooked. Meditation not only reduces stress and symptoms of stress-related conditions, but also increases your attention span and lowers your blood pressure. Once more, a fantastic perk is that you aren’t expected to figure it out by yourself! As a matter of fact, there are thousands of online instructors who generously post simple to follow guided meditations. We understand how challenging it can be to find a few minutes to break away from the daily hustle, but the relief you will find will be well worth it. Send the kids out to the movies, load your go-to ambient playlist, light a candle, and permit yourself to disconnect from the many troubles you wrestle with day in and day out. You never know, you might even learn something new about yourself!

Journal

Another great approach to reduce stress and tension is by journaling. Journaling is a powerful stimulant that drives creativity and allows us to document, put into perspective, and even reshape our experiences. While some people use their journals to express every fine detail of their day, others use the blank pages to compose meaningful poetry or write fictional stories. What’s truly astounding about journaling is that it doesn’t matter whether the content you are writing is a brilliant masterpiece or not. What actually matters is the ingenuity, expressiveness, and artistry you channel from within yourself as you drift off and find comfort in your writing. Nobody expects you to write a Shakespearian sonnet or be the next Stephen King. Nobody expects anything because the journal is your realm; your very own hidden oasis to blow off steam, ignite your imagination, and be your true self without fear of judgment. Journaling has been associated with increased memory retention, creative stimulation, and has even been shown to exercise and coordinate the brain’s hemispheres. There’s nothing more liberating than jotting down all of your thoughts after a hard, tiring day, specifically in a safe space that is yours and only yours. It isn’t healthy to keep all of that anxiety or worry bottled up. Honestly, if you want to shake that stress, grab a pen, gather some paper, and allow yourself to become a tiny bit unhinged!

Exercise

If meditation is too difficult and journaling isn’t quite your thing, we recommend turning to some good ol’ fashioned exercise to put that stress in its place. Whether you decide to practice yoga, lift heavy weights, go for a jog, or spend your morning swimming laps at the recreation center, exercise has been proven to reduce stress and any risk for depression by releasing endorphins and dopamine through your body. Everyone has heard of the “runner’s high”, but have you tried it for yourself? There is a weightlessness and freedom, very similar to meditation, that can be achieved when we focus solely on the exercises we are performing. In that perfect instance of sheer intensity, nothing else matters in the universe. By working out our muscles and forcing ourselves to focus on other things, such as our breathing, we tend to forget about the problems that caused us stress in the first place. As humans, we love to spend every waking moment overthinking and overanalyzing, but it’s crucial to take a break and let your mind steer on auto-pilot. Rome wasn’t built in a day, so you shouldn’t expect yourself to solve all of your problems in one workout. Exercise primarily gives us an excuse to stop obsessing and instead focus on something more beneficial. Besides, who is going to complain about toned abs and tighter buns as a result?

Eat Healthier

This may come as a surprise to some people, but eating healthy has been proven to alleviate stress and even improve mental cognition. Now, we know how delicious chocolate covered peanuts, fried chicken, and caramel popcorn are! We would never dream of taking all your favorite treats away from you, but it’s important to balance all of the junk food we eat with nutritious meals full of protein and vitamins. We get it: boiling water for a cup-o-ramen is effortless and only takes a few minutes, but having a diet consisting solely of salty or sweet items is only going to bury you deeper in your gloomy state of mind. It’s a sad but common misconception that eating junk food relieves stress. While yes, it is true that our brains release dopamine when we eat something we enjoy, those unhealthy foods we go cuckoo for ultimately make us more sluggish and irritable. Having a healthy, well-balanced diet not only makes our bodies happy, but it helps us think clearly and even improves our ability to concentrate. Choosing to eat healthy can be burdensome and inconvenient, especially during the holidays. We promise, however, that you will feel a lot better if you eat your veggies and fruits! Also, it is worth mentioning that turkey bacon really isn’t that bad. (We tried to make that sound as convincing as possible. Did it work?)

Light a Candle: A Luxe Intuition Candle

We could go on and on about countless complex methods of doing away with stress, but sometimes just sitting in silence with a lit candle nearby is all you need to ground yourself and find your inner-balance. Moreover, some candles are made with essential oils that have several healing properties. Utilizing the scents of candles to lower your anxiety and stress is considered a form of aromatherapy and is extraordinarily effective. At Luxe Intuition, we use high grade essential oils in our luxury wood wick candles. When you burn one of our candles, you aren’t just smelling something amazing, you’re experiencing something amazing. Take our Pure Luxe candle, for example: we infuse sweet notes of orange marmalade and honey with earthy aromas of tobacco and clove to create a well-rounded candle that livens up any environment. Additionally, we use cedar wood and fir needle essential oils to help diminish any pent-up stress that you have been dealing with. Another incredible candle for relieving stress is The Sophisticate. This sophisticated candle is handcrafted with notes of pear, mandarin, and patchouli. The Sophisticate contains bergamot and ylang ylang essential oils to relax the mind and boost creativity. As impossibly bizarre as it may seem, pushing free from stress can be as simple as lighting a candle, closing your eyes, focusing on the quiet crackling of the wick, and letting the essential oils work their divine magic.

You Are Worthy?

It isn’t always easy to admit that we are stressed, but that doesn’t mean you should continue to suffer in isolation. There are so many options for absolving stress out there, it’s just a matter of finding what works best for you. We hope that our list of ways to relieve stress has been helpful and encourages you to focus on your own mental health as frequently as you can. We all get distracted by the many obligations we have, but we shouldn’t forget that having a strong, positive outlook means less stress and more control over the chaos that inevitably ensues around us. Ultimately, what we’re recommending you do is treat yo’ self! It’s about time you splurged on that nice pair of running shoes you’ve been eyeing at the mall, take a quick trip to the grocery store and get some fresh produce, go buy you a beautiful leather journal from Barnes & Noble. If anything, it will give you an excuse to go to Barnes & Noble.

Bottom line is, change starts with you. You are incredible and you are worthy of absolute, unbreakable happiness! Stop being so hard on yourself, give yourself a pat on the back for all that you are able to accomplish, but most importantly, love yourself.  To receive more amazing blogs like this in your inbox, be sure and enter your name and email below! 

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