Healthy Diet For Stress Relief

Help Yourself to a Healthy Diet for Stress Relief

You’re stressed, so you eat comfort foods to relax. But this puts on weight, which makes your body more prone to illness, which stresses you out even more. You needn’t stay trapped on this ride. By making good food choices, you can help your body help you to feel better. Here are some tips for having a healthy diet for stress relief.

Don’t Blame Yourself

So you’re stressed. It’s not your fault that you feel stressed and don’t want to diet. The human body has not evolved along with the speed of easy food distribution. Your body will naturally want you to eat high-calorie food because it doesn’t know when the next wooly mammoth migration will come along. And we don’t move around as much as we did thousands of years ago.

The human body is programmed to think it lives outside to work in the fields all day and not think about sticking to a healthy diet for stress relief. But it is your fault if you let your body rule your head. Your body can be retrained to crave more variety and better nutrition. It just takes practice; be patient with yourself.

Water and Fiber

If you don’t make any other change to your diet, just eat more fiber and drink more water. This greatly aids any healthy diet, for stress relief. Water and fiber help give you a full feeling and keeps away the painful constipation that often occurs to new dieters. Alcoholic beverages don’t count as water – in fact, alcohol dehydrates you and makes you thirstier. Fiber is found in fresh fruits and vegetables, whole grains, nuts and beans, and to a lesser extent in cooked vegetables. These are things you should be eating anyway, so think of eating more fiber as multitasking.

The Caffeine Kid

If you are used to drinking a lot of caffeinated drinks, hot or cold and eating a lot of chocolate, gradually cut back. Don’t go cold turkey – you may go through some painful withdrawal symptoms like migraines. This can greatly reduce your chances of sticking with a healthy diet for stress relief. Cut back one cup of coffee or one glass of cola for a week, and next week cut back yet another cup or glass, and so on.

Drink more water, herbal tea or fruit juice instead. You don’t see results right away, but keeping at it will give you the confidence to make other choices for a healthy diet for stress relief. That and you’ll sleep better, which can also lower your stress.

You Can Find Anxiety and Stress Relief

Life can often seem like a predatory beast out to get you for dinner. There are bills to be paid, family to take care of and calamity on the news – the worry and strain can seem overwhelming. It can also feel as if you are the only one in the world going through such fears; however, you aren’t. You have a common problem that many people suffer in silence about. But there are many people and organizations that can help you find anxiety and stress relief.

Doctor, Doctor
It’s no shame to have to go to the doctor and ask for help. If you can never relax and are so consumed by worries that it makes having a normal life hard or impossible, you need to see your doctor right away. There is a stigma about seeking anxiety and stress relief. You may think you’re crazy or lazy; but you’re not.

If you had a broken leg, you would go see the doctor for help, wouldn’t you? Anxiety and stress relief should be sought after in the same way. If anybody teases you about being a “mental case”, ignore them. They are just voicing their own fears about their own sanity. Your doctor will understand; he or she sees patients with you similar problems almost every day.

Perhaps the doctor will prescribe medicines for your anxiety and stress relief. That doesn’t mean you’re ‘lacking’ in some way for needing to take pills for a mental or emotional problem. Extreme anxiety and never ending stress can often be the signs of easily treatable physical problems.

Take Time Out for You
You deserve at least ten minutes of fun and luxury a day; after all look at all you have to put up with! If you can find ten minutes a day to treat yourself and be comfortable with it, you can find fifteen minutes, and so on. This doesn’t mean you are selfish; you are just training how to feel good about yourself. By experiencing happy times, you can remember what it feels like. With time and practice, you can tap into that calm and secure feeling whenever you need it.

Some people take a walk during this “me-time”. Some people read a non-fiction book to gain anxiety and stress relief. Some people take a bath; others write a poem or engage in light exercise or take yoga classes. See what works best for you; you want something that takes you out of the river of worries onto a little island of calm. Listening to music or mediating can bring this island about for many people. Anxiety and stress relief is within your reach – you only have to make a little effort to get it.

Stress Relief for Light Up Your Day

Bringing Stress Relief to Your Life

Some people seem to suffer from more stress than others, and those who seem to have the most severe stress often wish that they could reduce it in their lives. Often, people attribute stress to certain situations, whether it’s the job, financial difficulties, or raising rambunctious kids. However, stress can make any situation harder to deal with, so working to eliminate your stressful feelings can help you in all of those situations. However, many people don’t know how to bring stress relief into their lives. If you’re having a problem with stress, there are a number of things you can do to help achieve stress relief.

* Get a Good Night’s Sleep
One of the easiest ways to help provide some stress relief is to get a full eight hours of sleep at night. If you’ve forgotten what it’s like to get more than six hours or so, give it a try; you’ll be surprised at how well it can work to provide stress relief. By getting enough sleep, you start your day clear-headed and energized, ready to face the day, rather than yawning and struggling through it. A good night’s sleep is the foundation for a stress-free day.

* Tackle Tough Things First
When you’re in school, you’re taught that the best way to take a test is to handle the easiest questions first, leaving more time for the tough ones. In life, though, you’ll have greater stress relief by starting your day by doing the worst tasks first. For instance, if you have a work call with a difficult customer, by making that customer your first call of the day, you save yourself the stress you’d get from anticipating that call throughout your day. So, by getting the situations that cause you the most stress out of the way early in the day, you bring long-lasting stress relief.

* Get a (Social) Life!
Part of the problem that many people have with finding stress relief is that they have no outlet for it, suffering silently rather than look to others for help. But using friends to provide stress relief is one of the best things you can do. By having a friend to talk to about problems, or someone that simply helps you to take some time out to have fun and enjoy yourself, you can better handle stress than on your own. Sometimes, just the reminder that someone’s hoping for the best for you can bring the stress relief you need. So, by sleeping right, tackling your most stressful tasks as early as you can, and taking some time out with friends, you should be able to bring more stress relief into your lifestyle.