How to Calm Your Mind During Stressful Times

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The physical manifestations of stress are something that many people are familiar with. The racing heartbeat, whirring mind, clammy palms, and pounding headache can sometimes strike out of nowhere. When you feel this way, it can be hard to know how to make it stop and how to calm yourself down effectively. 

Unfortunately, the modern world is stressful. Technology makes people contactable 24/7, making it almost impossible to relax without interruptions. Many people feel the pressure to perform at work, and if you run your own business, you’ll be only too familiar with the unique challenges that this brings. Add relationship problems and financial worries to the mix, and it’s easy to see why so many people are dealing with constant stress. The problem is that when you’re in a permanent state of stress, this can impact your wider health and well-being, and you may experience chronic stress.

Suffering from chronic stress means that you’re never fully able to switch off and remain in a perpetual state of feeling stressed out. This can show up as physical symptoms, including headaches, high blood pressure, and weight gain. Chronic stress also contributes to mental health concerns such as depression and anxiety. If left unchecked, chronic stress can cause serious health conditions such as heart disease, strokes, and heart attacks. 

To protect your health and wellness in the long term, it’s essential that you prevent your everyday stress from developing into chronic stress. Taking steps to manage your stress levels and to calm your mind when you’re dealing with stressful situations is really beneficial. Here are some of the ways you can do this while calming your mind in the process:

Step Outside Into Nature

One way to calm your mind and relieve the feelings of stress is to get outside and into nature. Research has shown time and again that spending time in nature is an excellent way to boost your mental health. The best part is that it is completely free and easy to do. If you’re short on time, you could simply step outside into your backyard to immerse yourself in nature. 

Taking a trip to the local park, visiting a woodland, or heading to the beach are all helpful ways to get out into the fresh air and enjoy the power of nature. When you do this, you should find that your stress levels start to drop pretty quickly, allowing you to clear your mind and preventing the physical signs of stress from building up and affecting you.

Keep Your Mind Occupied With a New Hobby

Sometimes, no matter how hard you try, it can be hard to snap your mind out of its stressed-out state. In these situations, it’s often helpful to enjoy a little escapism by giving your mind a distraction to focus on. 

Having a hobby that occupies your mind and provides a useful distraction from the stress and worry of your day can be a really beneficial way to spend your evenings and weekends. Rather than letting stress dictate how you spend your free time, you can choose to focus on doing something you enjoy.

There is obviously a huge array of different hobbies you could potentially choose from. You could opt for a creative hobby such as painting, drawing, or photography. Having a creative hobby can provide you with a useful outlet to process your emotions and unwind after a long day.   

If you’re looking for a hobby that will act as a distraction and keep your mind fully occupied, playing online games can be beneficial. Online games, such as mahjong, are guaranteed to help you calm your mind when those familiar signs of stress start to creep in. This is because mahjong requires you to concentrate and put your logic and thinking skills to the test in order to complete the game. Needing to focus and concentrate on what you’re doing while you play can make it much easier to keep your mind occupied and to prevent stress getting a hold on your thoughts and causing them to spiral.

Try Mindfulness

For many people, when they feel overwhelmed by stress, their minds start to race and their thoughts start to get caught up in the past and future. This can send your mind into an anxious spiral and make you feel even worse. Trying to bring your attention back to the present moment is a really helpful way to stop these anxious thoughts from taking over. 

Learning about mindfulness and then starting to introduce it into your life can be extremely beneficial if you are finding that stress is negatively impacting you. Introducing mindfulness to your life makes it easier for you to stay in the present moment, and simply observe your thoughts without getting caught up in them. 

When your mind starts wandering back to the past or racing far into the future, it can send your stress levels skyrocketing out of control. So, learning how to bring your attention back to the present moment can be a powerful way of keeping your stress levels in check.

Get Active

One final way to calm your mind when you’re feeling super stressed out is to get active. Being physically active can have a really calming influence on the mind. When you’re exercising, you’re focusing your energy and attention on moving your body, and this helps to prevent your stressful thoughts from flying out of control. 

Many people find that the exertion of physical activity helps them to release tension and clears their mind, leaving them feeling refreshed and recharged after exercising. Even going for a walk and getting a change of scenery can help to bring your stress levels down and calm your mind.

Final Thoughts

Remember, everyone is different, and so finding a stress-busting method that calms your mind effectively may take some trial and error. The important thing is to give it a go and start experimenting with what works best for you to protect both your physical health and your mental well-being.