3 Simple Stress Busters to Boost Your Mental Health

The last thing that you want as 2021 kicks off is to get sick. After a fast-paced couple of weeks you’re bound to feel run down. Luckily there are a few simple ways to reduce stress, boost your mental health and start the year off with good stead.

This holiday season was…different. Somehow it was still busy and slightly stressful, despite the lack of travel, parties to plan for and giant meals to cook. Now we’re leaving 2020 behind us and looking forward to a brighter, less pandemic related 2021. Personally, I can’t wait to see my friends and family, travel a bit and put lipstick on without smearing it all over the inside of my mask. #idontaskformuch

Don’t forget to take care of yourself this month. That starts with your mental and emotional health. If you’re feeling stressed out or emotionally over-drawn I get it, and here are 3 simple (but game-changing) tips to bust through the moment and boost your mental health.

#1: Get Enough Sleep

You hear it all the time “get 8 hours of sleep”. But how important is it, really? Turns out, it’s important…really.

Sleep is an essential function. Sleep is the only time your body has to fully recharge – mentally and physically – without interruptions. It’s not just about plugging in the batteries and feeling physically energized in the morning. Without enough sleep your immune system takes a hit, your ability to concentrate and process complicated information plummets, and maintaining a healthy diet and exercise schedule seems less and less possible.

And while there is no “magic” number, research tells us that most adults need 7-9 hours of sleep to adequately recharge. And if you’re one of those babes who says she runs at top speed on 3-4 hours of shut eye and a vat of Dunkin’s…I hate to break it to you but you’re more likely to be struck by lightening than for that to be the case.

Shoot for at least 7-8 hours of sleep each night. If you have trouble falling asleep, try setting up a sleep ritual. Repeating the same steps every night will trigger your body to settle down, begin to produce melatonin and you’ll feel sleepier naturally.

Nightly Ritual for Better Sleep

• Shut down blue light. Blue light and it’s energy and mood boosting powers is beneficial during the day. But those benefits turn sour in the evening when you don’t necessarily want to stay wide awake. Light in general in the evening suppresses melatonin – not great when trying to doze off. Shut down the TV. Turn off your cell phone an hour or two before you want to fall asleep. *Bonus: scrolling through social media in bed is a sure fire way to stoke your brain and dream of FOMO – so shut it down!
  
• Set your bedroom temperature to 65 degrees. According to the National Sleep Foundation, your body temperature naturally dips at night. 65 degrees is the ideal environment to increase sleepiness and sleep soundly through the night.
  
• Keep a journal by your bed and write down stressful thoughts immediately. Anyone else get into bed and immediately think of all of the things you have to do tomorrow, all of the things you should have done today? Or how many people are surely mad at you because you didn’t text them today? Get it out of your head and on to paper. Those thoughts are keeping you up. By writing them down you can be secure in the knowledge that you can do something about it tomorrow.

#2: Speak Up

I learned a long time ago that if you try to bottle up your stress it’s going to express it’s self in another, probably more detrimental way.

Verbalizing negative feelings can be deeply healing. While journaling is helpful in terms of gaining perspective, sharing your feelings outloud with a trusted friend, family member or therapist is a mental and emotional release with profound physiological effects. Neuroscientific studies have found a real connection between the verbalization of emotion and the reduction of activity in the amygdala, the brain’s “oh shit” center.

Instead of telling everyone that you’re fine when you’re not, practice putting words to your feelings. Speak up. Let it out! We all know the happiness comes from a stressful weight being lifted off our shoulders. You don’t have to carry it alone.

#3: Incorporate Light Exercise Into Your Day

You’ve heard it before: exercise is a natural stress buster. The endorphin boost. The time allotted to focus solely on self. The natural exhaustion that improves your sleep. Any form of exercise can be a stress reliever! In fact, regular exercise not only reduces the symptoms of stress but keeps it at bay in the long term.

Sprint intervals are without a doubt a sure fire way to put pent up emotion and energy to work. But here’s why gentle exercise might be the key boost your mental health instead…

Stress comes in many forms. There’s the stress you feel before giving a presentation. There’s the pent up energy and tense muscles you carry around before a huge deadline at work. And exercise is a stress too. Your body responds to physical stress much in the same way it responds to emotional stress: by producing fight-or-flight hormones like adrenaline and cortisol.

When you do HIIT, or you go for an interval run, or you hit the weights for a major strength training session – you are presenting your body with stressors. The harder the workout, the larger the stress reaction. Reduce stress by incorporating low impact exercise into your daily routine. Double down on the benefits by going for a hike or taking a walk with a loved one, someone who supports you and you’re comfortable opening up to!