Today, August 8th is National Happiness Happens Day (and my besties birthday!). Let’s celebrate being happy. I promise you’ll feel much better allowing happiness in your life. I try to always stay positive in all areas of my life and never sweat the small stuff. It makes a big difference. Try it sometime!
Here are some practical ways to relieve stress, increase your overall happiness, and deal with the chaos in your world more easily.
Stress Kills Happiness – Here are a Few Easy Ways To De-stress
It’s hard to be happy when you’re stressed. I don’t have to tell you that, I’m sure you’ve experienced it yourself, we all have. Think back on high stress situations you have experienced. Maybe you have missed a flight when heading on vacation (I still stress over this one lol), or maybe when you were planning your wedding and things got overwhelming and you felt it was all going to fall apart. I remember planning our wedding 20 years ago, long distance. Phew! That was crazy. Stress can suck the happiness and joy right out of us.
It only makes sense that one way to increase our happiness and our quality of life is to de-stress. Not only is it good for our soul, it’s also good for our overall health and well being to reduce the stress in our lives. Here are some simple ways to de-stress.
Sleep & Stress – What’s the Connection?
An easy way to stress less is to make sure you get a good 7-8 hours of sleep a night. When we don’t sleep well, and don’t get enough sleep, our bodies are in a constant state of stress, trying to make up for the lack of sleep. Sleep helps us relax. You’ll get more accomplished when you’re rested and you’ll be less stressed out. Plus without enough sleep you might gain weight. Without sleep your leptin levels skyrocket and tell your brain to eat, eat, eat and your cortisol (stress hormone) spikes!
Do you keep track of your sleep cycle? There are fitness trackers out there that keep track of that for you. But there are also sleep tracker/health monitors that you don’t have to wear. These intrigue me. Check out the EarlySense Live and Beautyrest Sleeptracker Monitor. We have the iComfort bed so I’m not sure if it will work but I’m going to research that!
Take time to Recharge Yourself
There are times in our lives when we have to spend a lot of focus and attention on others. Maybe you care for your family, loved one or you’re starting a new business. At busy times like these that take a lot of our attention and time, it’s easy to forget about ourselves, and we put our own personal needs last. It’s important to make an effort to take time to recharge yourself and get a little bit of “me” time each day. It doesn’t have to be much. Even just ten minutes a day spent relaxing can be a great way to decompress and de-stress. “Me Time” reduces stress & restores your energy so don’t skimp out on it.
Relax Your Mind in 10 minutes or Less a Day
Try meditating or relaxing your mind. Again, you don’t have to spend a lot of time on this. Sitting quietly going through a quick guided meditation once a day can do wonders. Once you get in the habit of practicing meditation on a daily basis, and get better at it, you can draw on the techniques you’ve learned whenever you encounter a stressful situation. You can spend a minute or two in meditation, even at the most stressful time and allow your mind to relax. This will come in very handy when life throws you a curve ball, or when you’re feeling completely overwhelmed.
Breaking A Sweat Is A Great Stress Buster
Without a doubt, the best stress reliever is exercise. There is a strong link between exercise and mood improvement and well-being. Whenever you start to feel depressed or unhappy, start moving, get that blood pumping and burn that stress right out of your system. If you can get outside, even better. The fresh air and sunshine will do wonders for your mood.
Go for a 30 minute walk or run, or even just a short walk should do it whenever you’re feeling stressed. I like to turn up the tunes and hop on the mini trampoline. A quick bike ride would work too. Pick activities you enjoy, that you’ll stick with and for best results, work out regularly.
In addition to the everyday mood booster you’ll get from exercising, there are more added benefits. Exercise is good for your health and you will start to get more fit, slim down and get toned if you stick with it. This in turn will improve how you feel about yourself. The added confidence can be a great mood booster.
Now go out there and BE HAPPY.
Would you be interested in doing a 30 day happiness challenge sometime? Be sure to sign up for my monthly fitness challenge in case I decide to do it.
Great ideas!
Thanks!