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How to Tune in To Your Body and Reduce Stress

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Have you ever noticed yourself feeling run down, worn out and emotionally numb when stress levels are soaring? You might feel like you’re carrying the weight of your worries on your shoulders, and you wouldn’t be wrong.  

Knowing how to listen to your body can help you identify when you might need to take some rest and look after yourself. In this article, we look at the connection between the body and mind and explore healthier ways to respond to stressful times, so that you can find a little extra peace! 

It’s important to look after your body and mind!

A bit of stress here and there is perfectly okay. It might push you to meet deadlines or walk faster when you’re late or sense danger and seek safety. But overactive and prolonged stress levels can be physically damaging, as the mind is intrinsically connected with the body. 

Why Does Stress Manifest Itself Physically?  

It’s all down to a science. When you encounter a stressful situation or thought, your brain transmits signals that release a steroid hormone called cortisol into the body. Cortisol, also known as the body’s natural alarm system, regulates certain processes in the body such as your immune system and digestive functions. However, much like anything out of balance, this hormone can put your health at risk when overactive.  

The short term effects of this could manifest in symptoms such as:

  • Tension headaches
  • An upset stomach
  • Muscle tension
  • Sleep problems

Long term effects include increased risk of heart attacks, arthritis and memory issues.  

Why Is It Important to Listen to Your Body?

We all get aches and pains sometimes, but persistent headaches, digestive issues or muscle pains could be your body’s way of telling you to rest and make changes to your lifestyle! Prolonged stress causes muscles to tense up in a fight or flight response. So, if you notice (in particular) your back, shoulders and neck aching, it could be that your body is signalling to you to do some stress relief exercises.  

Here are some ways you can destress easily in your day-to-day life: 

1. Exercise Regularly

Exercise increases the body’s ability to absorb oxygen, increasing blood flow and releasing endorphins, effectively de-stressing the body and loosening your muscles (remember to warm up first!). A little bit of regular exercise will release tension from the body and help you think clearer too, as you focus on the present moment and let your stressful thoughts go.

Read Now: How Exercise Benefits Mental Health

2. Sleep

Your body restores and repairs itself during deep sleep, so keeping an eye on your sleep cycles and ensuring you are getting proper rest is essential to staying healthy and keeping stress levels at bay.

Sleep is crucial to a healthy lifestyle.

Read Now:  How to Get Better Sleep and Why Understanding Sleep is Crucial to Your Wellbeing

3. Understand Your Stress

What is it that is stressing you out? How can you tackle this? Getting to the root cause of stress will help you to navigate your way through it. If it is work, for example, you may need to consider cutting back your hours or organising your life so that you have enough time for yourself. If it’s a deeper issue that is troubling you, you could consider some talking therapy. 

4. Strike Balance

Make sure you are taking time to have fun and let go. When your life is dominated by stress, your body will begin to feel it. Have a bath, go for a walk somewhere stunning, see your friends and family, and find new hobbies that give you pleasure.  

5. Breathe Deep and Stretch

This is useful for short term symptoms of stress, such as feeling tight chested and short-breathed, or to alleviate aches in your muscles. Getting your body moving and controlling your breathing pattern can help you to centre yourself and calm down.

Read Now: Four Effective Ways to Clear Your Mind of Stress. 

To Sum Up…

Our emotional worlds manifest in physical symptoms in the body. But this works in both ways: when we smile and rest and experience joy, it boosts our immune system and fights stress and aches. So, it is important to have a healthy balanced lifestyle with plenty of rest and quality time for you!   

For more help managing your health, wellbeing and lifestyle, contact us at Ceed today! 

How Listening to Music Can Better Your Life

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Everybody has enjoyed music at some point in their life and has a genre they enjoy the most, whether it’s pop, rap, or reggae. No matter the genre, the feeling of listening to the genre that you like the most stays the same: it relaxes you. 

But what other effects can listening to music have on you?  

Mood Booster and Stress Reducer 

Nobody enjoys the feeling of sadness, but sometimes it is just part of our lives we can’t control. Music has a deeper connection beneath its surface than just a mix of sounds, and lyrics. It has been proven to stimulate your brain by releasing a chemical called “dopamine” which is associated with pleasure within our brain. This means that listening to music boosts yourself emotionally, and mentally reduces stress. Listening to a playlist of your favourite songs, and releasing the dopamine, can also reduce the feeling of depression. 

Starting your day off by listening to music can enhance the rest of your day. If you have issues with stress or just general sadness, then music is a great way to escape. Even if it’s only momentarily, it’s healthier than letting these negative feelings take you over.  

Read Now: How to Better Your Mental Health by Getting Creative

Mind Distraction and Improved Focus

It can distract your mind from your negative surroundings, keeping you occupied in a tranquil state. Noisy workplace? Just pop some earphones in and jam away. Drowning out sounds that stress you out and replacing them with dopamine fuelled music can enhance your mind to focus more on what you want to achieve. With this increase in focus, your productivity will rise higher than it did before and could even lead to avoiding work stress.   

Be warned however, as being overwhelmed by music can distract you from your work, or whatever you are doing while listening to music.  

Music can help you overcome personal difficulties.

Read Now: How Music Can Motivate You to Stick to Your Exercise Routine

Pain Management 

This effect isn’t just about physical pain, but mental pain as well. Whether it is stress, depression, or just general anger. Listening to music that relates to those emotions can cause you to push those feelings out of your mind. Knowing that someone went through the same situation as you and made a song filled with that emotion can let you know that you aren’t alone in this matter. This effect can also allow you to overcome blocks within your life. Whether that is writing blocks or mental blocks. 

It also reduces the pain you perceive and relaxes you a lot more if you are in any kind of physical pain. Which can be extremely useful if the pain is uncomfortable enough to keep you awake at night.  

Creativity and Sleep Improvement 

Music can be very tranquil and peaceful to listen to. It allows you to switch your brain off if you are listening to music without having anything to do. You create a narrative and envision the song in your head, which ultimately, can improve your creativity.

Most people listen to music when going to bed as this creativity that flows through you can help you sleep easier. The constant rush of dopamine to your brain makes your brain regulate hormones, and reduces cortisol which affects stress itself to help you sleep better.

Listening to music can improve your sleep schedule!

Mental Health Healing 

Improving your focus can also help to manage any effects that come with health conditions like autism, ADHD, or Tourette’s. As your mind becomes more focused on the rhythm, sounds, and lyrics, your brain momentarily forgets about reality and places you into a sort of daydream in your head. You remember who is in charge of your life, and it is you, and only you. 

Conclusion 

Music is of huge importance to our lives, even if you don’t listen to it every day. The deep connection between our brain and music is almost magical. You can always find websites online that allow you to listen to music, including:

Remember that there are people who are struggling or have struggled in the same way as you.  

If you require assistance with any topics mentioned here, or in general then please feel free to contact us here at Ceed today. 

The Ultimate Guide to Eliminating Work Stress

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We all understand that feeling of being anxious at work, under the weather and fantasising about staying off sick all week. You may ask yourself, is this feeling wrong? Am I broken? 

No, of course you aren’t, this feeling which is known as work stress affects a large majority of people in the present and has done throughout history. 

According to Ciphr’s statistics: 1 in 14 UK Adults feel stressed every single day, whether that is at work or in general, and 79% of the UK population feel stressed at least once a month. 

There is a solution to finding your workplace stressful!

Work stress can make you feel like you are trapped at work. It might play on your mind constantly, even at home, while relaxing. We, at Ceed, would like to help you to eliminate this feeling and separate your work and home life.  

Read Now: How to Achieve the Perfect Work-Life Balance

What is Work Stress?  

Work stress, simply put, is the feeling of stress at (and caused by) work. This can stem from work related problems like conflicting demands, deadlines, overworking or a lack of passion. 

Here are a few ways to lower and ultimately eliminate your work stress levels:  

Self-Positivity 

Don’t allow the monster of work stress to drag you down further. It can eventually lead to depression, or a severe spike in health problems. Once you’re done working, take a look at the work you have completed today. Take it all in like a beautiful sunset and think to yourself: “I’ve done that.”  

Take pride in what you accomplish each day for you are valued: as a friend, colleague, and family. Recognise the value of your effort and work, as others do. Although they may not verbally acknowledge your effort, your employers understand your importance as a part of their operation and you should too.  

Take a moment to appreciate your own work!

Every day, as long as you are accomplishing something you can take pride in yourself, and this positivity can help re-ignite a passion in your work life, reducing work stress as a whole. 

Read Now: 4 Effective Ways to Clear Your Mind of Stress 

Verbal Communication 

We fully understand the anxiety in everyone’s mind when considering speaking to your manager about your problems, and even more so about something as difficult as work stress.

No-one can force you to speak to your manager, but if you have the confidence then please do. This is the easiest way for your manager to understand what you are going through and adjust the situation as needed for you.  

However, you can also speak to your friends and family about these issues, or perhaps other colleagues. There are so many people in the world going through what you are, and many have advice that helped them or wished had helped them in the past. Listen to their words, but take some with a grain of salt! 

Whatever you do, do not ignore work stress, even if its symptoms are miniscule. The more exposed you are to it, the more severe your symptoms can become.  

Relaxing and Taking it Easy 

Many people don’t understand how to deal with work stress and think it’s normal. The truth is it is and isn’t at the same time. Stress is a natural thing that happens to everyone, even animals. One of the easiest ways to get rid of work stress is to relax your body and mind. 

Whether that is by:  

  • Listening to music  
  • Playing videogames 
  • Watching TV or movies 
  • Exercising  
  • Reading 
  • Writing  
  • Or even just having a chat with friends and family.  

There are lots of different ways to relax, but try everything and find out which works best for you. Maybe if listening to music works best you could see if you can wear earphones at work to relieve stress. 

But all in all, do what you love and treat yourself; order that Chinese, stay in bed all day on your day off, take a sick day off if you feel extremely stressed. Just do whatever you need to make yourself feel happy, and stress-free.  

Read Now: How Music Can Motivate You to Stick to Your Exercise Routine 

Re-Igniting Your Passion 

Lack of passion for a job is usually a work stress issue, as it can slow your productivity down as you see no reason to carry on doing it.  

Ask yourself: is this the right job for you? 

If your answer is no, then perhaps look for a new job, maybe something that’s totally different to what you’re doing right now. This could be as drastic as going from retail to police work. It’s hard to predict how a job is going to be before working there so do some research and check reviews online. Indeed and Glassdoor have the option to check company reviews.  

If your answer is yes, then there are a couple of things you can do: 

  1. Find meaning in your work 
  1. Seek new opportunities at work. 

This could even be taking a health and safety course. A change in environment even momentarily can be great for the brain, and maybe even make you miss your current environment. The section below can also help re-ignite that passion.  

Asking for new opportunities can make work more fulfilling.

Read Now: Mindfulness At Work: How To Increase Productivity 

Setting Goals and Rewarding Yourself 

It’s easy to finish a work day on autopilot, not realising how much you have actually done. Some people feel like they haven’t done enough, and others feel like they have done too much. Set yourself goals, and choose rewards for reaching those goals.  

This can help to fulfil you mentally, and make you more focused on your work. It pushes you to motivate yourself to get those goals completed and instil pride in yourself.  

Reward yourself with a short break, or a snack or drink you like. Set realistic goals that you know you can complete.  

Don’t be unrealistic or not realistic enough. Maybe you serve 60 customers a day? Let’s make goals based on that multiple. So, maybe a reward every 20 customers. That brings you to at least 3 rewards.  

Obviously, don’t go overboard with snacks as rewards as this may affect your eating habits. For some healthy options, check out this article we made to help you with foods that can lift your mood. 

Read Now: A Happy Diet: 9 Foods Proven to Lift Your Mood 

Online Communication 

In this modern world, one of the most widely utilised inventions is the internet. The ability to communicate with anyone, anywhere is a great advantage to modern life. You are bound to find strangers online who feel the same as you: 91% of Australians feel stressed about one or more important parts of their life, and 86% of Chinese Workers also report stress.  

The fact is: you aren’t alone. There will always be people there who have experienced and felt the same as you in some way. 

Just look online to realise you’re not alone in feeling stressed!

There are mountains of websites, pages, and social media apps that allow interaction between you and like-minded people. Talking to them can help you to develop and advice can be applied to your own situation, so as to not repeat the same mistakes as others. Not everyone is correct in their advice though, so be warned! 

Here are a few websites where you can utilise to find specific pages for help: 

Use the search bar to find specific communities or subjects such as: Tesco, UK, Manchester. 

To Sum Up… 

Please remember, you are only human at the end of the day and not a corporate machine. Your feelings matter, and you matter. 

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We hope this guide has been beneficial to you and if you think you need additional help with work stress then feel free to contact us at Ceed today.  

A Parent’s Guide: How To Take Care of Your Own Wellbeing

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Parenting can be hard work. It’s not always going to be easy. Watching your children grow is extremely rewarding but there will be challenges along the way and if you’re reading this now, you might be facing a tough time. But not to worry – we are here to help.  

Parents’ wellbeing is a challenging task alongside childcare and often overlooked. We emphasise the importance of caring for our children but not caring for ourselves.  

Therefore, we have come up with a parent’s guide to managing your health and wellbeing that we think will help. 

Look after your child by looking after your own health!

Here are some things to remember: 

  • It’s ok to make mistakes – You don’t have to be perfect. We are all fallible beings. We naturally make mistakes – we get things wrong and shout sometimes. You are not a bad person. If you find yourself losing your control, make sure to apologise to your child and explain why it happened. They will learn from you that it’s okay to make mistakes and it doesn’t make you a bad person.  
  • Talk to your child – Even young children can understand about feelings and behaviour if you give them a chance to talk about it. With open and honest communication, you can understand one another more and hopefully alleviate some stress.  
  • Look after yourself – it is important to take some time for yourself. Looking after yourself involves looking after your relationships, your health and your wellbeing. If you don’t look after yourself – how are you going to properly look after your children? Have a nice relaxing bath, see a friend, take your mind off things with a captivating book. Whatever it is, allow time to enjoy yourself. Everyone needs to be a little selfish sometimes.  
  • It’s okay to ask for help – if you’re struggling, it’s okay to reach out for support from friends, families and organisations that are there to help.  

How To Better Manage Your Wellbeing as a Parent 

Key points: 

  • Looking after yourself physically, mentally and emotionally will help your child grow and thrive. 
  • Manage stress by making time for yourself and seeking help. 
  • If you have a partner, you can look after your relationship with open communication. 

1. Recognise when you feel overwhelmed 

Being overwhelmed can lead to: 

  • Feeling tired all the time 
  • Headaches 
  • Being irritable and impatient 
  • Stress and anxiety 
  • Lack of motivation 
  • Trouble concentrating 
  • Poor eating habits 
  • General negative thinking. 

The stress caused by these symptoms can also impact our physical health. Therefore, it is important to find ways to help combat that overwhelmed feeling. Our next tips focus on a few simple ways that can help you achieve this.  

Read Now: 4 Effective Ways to Clear Your Mind of Stress 

2. Focus on the here and now 

Take a few minutes to write down all the things that are causing you stress and anxiety. And once you have your list, identify what things you can tackle immediately and those that might take a bit longer.  

Get it clear in your mind what’s causing you stress.

For example, say you: 

  • Have difficulty getting off to sleep 
  • Have money worries 
  • Worry about you or your partner’s job security 
  • Find it difficult to manage your child’s behaviour. 

You can now separate these into two sections, something you can tackle immediately: 

And those that might take a bit longer: 

  • Money worries 
  • Job security worries  

Thinking about all of these will no doubt cause a sense of anxiety and a feeling of being overwhelmed, however, if we separate them out, we can clearly see what’s easy to tackle and what might take longer to resolve.  

By reordering the list to prioritise what we can tackle effectively first we can reduce some stress and that feeling of being overwhelmed. Recognising what is causing that stress and anxiety and creating a sense of order means you can think clearly and plan action, tackling one worry at a time.  

Read Now: 7 Ways to Ease Financial stress and Manage Your Money 

3. Say no 

Saying yes is a lot easier than saying no and we often agree to things that can negatively impact our health and wellbeing. Don’t overload yourself trying to fit additional tasks into an already busy schedule.  

If you’re worried about coming across rude, here are some ways to politely say ‘No’. 

4. Eat well 

Our mind needs fuel from a healthy diet to function well. Following a balanced regular diet will help prevent irritability and enabled us to concentrate better. Research has shown that if you eat a diet high in processed meats, fried foods and high fat dairy products, you’re more likely to be anxious and depressed. 

Choosing energising food for yourself can make a big difference!

Fruits and vegetables have great healing, restorative powers. So here are a few foods that can boost and maintain your mental wellness: 

  • Yoghurt has probiotics that assist in lowering levels of stress, anxiety and depression. 
  • DHA, an Omega-3 fatty acids found in oily fish such as salmon can help improve short-term and long-term memory and reduce anxiety. 
  • Strawberries, blueberries, raspberries and blackberries contain antioxidants that improve symptoms associate with anxiety and depression. 

Read Now: A Happy Diet: 9 Foods Proven to Lift Your Mood 

5. Sleep 

Sleep has a huge impact on our mind and body’s function. Lack of sleep affects our mood, alertness and negatively impacts our ability to concentrate.  

How to sleep better: 

  • Reduce your alcohol and caffeine intake. 
  • Before bed, wiring a to-do list for the next day helps create a sense of time management which helps your mind relax, making it easier to drift off to blissful sleep.  
  • Having a regular sleep pattern – set a bedtime and stick to it. 
  • Don’t look at any devices – e.g. mobile phones, tablets or laptops an hour before bedtime and switch them off when you go to bed. 

Read Now: Why Understanding Sleep is Crucial to your Wellbeing 

6. And finally… talk about how you are feeling. 

A problem shared is a problem halved!

Sharing your feelings has many benefits. As human beings we are designed to feel and express our feelings. It’s never good to keep things bottled up. Sharing can help by: 

  • Reducing the intensity and power of a feeling, e.g. reducing anxiety levels 
  • Helping you get a new perspective on difficulties 
  • Making problem solving and decision making easier 
  • Reducing any sense of isolation and helping to restore a balanced sense of reality. 

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For further advice from our professional lifestyle coaches,  contact us at Ceed today!

How to Achieve the Perfect Work-Life Balance

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Finding the perfect balance between your professional and personal life can be challenging, but it’s essential for your overall well-being. Our drive and desire to achieve professionally can often harm our own successes. 

Creating a perfect work-life balance will improve not only your physical, emotional and mental well-being but it’s also crucial for your career. If you’re struggling to achieve the perfect work-life balance, you’re not alone. Here are some useful tips to help you achieve the perfect balance! 

1. Manage Your Time 

Time management is key. This will determine the work-life balance you maintain each day. Ways of improving your time management include: 

  • Create a timeline of your activities for one week. Make sure to include family commitments 
  • Prioritise your tasks in accordance to their importance 
  • Avoid multitasking. Focus on one task at a time 
  • Learn to say “no” 

We don’t have unlimited hours in the day. Be honest and let people know if you can’t take on additional tasks at the moment. Remember, your time is valuable! 

2. Set Specific Personal and Professional Goals 

There are many benefits to setting specific personal and professional goals. When your goals are clearly articulated, you can complete tasks with a strong sense of direction and a better focus. Take your list of priorities and turn them into specific and measurable goals. These can include: 

  • Walk thirty minutes a day, five days a week. 
  • Speak to a family member for an hour once a week. 
  • Take twenty-five minutes once a week to reflect on success and achievements.  
  • Decrease a website’s bounce rate by 10% in six months. 
Setting goals for a better work-life balance is key!

Read now: How to Build Effective Short-term and Long-term goals 

3. Ignore Perfectionism 

Moving through the challenges of perfectionism is difficult. Here are some tips to help you achieve this: 

  • Practice self-awareness. Remember that you already possess some level of self-awareness to realise that perfectionism is causing issues for you.  
  • Realise that no one is perfect. 
  • Never compare yourself to others. You are on your own journey. When you compare yourself to others, you’re only setting yourself up for disappointment.  
  • Set realistic goals and remember to reward yourself as you achieve them. 

4. Establish Boundaries 

Setting boundaries between work and home is important in achieving the perfect work-life balance. This can be done by: 

  • Establishing fair and realistic limits on what you will do / will not do both at work and at home. 
  • Communicate this clearly to your supervisor, coworkers, partner and family.  

For example, a boundary you could set is not checking or responding to work-related emails whilst at home.  

5. Leave Work at Work 

Disconnecting from work at home isn’t easy. To get the most of our time off and leave work at work we need to be deliberate in how we end our days. This can be done by: 

  • Writing tomorrow’s to-do list today. 
  • Remove the expectation of thinking about work outside of work hours. 
  • Make time for your interests and pursue your hobbies. 

6. Make Time for You 

Making time for yourself and doing things that you love is important. Doing so will energise and refresh you. It will also enable you to nurture your creativity which is extremely beneficial in the workplace. Remember to give yourself a relaxing break and enjoy yourself at least once a day. This can include: 

  • Going out for dinner with friends or family 
  • Catching up on your favourite show 
  • Reading a book 
  • Having a relaxing bath 
  • Going for a dog walk.
Relaxing is essential to staying energised!

7. Work Smarter Not Harder 

The skill of being able to use your time more efficiently is one that everyone could benefit from. Working smarter, not harder involves managing your time better, knowing what needs to get done and when, and making most of the tools that will keep you on track. Here are some ways to achieve this: 

  • Batch similar tasks together. 
  • Take more breaks. 
  • Turn off notifications. 
  • Track your time and review your productivity. 
  • Stop multitasking. 
  • Unload your more pressing tasks by doing them first. 
  • Trim your to-do list by removing less important tasks. 
  • Plan tasks based on your energy levels. 

We tend to ignore our energy levels when planning our work. However, being mindful of this can be extremely beneficial in regards to productivity. Everyone’s energy spikes are different. Whether you’re more productive after lunch or first thing in the morning. Determine when your energy spikes are and plan your tasks accordingly. 

8. Unplug from Technology 

Our phones and technology follow us everywhere. This means our ability to disconnect from work is increasingly difficult. However, unplugging from technology is achievable. Here are some tips to help you get started: 

  • Switch off your phone for a couple hours each day. 
  • Enjoy some tech-free activities, like switching off technology at dinnertime. 
  • Prioritise human connection. 
  • Set up a Digital-Free Zone in your home. 
  • Create non-negotiable working hours. 

Read now: The Impact of Screen Addiction on Health and Well-being

9. Take Care of Your Health 

Your health should always be your number one priority. A healthy lifestyle is fundamental to coping with stress and to achieving the perfect work-life balance. Neglecting your physical, mental and emotional wellbeing will see both your personal life and work-life suffering. Take care of your health by: 

In order to achieve balance, you need to take care of your health!

10. Rest 

There are many benefits to a good night’s sleep (internal link to Why Understanding Sleep is Crucial to your Wellbeing). While you sleep, your brain works to restore your mind and body. This involves processing your emotions and what you’ve learned during the day. Receiving more sleep can improve your memory which may help you perform better at work and in your day-to-day life. The following techniques may help you achieve a good night’s sleep. 

  • Avoid screen time for an hour before bed. 
  • Reduce your caffeine intake. 
  • Avoid liquids before bed. 
  • Implement a morning and night routine. 

Read now: Why Understanding Sleep is Crucial to Your Well-being

By implementing a routine in the morning and evening, you are supporting the hormones that affect sleep, manage stress levels and help you feel rested and energised throughout the day. This will help you achieve the perfect work-life balance.

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If you need help achieving the perfect work-life balance, we’re here to help! Reach out to one of our experts here at Ceed today! 

Practicing Mindfulness: How to Stay Stress Free

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Feeling stressed can often be incredibly incapacitating. Even seeing the word stress can put people on edge. It affects our ability to stay level-headed, complete tasks and function at a basic level.

According to the Mental Health Foundation, 74% of people have felt so stressed they have been overwhelmed or unable to cope. These numbers are concerning and with the stimulating factors of stress increasing, it feels inevitable that this will continue to go up.

This is where practicing mindfulness becomes an extremely useful tool in moderating overwhelming feelings. In order to begin on this journey, it’s important to understand where this overwhelming feeling comes from.

So, what is stress? Where does it come from, and how can we work to alleviate its effects?

Defining Stress

The National Health Service defines stress as ‘the body’s reaction to feeling threatened or under pressure’. Stress is not all bad – it can be a good motivating factor that helps you accomplish your goals. Too much stress, however, can leave you feeling overwhelmed and make you lose this sense of motivation.

Stress often occurs when we experience something unexpected – particularly new pressuring factors like deadlines – and makes us feel like we have little control over our actions. Of those who experience stress, 51% report that they also felt depressed and 61% report feeling anxious.

If 1 in 2 people that feel stressed also feel depressed, how can we learn to manage our reaction to stress without feeling overwhelmed? Let’s look at where stress can come from to see how it can be managed.

Where Does Stress Come From?

Stress has many sources, which may be part of the problem! It can be caused by your working conditions, concerns about finances and even your relationships with close friends or significant others. Stress can also be caused by the pressure of replying to messages, concerns about your long-term health, self-image and even housing worries!

Even looking at that list can make us feel overwhelmed – it’s extremely common to feel overwhelmed by one or more of these factors, or even every single one!

So, how do we look out for stress?

What Does Stress Do to the Mind and Body?

As stress comes from feeling overwhelmed, you may notice yourself feeling one of the following:

  • Depressed
  • Anxious
  • Frustrated or easily irritable

Each one of these can also have physical manifestations – you might feel physically sick, act recklessly or undertake unhealthy coping mechanisms.

Mindfulness is a healthy, alternative coping mechanism that can seriously aid your emotional and physical responses to overwhelming stimuli.

How to Practice Mindfulness

The NHS and the Mental Health Foundation both recommend a number of useful practices that can help reduce stress and manage your reaction to overwhelming feelings. Here’s a list of some of those techniques and what they can do to help reduce stress:

  • Practice Mindful Meditation. The internet has a number of resources on practicing meditation. The NHS has some advice on where to start – but why bother in the first place? Simply put, meditation can be seriously effective in adjusting the way we think. Meditation is being treated more and more seriously as a solution to overwhelming feelings. Mindful meditation encourages us to pause for a moment and take a breath. It teaches us to re-evaluate what’s important and focus our energy on reducing negative feelings. This can be particularly important in tackling stress. Take a look at the NHS guide here.
  • Write down your stresses. Often, the source of your stress and overwhelming feeling may be a lack of control. By writing your feelings down – or tasks that you want to accomplish – you can get a good sense of where to begin. Writing it down helps give you a moment to process how you’re feeling and also break down your stresses into a visual category. By doing this, it becomes easier to see that these stresses and tasks are manageable. You can complete them in an ordered way, and they feel less like an overwhelming burden.
  • Complete regular exercise. Exercise is proven to help reduce emotional intensity. By performing regular exercise, your body and mind have an outlet for negative feelings. It can help clear your mind and allow you to tackle problems with a fresh perspective. Even a ten-minute walk can greatly help with stress. Exercising is a great way to rejuvenate your mind and help you address stressful factors from a calmer position.

It can be a lot to expect yourself to learn all of this alone. That’s why Ceed has created a dedicated team to help you keep on top of overwhelming feelings and practice mindfulness. We use real behavioural psychology to help plot a course of action for your personal development. Take a look at what we can do for you here.

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