Whether you’re a full-time employee, an only child in school, or a parent turned homeschool teacher, it’s normal to be wondering what we can do to alleviate stress at home. A lot of times, stressful situations can leave us feeling both depleted of energy and overwhelmed.
Chronic stress is ultimately harmful to the body if we don’t have ways to curb this feeling or are actively taking steps to mitigate some of the outside stressors in our lives. In fact, seven out of ten adults in the United States claim to feel stress or anxiety every single day.
With so many individuals feeling stressed throughout the day, it’s important to take note of ways you can actively reduce stress at home and some effective ways you can incorporate stress relievers throughout your busy day.
There are a few easy ways to mitigate and actively reduce your stress levels, including stretches at home.
Stretching at the gym and before and after your workout has tons of benefits, but did you know that it can also help you relieve and combat stress before it saps all of your energy? We’ve identified some key ways that stretching can help you reduce stress at home! What stretching techniques can we do in the comfort of our own homes that can help combat stress?
It’s no secret that physical activity can improve our lifestyles in many ways; we hear it all the time in commercials, from our parents, healthcare professionals, and at school. How useful can physical activity be when we are stressed? The answer is: extremely useful. Here’s why:
Stress can be a vicious cycle. If we are feeling stressed out, we might feel exhausted and burdened by the amount or nature of things going on. Oftentimes, stress impacts our sleep patterns and leaves us waking up tired, only to repeat the stressed-out pattern from the day before. Luckily, if we utilize all the positive attributes that stretching has on our body, we can help alleviate the power we give stress in our daily lives and get back to feeling healthy.
This means that you’ll no longer lose sleep because you’re stressed out thinking about all of the things that need to get done in the upcoming days or the feeling that you’re constantly falling behind because you can’t rid yourself of the anxiety that stress can cause.
It’s inevitable that we are going to feel stressed at some point, which can lead to tension headaches. Stretching can help get the blood pumping throughout your body and relieve the symptoms of these headaches as well as improve circulation to promote proper body functions throughout our system. Creating a habit of working out and actively engaging in physical activity has been proven to reduce fatigue, improve cognitive functioning, and improve alertness. These three attributes are some of the most common symptoms of stress.
Oftentimes, we build up many of the symptoms of stress without directly attributing them to actually being stressed. Only when things get to a certain boiling point and they become hard to ignore do we equate all of the symptoms we’re experiencing with stress build-up.
The problem with stress build-up is that it often occurs subconsciously without us even realizing it. First, you take on additional work in your job, then something goes awry at home that distracts you, and then next thing you know you’ve built up so much tension from all the different things going on in your life that it becomes stress overload.
Physical activity can help you combat stress by giving you a positive outlet to not only relieve that stress once it’s been built up for quite some time, but it can also give you an opportunity to combat the stress as it’s building up in your life. Some of the stress that could definitely be building up in your own life is the stress from working from home.
While working from home can be great, so many new people are trying to manage work from home expectations and the challenges it presents when trying to separate work from your personal life in your own home. If you find that you’re feeling more stressed while working from home and aren’t adapting quickly enough to the new normal, then you definitely need to alleviate stress while working from home.
If you are working from home on a daily basis, this can present even more challenging stress-inducing hurdles throughout the day. If you are spending most of your time working at a desk, stretching can help your muscles in many different ways that will positively contribute to your overall wellness.
The first key to reducing stress from the working from home environment is ensuring that your desk is ergonomically set to reduce the negative impacts that gravity can have on the body when sitting for extended periods of time.
For example, making sure your computer is at eye level and is set up an arm’s length away is a great start. If you are craning your neck to see your screen for eight hours a day, it is understandable that muscle strain will happen and even cause headaches and body stiffness.
Oftentimes, simple adjustments in your home setup and workstation can help you alleviate stress buildup before it even begins. There are tons of things that you can do to alleviate some of the things that are adding to the stress you feel, like the ergonomics of your keyboard, chair, monitor, and desk.
Another key way to alleviate some of the stress that could be building up at home is by stretching. Stretching can actually improve your posture when combined with strength exercises which can contribute to proper body alignment when sitting at a desk.
By incorporating active stretching into your daily life, you can make incredible improvements to your stress level and mood. Stretching will get your blood circulating through your body, which can increase your level of energy, oxygen to the brain and reduce muscle tension. Additionally, when your body is active, your brain releases endorphins, or feel-good pain-killing hormones. These hormones can also act as a powerful stress reliever. It’s clear to see that getting the body moving through stretches not only has benefits to the body, but also the mind. Both areas of the body play a huge role in stress and stress management.
You don’t need to do an intense workout every day to see a powerful impact on your stress levels and mood. Sometimes all it takes is a few 5-10-minute breaks from your desk to get your blood pumping, your energy rising and your endorphins flowing. So next time you can carve out a few minutes, take a deep breath and get to stretching! Doing a few quick exercises between your breaks can be a great way to break up some of that repetitive monotony of the normal work day and ensure that you can combat stress head-on before it becomes a bigger issue.
If you need a few quick stretch examples, check out this resource: https://www.webmd.com/fitness-exercise/ss/slideshow-stretches-to-get-loose
If you find that stress continues to impact you on a daily basis, you should connect with one of our licensed physical therapists in one of our nationwide clinics. We’ve got hundreds of clinics and virtual therapy options for you to use to connect with a physical therapist to alleviate chronic pain and stress that can build up over time.
Schedule an Appointment Today at a physical therapy clinic near you!
