5 Ways To Naturally Combat Stress

Believe it or not combating stress isn't as complicated or costly as you might think. You don't have to opt to buy prescription drugs or go to expensive rehabilitation sites. In fact fighting stress can be as easy as improving the way you live your life. Here are 5 examples of how to fight stress naturally:

1. Improve your diet

Sometimes stress is caused by the food we eat whether directly (contributing to cortisol production, the stress hormone) or indirectly (obesity/unhealthy weight gain). One of the best ways to fight stress is to actually improve your diet specially by including plenty of fruits and vegetables and excluding foods that cause stress such as fast food or processed food.

Some foods known to cause stress are:

• Refined sugars
• Processed food
• Energy drinks
• Alcohol
• Greasy food

Some foods known to treat stress:

• Dark leafy vegetables
• Blueberries
• Dark Chocolate
• Avocado
• Bananas

2. Exercise

Exercising has many benefits and beating stress is one of them. It does this by counteracting cortisol with endorphins a.k.a. the feel good hormone. Aside from stress relief, your body will also benefit from the effects of exercise on your cardiovascular health, muscles, as well as bone density which promotes overall health in the long term.

3. Avoid vices

Vices such as gambling, smoking, and drinking can be disastrous to your health in many ways and getting it over stressed is one of them.

• Gambling can make you extra tense when it comes to finding ways to win more or win back the money you lost.
• Smoking can make you dependent on nicotine and depriving yourself a puff or two can make you restless. This is on top of the adverse effects of smoking to your health.
• Drinking excessively can give you terrible hangovers as well as promote anxiety post-drinking.

4. Stop and relax

Running along with something you know you won't be able to keep up with will only do more harm than good. Sometimes the world can seem to fast for you to catch up to and during those times the best way is to just stop and take a breather. 

Remember our sleep article? Sleeping soundly can actually reduce the impact of stress to your body. When you take a moment to just stop whatever it is your doing and relax, you allow yourself to think of ways to cope with the source of stress. This also allows your body to relax and "reset" the effects of stress on your body such as lowering blood pressure and reducing heart rate to safe levels.

5. Socialize and interact

Having too many things to think about and no one to talk to has bee
n proven to cause a lot of stress. The obvious solution to that is to simply engage in social interaction. A study even proves people who are stressed were able to cope with their stress better if they talked to someone about it than those who kept it all to themselves.

Talking also allows you to realize you are not alone when you're stressed and that you can always ask for help when everything gets too stressful. This makes you relax and get a more optimistic view in life.