Times are tough right now, causing a natural stress on people. It’s really important to reduce this stress as much as possible. Stress wreaks havoc on your body – compromising your immune system and leading to so many other chronic health issues like heart disease (none of that sounds appealing to me..amiright?). I use these tips in non-pandemic life as well and I hope they help you too!
So usually when I am stressed out, it is because I don’t feel in control of one part of my life. Obvs, not everything is in our control, so to fix this, I take control of something that I can. This is usually cleaning my apartment. I find disorganization to be very toxic to me. So first thing I do is pick up any clothes that I may have just thrown on my vanity or off to the side. Then I make my bed (literally even if it’s 8 pm) because making my bed makes me feel put together. Doing such simple tasks that probably take 10 mins max seriously help you feel less stressed. Literally just sitting in an organized & tidy room makes me feel better.
I turn on my salt lamp (which I turn on every single night). I bought mine off of Amazon and I love it. It creates such a warm glow and really sets the tone for the room. My husband and I sleep with the salt lamp on every night kind of as a night light. We also have little salt lamps that plug directly in to the outlet – we keep one in our living room and one in our bathroom (and I already have another one ready for the baby’s room). I purchased these off of Amazon too.
To help reduce stress, I find using essential oils (I know… like every other basic female) seriously helps too. I definitely am not crazy knowledgeable about essential oils, I just like how they smell and make my rooms smell. I have peppermint, eucalyptus, lavender, tea tree, and then two random blends that I think came with something I purchased years ago. The oil diffuser I use came in a fabfitfun box last year, but honestly, you can probably buy any type off of Amazon. In the morning, I tend to use peppermint or tea tree; in the evenings I lean towards lavender or eucalyptus. I haven’t done much research on these, but peppermint & tea tree wake me up a bit, whereas the eucalyptus & lavender I find to be really calming. Try diffusing some oils to help you relax a bit.
Journaling. So I am not very good at this. But, I find that when I do it, it actually helps. I bought a cute little journal and some cute pens off Amazon (seeing a theme?). I truthfully only journal when I am really stressed – my last entry was from like 5 months ago. I don’t typically go back and look at my entries, but looking at it now, they’re insane and don’t make sense. I just sit there and get my thoughts out in a really disorganized way. When I journal, it’s like my brain is like “OMG BUT DON’T FORGET THIS” so I write every.single.thing.down. It’s nuts. But it helps. You don’t need to do it every day.. or even every week. I strictly use this technique for when I just HAVE to get things off my chest. It also doesn’t need to make sense or be like a diary entry. Do whatever you feel comfortable with.
My husband and I are big into meditation. We have been to a few guided meditations, but we pretty much rely on meditations from youtube. Youtube has thousands of free meditations. Find one where you aren’t annoyed by the persons voice and relax for a few minutes. Meditation seriously takes practice BTW (who knew you had to practice relaxing????) – learning to focus on your breath and bring your thoughts back to your breath when your mind goes elsewhere is kind of challenging. You also don’t need to spend a crazy amount of time on meditating – only have 5 mins? Find a 5 minute meditation on youtube. Easy.
Give these tips a shot and let me know if they work! Drop a comment below with what you do to de-stress! Share the knowledge!!
Everything mentioned is on my liketoknow – link is below
Until next time,
Lauryn xo
Beauty and the Mama 