1. Try to start the day by smiling
One of the effects of stress is the feeling of dread when you first wake in the morning. Before you know it, it has increased in intensity and you are now beginning to feel anxious. To help with tackling this early morning stress, there is a simple yet effective trick. After waking up, no matter how you feel, find the nearest mirror and smile.
It may sound strange but smiling has a very powerful impact on your emotional state and can change how you see the day ahead. What happens when you smile is that you stimulate muscle memory and release chemicals in the body that make you feel good. Your body remembers what you felt like when you smiled, so by forcing yourself to smile every morning, you are releasing chemicals that will automatically change your mood.
Also, smiling also has a powerful effect on other people. When you smile, a smile is likely to come back to you – not always – but more often than not.
2. Practise gratitude meditation
Of all our emotions, gratitude has the highest vibration. What this means is that the more grateful you are, the happier you become. Feeling overwhelmed and totally consumed by negative thoughts and emotions is often a symptom of being stressed – mentally and physically.
Begin and end each day with a five minute gratitude meditation. Start by focusing on your breath, then when you feel calm and peaceful, reflect on all the different things in your life that you are grateful for. This meditation helps you to realise how many things you can be grateful for. Even when life feels challenging, be grateful. Each situation no matter how hard, teaches us something from which we can learn and grow. The more gratitude we have within us, the more peace and happiness we can find in our lives.
3. Do something for others
Often when you are stressed, you will be advised by others to make more ‘me time’. Whilst it is said with the best intentions, one of the effects of stress is to spend time focusing on our problems and dwell on how they are making us feel. In this instance, more ‘me time’ often isn’t the best solution.
To really change we need to do the reverse and start thinking about others. When we make others happy we naturally become happier. This is the law of nature. Nature is constantly giving without expectation. When we follow this natural rhythm we become more peaceful and find greater happiness and meaning in our life.
4. Become aware of your thoughts and manage them
Stress and negative thoughts often go hand in hand, and this can be extremely damaging to our emotional and physical health. It is therefore essential to become aware of negative thought patterns and try to steer them in a different direction. Just like we can train our bodies to do things differently, we can also train our minds to think differently. It just takes practise. The first step is always awareness. Try to observe your thoughts daily especially in stressful situations and see if your thoughts are helpful or destructive. Every time you have a negative thought, just say to yourself ‘unhelpful thought’. Don’t allow your thoughts to go down a spiral of negativity. By stopping the continuation of negative thoughts they will slowly happen less frequently until you completely change the pattern of negative thinking.
5. Breathe
To become more peaceful, it is essential to get out of our busy head. We need to bring all our energy and focus away from our head and down into our body. Start by bringing all your focus and attention to the area just below your naval. This is a very important energy centre called the danjun. Whilst keeping your attention on this area you can start to breathe slowly, in through the nose and out through the nose. Every time your mind gets distracted, bring your attention back to this area and your breath. You will find that after a few minutes your breath will naturally slow down and you will start to feel more calm and peaceful. When this happens you will be able to think more clearly and be able to make the right decisions. Focusing on your breath is a very powerful way to bring about calm, helping you to find a more peaceful state of being.
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