How to relieve stress quickly? Global and local crises, wars, instability, accidents, health problems and other personal issues affect us greatly every single day. Stress builds up and if we just ignore it, we will certainly face some sort of consequences: from deteriorated mental health to poor psychical health. Sometimes it just feels like you can’t handle it anymore. Here is a list of tips on how to relieve stress quickly. Natural stress relief includes effective stress relief exercises and great over the counter stress relief products. Try them and find the ones that work best for you.

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How to relieve stress quickly

Breathing stress relief exercises

How to relieve stress quickly with breathing stress relief exercises? Breathing is something we usually don’t pay much attention to but it can easily become a tool for natural stress relief. To relieve stress, try to focus on your breathing and breathe deeply. Deep breathing lowers blood pressure and heart rate, reduces the level of cortisol (stress hormone) in blood, thus making you feel more relaxed. Change your chest breathing to abdominal breathing. Inhale for 4 seconds, then exhale for 6 seconds. Or you can inhale for 4 seconds, pause for 4 seconds, and then exhale for 4 seconds. Repeat for at least 3 minutes. Release tension with breath. There are numerous breathing stress relief exercises available in various apps and books.

Meditation

Meditation is a powerful tool for stress relief and fighting anxiety and panic attacks. I know it because I used to suffer from panic attacks resulting from my social anxiety and generalized anxiety disorder. In case you have the same problems, read what helped me overcome social anxiety without medication and without a psychologist. Other related blogposts that you may find interesting:

How to Get Rid of Anxiety and Fear

Don’t Let Anxiety Deprive You of Happiness

Why Don’t People Like Me? – Trick Your Mind Plays on You

How to Calm Anxiety Without Meds

Now let’s talk about meditation. Don’t rush, dedicate some time to just breathing and staying mindful. What is mindfulness? Mindfulness means being in the here and now, being aware of what is going on in reality. Read How to Practice Mindfulness |30 Best Tips|. It’s true to say that most people most of the time live either in the past (memories, regrets, thoughts “I should have done that instead of that”, etc) or fantasizing about the future. People forget that we can’t change the past, so thinking about it every now and then is pointless and that the future we’re constantly thinking about may never come because we can’t control events and situations. So, the only life we have is NOW.

Sit comfortably, close your eyes and turn off the internal monologue. Try not to think about anything but at the same time don’t focus on eradicating any thought that pops into your mind. Just let your thoughts pass by, don’t concentrate on any of them. Instead of focusing on your thoughts as people usually do, try focusing on your breathing instead. Make deep breaths and pay attention to your sensations when you inhale and exhale. If focusing on your breathing doesn’t work for you, try focusing on sensations in your body. Bring your attention to your feet, notice any sensations, then go up to your ankles, notice any sensations, imagine how you release tension from all parts of your body, keep doing so until you reach your head. Sense every little part of your body: even your toes, fingers, cheeks, ears, tongue, nose etc. Another way to stop focusing on your thoughts is to bring your attention to the sounds around you.

Great accessories for meditation

Aromatherapy stress relief

Aromatherapy can be another answer to the question “how to relieve stress quickly?” Essential oils are considered one of the best natural stress relief products because certain scents prompt the release of serotonin and dopamine, neurotransmitters associated with the feeling of happiness. Best essential oils for aromatherapy stress relief, relaxation, and mood improvement are lavender, clary sage, ylang ylang, chamomile, sandalwood, patchouli, cedarwood, jasmine oils.

Essential oils for aromatherapy

How to relieve stress quickly using such natural stress relief products as essential oils? You can apply essential oil or a mix of essential oils on your skin, drop a few drops on tissue and smell it whenever you need to feel more relaxed, use an essential oils diffuser, use a special necklace or bracelet (there are various types of them on Amazon), light a scented candle, or spray a relaxing blend on your pillow for better sleep.

Aromatherapy stress relief products

Mini Zen garden

What about a more unusual yet maybe even more effective stress relief product? What’s a mini Zen garden? Desktop mini Zen garden is small version of a Japanese Zen rock garden. A mini Zen garden is an awesome stress relief product for meditation and relaxation as it helps concentrate on interaction with it instead of concentrating on the constant flow of thoughts. A mini Zen garden includes a container filled with sand and various accessories: stones, figures, and mini rakes to draw on the sand with. There are numerous options to choose from on Amazon. If you don’t know how to relieve stress quickly, try playing with a mini Zen garden as it is an inexpensive yet powerful tool that helps distract from problems, overthinking and relieve stress whether at home or in the office.

Amazing mini Zen gardens

Stress balls

How to relieve stress quickly in office, school, transport or wherever your are? Stress balls also known as squishy balls is another way to relieve stress, anxiety, tension. Stress balls also help with fidgeting.

Coloring

Coloring books are popular stress relief products because coloring is some sort of meditation. Focusing on coloring your brain may stop overthinking.

Being offline more often

Too much junk information, advertisements, and unnecessary communication make stress build up or add to it. Sometimes nothing can help relieve stress better than logging out of social networks (or even deleting them), turning off notifications, and not checking the news feed for a day or even more. Digital detox is what we all need from time to time.

People spend too much time on social media nowadays to get external validation. Don’t let this craving for social approval make you sacrifice your true needs and desires. Read Why You Don’t Need External Validation and Reasons to Quit Instagram: Instagram Illusions.

Walks in nature

Nature is the best doctor. Try to spend some time in nature every day to unwind and relieve stress quickly.

Natural stress relief

How to relieve stress quickly and naturally? Drink a cup of herbal tea, green tea or matcha. Green tea and matcha are rich in L-theanine which is an amino acid that helps reduce anxiety, relieve stress, and also fight insomnia. At the same time, green tea has relatively low, compared with black tea and coffee, amounts of caffeine, which elevates cortisol, a stress hormone. While matcha is rich in caffeine too, unlike coffee, it doesn’t provoke a spike of energy, due to L-theanine in matcha, your body absorbs the caffeine more slowly.

Preparing matcha tea is super easy. Put 1-2 tablespoon (depending on how strong you want your matcha) of matcha powder into a cup using a small sifter, add a little hot water and whisk it from side to side with a regular whisk or a special bamboo whisk that you can buy on Amazon to make frothy foam on the top. Then add more water or milk of any kind.

When shopping for matcha, you’ll notice that there are two main types: ceremonial grade matcha and culinary grade. What’s the difference between ceremonial matcha and culinary matcha? Which one to choose? Opt for ceremonial grade matcha which is more high quality if you’re going to drink it with just hot water and pick culinary grade matcha which has a bitter flavor if you’re going to make lattes, smoothies, or add it to bakery.

Everything you need for preparing great matcha

To prepare matcha tea you will need matcha powder, a sifter, a matcha bowl, and a whisk or an electric frother. Buy a complete set for matcha or just those tools you lack.

Chamomile, lavender, lemon balm, valerian root, and peppermint teas are well-known for their relaxing properties.

Herbal stress relief

Reading a self-help book

My favorite type of stress relief products – good self-help books. You can live a life without anxiety and stress, says the author of Take Back Your Mind. Best-selling author and long-time Buddhist meditation teacher Lodro Rinzler shows us how to work with the mind so that we don’t hold ourselves in a state of stress and learn to relax and appreciate our world once more.

Another great self-help book with more than 27,000 reviews on Amazon is Think Like a Monk by Jay Shetty. This book will help you understand how to overcome negativity and stop overthinking, how to find happiness and much more.

Writing down your thoughts and feelings in a journal

Writing down your thoughts and feelings can help understand the root cause of your anxiety, stress, and other negative emotions, can help you better understand yourself.

Hugging someone you love or lying under a weighted blanket

Hugs provide natural stress relief because hugging boosts the level of oxytocin, a hormone that lowers anxiety and helps lower cortisol (a stress hormone) as well as provokes the release of serotonin and dopamine – neurotransmitters responsible for our feeling of happiness. Lack of serotonin can lead to depression, anxiety and disrupt circadian rhythms.

As an alternative to hugs and cuddles, there’re weighted blankets that are great stress relief products for natural stress relief as they help reduce anxiety. Moreover, a weighted blanket helps improve sleep quality.

Weighted blankets for anxiety and stress relief

There’re many weighted blankets on the market. However, picking one for yourself, pick a blanket which weight is in the range of 10-12% of your body weight or slightly lighter if you’re afraid it may be too heavy for you.

Reading positive quotes for going through hard times

Positive uplifting quotes can help relive stress a great deal. See Inspirational Quotes for Going Through Hard Times, 42 Positive Affirmations with Wallpapers for Phone and Life-Changing Affirmations for Women.

Playing with your pet

Spending time with animals can decrease the level of cortisol, a stress hormone, and increase the level of oxytocin, a hormone that reduces anxiety and makes us feel happy. Oxytocin is also responsible for the bond between mothers and their babies, probably which is why most pet owners love their pets as if they were their kids. Consider adopting a dog from a rescue center if you still haven’t. This way you will not only have a source of positive energy but also the most loyal best friend. Moreover, the thought that you’ve saved a life will light up your life even during the darkest days.

Taking a hot bath/shower or visiting SPA

You may have noticed that soaking in a hot tub or under hot shower helps relax, reduce anxiety, relieve stress quickly and here is why: how water widens your blood vessels which improves blood circulation, decreases blood pressure and the workload of the heart. It’s also the weightlessness of your body when sitting in a hot tub that helps relieve stress. To make the time you spend in shower or in a hot tub even more comfortable, use a bath pillow. To make it more enjoyable, buy a SPA bath set with an amazing scent of your choice and turn on some relaxing music.

Awesome bath and shower stress relief products

Getting a massage is also a good idea if you’re wondering how to relieve stress quickly. Massage reduces the level of stress hormones, relax muscles, and improves blood circulation which altogether helps reduce stress-related pains.

Beating a Dammit Doll

When nothing else seems to help and you don’t know what else to do, how to relieve stress quickly, especially at work or when the amount of stress is more than you can handle, when you’re about to burst out yelling or crying, try beating a Dammit Doll to release all that negative energy.

Pin this blogpost for later to remind yourself how to relieve stress quickly without turning to meds with use of natural stress relief products and effective stress relief exercises.