What's In Your Coping Toolbox? The best 8 stress relief activities.

Life constantly gives us challenges and changes, and often it can lead to us feeling stressed. If you know which coping skills work best for you, you are more likely to be able to handle stress better. Here are some ideas on how to deal with stress.

Understand how stress affects you personally and learn to recognize your specific sources of stress. What triggers you? What situations usually drain you and make you feel overwhelmed?

Improve your problem-solving skills. Identify the problem, break it down into realistic parts, and set goals on how to deal with each of them. What part can you possibly put to the side till later on? What part can you remove altogether that won't affect the end result negatively?

If you usually take on too much or have difficulties with saying no, begin to set healthy boundaries for yourself. What is reasonable for you to take on? Does the task you will take on have a realistic time frame? Will it allow other important engagements?

Develop a good support network by consciously developing relationships that can support you. If you find it difficult to ask for help, learn that it is ok to delegate and ask for help when you need it. Allow yourself to accept help when offered. You can always do the same for others, and discover how good it actually feels to be able to help someone. Why not allow others to do the same for you?

Practicing deep breathing is an easy way to reduce the activation of the sympathetic nervous system, which controls our bodies response to a perceived threat. Deep breaths taken in to a count of five seconds, held for two seconds, and released to a count of five seconds, helps the parasympathetic nervous system, which helps reduce the overall stress and anxiety we may be experiencing.

To meditate or to listen to guided meditations is a good way to give us a sense of calm, peace and balance. When we meditate, we clear away the information overload that builds up every day and contributes to our stress.

Physical exercise is proven to be a great stress reliever and also helps to improve our overall quality of life.

When we stress it can deplete certain vitamins. Good nutrition not only helps our bodies feel better, but our minds as well.

Spending time on social media can be stressful, not only because what we see on them, but because they take away time we can spend on things that add genuine value to our lives, such as spending time in nature or meeting, reading a good book or have real-time conversations with friends. So, managing social media time can reduce stress and is good for our wellbeing.

From time to time, we can work under stress and be successful, if there is a time set aside to recover. We are often very good at planning and scheduling all our work commitments. But what about our commitments to ourselves?

Perhaps you can turn the tables by scheduling in time for your recovery first, with activities that help you to relax, before scheduling in your work commitments? By consciously planning time for mindfulness, time when you will train, time to spend in nature and time to spend with friends, before you schedule activities such as job meetings and work.

What tools do you have in your toolbox?

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