Source: Pixabay

Stress is not a new word to us. And I also think it is one thing many of us have related with experientially especially those of us in developing nations who have to hustle hard to make ends meet.

For optimum productivity, we need to have not just a healthy body but also a healthy mind. Stress robs us of this healthy mind and in addition places a huge health burden on our body. Stress affects also our thoughts, feelings and behaviour. It has been linked to pathologies like heart diseases, high blood pressure, obesity and even diabetes. Many have had marred relationships because of bad moods engendered by stress.

For many people, I inclusive, it is very difficult to live a total stress-free life giving the kind of environment we live in and the many things we place our hands on to make ends meet. These underscore the importance of de-stressing. So permit me to share with you how I relieve stress. Hopefully, you might learn how to do yours too if you are yet to discover how to.

Movies and football

That's me giggling while watching a scene in a comedy movie.

The first thing I do is to engage in something I enjoy so much so as to take my mind away from the hassles of life. In this case, I enjoy watching romantic movies and comedies. I have a collection of them I watch whenever I want to de-stres.

Source

I am a football fanatic. Anything football takes my mind away from any other thing. If there is no ongoing football match, I go to popular football news sites and read up trending topics. Sometimes, I go to YouTube to watch the matches I missed or watch highlights of interesting matches. I enjoy it more if I locate where to play football at that moment. The fun I derive from it soothes my mind.

Exercise and then a cold bath

If I am to be specific, body building exercises. Sounds ironic right? Lol. It is one of my best ways of de-stressing. Where I live, we have a crude gym equipment in our penthouse. When I'm mentally burdened, I go there if I'm home and do some work-out. My goal is to ensure that I sweat so that I can go and have a cold bath. While doing the exercise, it helps me to shut my mind against the things bothering and burdening me. It makes my muscles to be somewhat weak and relaxed when I stretch them so hard. I do sit-ups, press-ups, skips, etc. I quickly take a cold bath after which I feel refreshed. Most times, I sleep off, waking up reinvigorated to face whatever work there is to do.

Take a walk along a bush path near my house

I do this when I'm emotionally stressed out like when someone hurts me. I can't really explain why I chose the bush path. I just discovered I feel better and relieved afterwards. May be, appreciation of wonders of nature partly accounts for it I also take beautiful pictures of nature while I walk down that part. Here are some of my pictures. Please pardon the picture quality, the camera is not a very nice one.

Took this during an evening stroll.

The weather was humid the day I took this.

Apart from helping me to overcome emotional stress, I also get inspiration while sauntering on this path. This also accounts why I love the adventure.

Prayer

Source: Pixabay

Finally, I pray. If the reason for my being stressed is way bigger than me, I commit it to God and get it off my mind. And it perfectly works for me. I think I can attribute this to my upbringing. Having been brought up by parents who constantly reminded me to cast all my care on God, it became a part of me to pray anytime I feel something is causing me to worry or become stressed out. And I think it is a good feeling for me because I do not eventually get weighed down by these problems. Prayer reminds me that I cannot change a lot of things by my own power alone. It gives me this feeling of dependence on God and gets the yoke placed by stress off my chest. I feel lightened up after such prayers.

So these are basically the major ways I de-stress. Do you wish to tell us yours? Go ahead. You can use the comment box.

This post is an entry for @healthsquared weekly health challenge sponsored by @sweetsssj. See the challenge here. You may wish to enter too.

I am @winningman.

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