How To Bring More Calm Into Your Life
With our everyday lives becoming more and more busy and full of demands and obligations, it is likely that we are experiencing more distress and generally less calm in our own lives.
I am sure that all of us would appreciate a bit more peace so that we can approach each of our daily activities with a calm and collected mind but with the distractions that we face everyday, that is getting to be more of a challenging task.
This is why I thought it would be useful to write a little piece on how we can introduce more calm into our lives, which will improve everything from our stress levels to our sleeping quality.
Hope you enjoy, and wishing you a great day.
❗️ What causes distress?
All of us experience feelings of distress sometimes, where a little bit of stress to our body is actually not bad, but even beneficial. The problem comes when that feeling of stress becomes chronic and constantly present in the background.
Bellow are some of the common causes of why we feel tense and stressed, some of which you may identify with yourself:
Feeling overwhelmed/ a lack of control
Feeling inadequately prepared for something
Holding past grudges and negative beliefs
Interpersonal relationship issues
Moving somewhere new
Academic/ work struggles
😰 Dangers of being chronically over stressed
Mental health problems: Depression, anxiety, and personality disorders
Cardiovascular disease: Heart disease, high blood pressure, abnormal heart rhythms, heart attacks, and strokes
Sleeping issues: Insomnia and disrupted sleep
Diet related disorders: Obesity and other eating disorders
Sexual problems: Impotence in men, loss of sexual desire in both men and women. Menstrual problems in women.
Skin and hair issues: Acne, psoriasis, and eczema, and permanent hair loss
Gastrointestinal problems: Such as GERD and gastritis
Burn out: Feeling chronically tired, loss of motivation and feeling like a failure (Sense of defeat)
Loss of immunity: Falling ill more often, poorer wound healing
💙 Benefits of being a more calm individual
Better sleep
More creativity
Higher energy levels
Reduction in medical heart conditions
Slowing down aging
Better focus in the moment
Making more rational decisions
🧘🏼♀️ Practical methods of calming down
Breathing practices
Meditation: Meditation can be a useful way of calming down as it encourages us to slow down, focus on our breath and in that way turn our attention to the present moment.
Breath work: There are plenty of different methods of breath work, all of which work on the basis of breathing in different styles and pattens in order to calm our mind. A popular breath work technique is called the box technique, where for 4 seconds each you: Inhale, hold your breath in, exhale and hold your breath again, after which you repeat.
Diet and nutrition:
Avoid large amounts of processed sugar: While foods containing lots of processed sugar may taste good, in the long run they are not beneficial to us, as too much sugar intake can make us go through sugar highs and crashes along with unstable energy levels, that will disrupt our daily patterns of calm.
Regulating your caffeine intake: Caffeine is a powerful stimulant, which if taken in the wrong times of quantities, can negatively affect our brain and nervous system.
Relaxing teas: These come in many different flavors, but experiment with what you like and what makes you feel good. Often herbal teas such as chamomile or fennel are quite nice to calm you down, especially before sleep.
Movement and slowing down:
Physical activity and movement: We often find that after having done some movement, we feel a great sense fo achievement and calm as movement encourages our mind to focus either on our movement or the surroundings around us - all of which make us more peaceful.
Slow stretching: Just like exercise, doing some slow stretched can have the same effect as our movements are slow and precise.
Spending time in nature: Time spent in nature is healing and good for connecting us back to reality while temporarily disconnecting us out of the daly worries and stressors
Personal approaches:
Writing down whats on your mind: This can either be by using a notebook or a online note taking platform, where we can write down all of the worries and tasks which ware running across our mind and in that way try to rationalize wether it is worth being stressed about all of those things
Using routines: Routines can be calming as they allow our body to temporarily go into autopilot mode and not have to think through everything we do, because we are already used to the pattern.
Light reading: Reading before bed or during the day can be a great way of slowing down and temporarily getting lost in a good narrative.
Relaxing sounds: Listening to calming ambient music, or simply some nature sounds can be a simple method of relaxing in order to calm your mind and thoughts
Unplugging and reconnecting
Be aware of your device/ media usage: By using softwares that track how much time you spend on your devices and on which sites/ apps a lot of time is spent, you can get a rough idea of how you use your electronics and wether that time usage is doing you more harm than good.
Take time to disconnect: On the same note, take the necessary time to spend some time without your devices and avoid being constantly online.
Talk to someone about your distress: Lastly take time to talk through any issues that may be causing you stress either to a close friend or trusted family member, to which you can open up and alleviate some of your internal pressures.
