Unusual Ways To Beat Stress, Health Recommended

Many people experience extremely high levels of stress and anxiety. What do you do when work pressures, family pressures, and financial pressures come together to leave you overwhelmed and panicked?

If you’re one of the lucky ones, you’re able to get a good night’s sleep and lower your stress somewhat.

Even so, if you’re prone to stress, sleep, exercise, and time off can only do so much for you. If you still find yourself stressed, there are a few science-based stress-lowering hacks that you could try for quick relief.

Exploit the mammalian diving reflex

If you’re extremely stressed and can actually feel your heart beating and your blood pounding, activating the diving reflex can help:

it can slow the heart down, and make the body move more blood toward your vital organs. These responses have been shown to have the side effect of strongly lowering anxiety.

The ideal way to activate the diving reflex would be to fill a large bowl with ice cold water, and immerse your face in it for about 30 seconds, or as long as you can hold your breath.

If you can’t find a large bowl like that, you could also try pressing your face into a large ice pack.

If you suffer low blood pressure or other heart conditions, however, it’s important to clear this with your doctor before trying it out.

Subject yourself to strong sensations

When you’re stressed and anxious, the mind tends to narrow its focus to include only the things that bother you the most.

You might be able to distract yourself with movies, video games, or alcohol for a short time, but these choices can waste time or affect your health.

It could be a more effective approach to find a strong source of sensory stimulation that is able to jolt your mind away from obsessive anxiety.

Biting into a hot pepper or sucking on a lemon are among the kinds of strong sensory stimulation you could try.

Look for fractals

It’s well-known that being outdoors in nature helps beat stress. However, research is also beginning to show that exposure to any imagery that mimics some of the intricate pattern types seen in nature is able to create similar relaxing effects.

Images of fractals — patterns that repeat on a scale that gets smaller and smaller — can help. These are seen in nature in things like snowflakes and nautilus shells.

Many computer images, and even Jackson Pollock’s famous paintings, have been found to contain fractals.

Nature tends to produce these shapes that are complex, yet accessible, and humans tend to relax in their presence.

Distance yourself from yourself

If you find yourself trapped in anxiety and negativity, it can help to find a way to distance yourself from your situation.

Researchers have discovered that it can help you achieve this to speak to yourself about yourself in the third person.

Talking about yourself as he, she, or they, rather than using I, could help you mentally distance yourself from whatever makes you anxious.[