5 Things You Can Do Right Now To Boost Happiness and Bust Stress

From information overload to increasing time pressures, many of us are facing burnout – if we’re not there already. Here’s what you need to know about chronic stress and ways to beat it right now

When Ani Wilson returned to work after a serious burnout, she started to see her colleagues in a different light. She could spot the signs of their extreme stress levels a mile away – the same signs that had plagued her until an episode of not being able to leave her bed forced her to stop and take stock.

With a fresh insight on the perils of extreme pressure, she chose not to re-join the corporate rat race, and instead went on to retrain in neurological science in order to help managers, leaders and execs avoid the dangers of the chronic stress cycle.

These days, Ani works as a stress mastery coach and leadership consultant, and helps frazzled professionals around the world. With a focus on teaching achievable steps and evidence-based ‘brain hacks’, here she shares some insights and tips to help you hit pause:

Why Do We Feel Stressed?

Despite all our knowledge on the dangers of high cortisol levels, the trend towards meditation and wellness, and the flood of information available to us about how to ease the pressure, we’re still more stressed than ever. So what’s going on?

Ani believes it’s not just our addiction to our phones or an inability to say ‘no’ that’s the problem, but our brain’s processes simply struggling to cope in the world we now live in.

“We all have about 80,000 thoughts a day, and 90 per cent of those are your subconscious thoughts like habits and emotions, which are generally the same as yesterday,” she explain. “So we only have about 7000 unique thoughts a day.”

“In 1952, the average worker was processing about two newspapers’ worth of information a day, but if you fast forward to the present, that number is now estimated to be number is now estimated 176 newspapers worth of data. That’s using the same number worth of data’ of unique thoughts – and that’s just the tip of the iceberg.”

The Warning Signs Of Stress Overload

4 Things You Can Do Right Now To Boost Happiness and Bust Stress

While everyone is affected by stress differently, and some people get to the ‘pressure overload’ point faster than others, there is a key sign of impending burnout that’s the same for almost everybody.

“Burnout is where you get to the point where you become mechanical about everything, you have no emotion whatsoever, other than wanting to cry,” Ani says. “You just can’t turn that emotion on – you can’t laugh – and you get to the stage where you’re utterly exhausted but you cannot sleep.”

She points out that for many of us, stress is a good thing. But chronic stress is when it turns bad. If the warning signs are there, the first thing Ani advises is to work on getting a better sleep. This is often a case of going back to the basics like not using devices before bed, taking a warm bath in the evening, and having tryptophan-rich foods like warm cow’s milk before hitting the pillow.

A fear of asking for help is another hallmark of the road to burnout, and we can all agree it’s high time we put an end to the stigma.

“As a friend, if you see someone who is close to burnout, say to them, ‘I’m worried about you, I want you to ask me to help you. If you don’t ask me, I’m going to get angry with you, as I really want to help.'” Ani says.

“Most of us get to that point because we are useless at asking for help, as we think that other people will judge us. We have to start teaching ourselves that we can’t do everything and be everything, and that this fear of judgement – it’s all within ourselves. It’s not even about being vulnerable, it’s called being human.”

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Not Everyone Beats Stress The Same Way

We already know that the human brain is spectacularly complex, so with this in mind, a ‘one size fits all’ approach to busting stress is impossible. But rather that it just being a matter of whether you prefer to wind down with an exercise session or a good book, Ani goes deeper into the inner wirings of our grey matter.

“A high performer may have spent 20 years training their frontal lobe, the reward centre of the brain, to expect to achieve,” she says. “The brain has physically trained itself to expect reward, and it has become stronger in certain areas, often at the detriment of other areas. So just telling a person like that to simply chill out and go on holiday is often just putting them on a faster track to burnout highway.”

For the people that find a tranquil getaway almost impossible, Ani recommends the seemingly counterintuitive step of taking some work away on holiday – but limiting the time spent in work mode to one hour a day. That way, there is still a sense of achievement, alongside the relaxation and change of scenery.

But if you need a quick fix, here are five easy things you can do to boost your mood and stamp out stress right now:

https://www.womensweekly.com.sg/gallery/beauty-and-health/chronic-stress-tip-boost-happiness/

5 Things You Can Do Right Now To Boost Happiness and Bust Stress

1. Try Left Nasal Breathing

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The parasympathetic nervous system is located on the right side of the brain. Breathing through the left nostril kicks the parasympathetic nervous system into gear, prompts it to take over from its stress-inducing counterpart, and drops the brain’s cortisol level.

Simply close your right nostril with your finger and take a few deep, slow breaths.

Photo: Unsplash

2. Visit The Nearest Park Or Garden

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It’s quite common knowledge that spending time in the great outdoors (as opposed to being cooped up indoors or in a concrete environment) is good for you. But now, we can put a number to exactly how much “nature time” you should be having. According to a new study, spending two hours a week in nature is greatly beneficial for your mental wellbeing and overall health.

The study, which surveyed 20,000 adults, found that people who spent at least two hours a week in a natural setting were more likely to report “good” health or “high” levels of wellbeing, compared to those who spent zero time in nature.

Head to one of these local hiking trails and parks pronto!

Photo: Pexels

3. Drink Water

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Dehydration causes the brain to shrink away from the skull, slowing cognitive performance.

Chronic stress – including recent stressful events as well as the lifetime total of stressful events – has the same brain-shrinking effect, and particularly affects the parts of the brain responsible to reasoning, decision-making, emotion and self-control.

Photo: Unsplash

4. Do Something New

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When we learn something new, the brain builds a new neural pathway to that area, so the more we learn, the more pathways we create to all functional areas of our grey matter.

We also benefit from keeping the brain active and excited, which can be through something as simple as driving a different route to work or creating a new playlist.

Photo: Unsplash

5. Smile

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On the whole, adults laugh around 17 times a day, while children laugh up to 400 times a day.

Many of the muscles in the face are linked to areas of the brain that create the happy hormones serotonin, oxytocin and dopamine, and smiling more can help to active the process.

Even if you fake it at first, the feel-good hormones are still activated, and as you make smiling more of a habit, you’ll reach a point where you actually mean it.

Photo: Unsplash

Text: Bauersyndication.com.au / Additional reporting: Elizabeth Liew & Camillia Dass

Photo: Unsplash

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5 Things You Can Do Right Now To Boost Happiness and Bust Stress

Why Do We Feel Stressed?

The Warning Signs Of Stress Overload

WATCH THIS VIDEO TOO:

10 Best Foods To Eat Before Bedtime For Better Sleep

Not Everyone Beats Stress The Same Way

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