Where Stress Builds Up—and How to Release It
Built up stress can cause havoc on your overall health. In today’s rushed lifestyle, there’s no escaping stress. Fortunately, there are ways to address this problem and gain control over its effects.
Yoga, exercise, and crafting are popular techniques. Another preferred approach includes cannabis and other infusions. Before embarking on this route, be sure to study Black Diamond Strain Information & Review or any cultivar of choice.
Let’s find out more about how stress builds up in the body and the steps you can take to find relief. It’s time to take back control of your health and lifestyle.
Where Stress builds up and its impact
You must first understand where stress builds up in your body and how it affects your health. Below, we’ve addressed each area and the effect it has.
Shoulders and Chest
“Having the weight of the world on your shoulders” is an apt idiom explaining this scenario. Shoulders hunch forward as tension and strain takes effect. We often take on a defeated posture, with shoulders pulling up to the ears and head jutting forward.
Gut and Stomach
While it sounds far-fetched, the stomach is a power source to every part of your body. When stress builds up in your gut and stomach, it causes indigestion, bloating, and irregular bowel movements.
Jaw, Neck, and Face
A common reaction to stress is to clench your jaw or grind your teeth. These actions cause the muscles to tighten, ultimately leading to headaches and migraines or tense neck muscles.
Lower Back
Built up stress in the lumbar region of the back can put pressure on the spinal cord and cause debilitating pain. Over time, this strain can cause long-term inconveniences.
Torso
As mentioned before, stress can cause a hunched posture, which can constrict your lungs and diaphragm. This often leaves you feeling slightly out of breath and exhausted. It also sometimes leads to an increased heart rate, leaving you experiencing a panic attack.
How to Release Stress
Now that you know where your body stores stress and its impact on your health, it’s time to learn how to release it. With this knowledge, you can take back control and find some relief.
We’ve listed some of the most common techniques below.
Exercise
We’ve all heard about how exercise helps to release the “good hormones” that help you feel better stressed. The trick is to be intentional about your activity and aware of your body. For example, hitting the gym for a session of weight lifting won’t do any good if you have an existing injury.
Consider your capabilities, and what you enjoy, then work from there. Dancing, yoga, martial arts, walking, and cycling are fantastic ways to relieve stress. Do you feel more pent up aggression than usual? Why not take a kickboxing class to burn off some steam?
Meditation
While many despise the thought of being still for any period, meditation is an ideal practice to quiet an overactive mind. By disconnecting from external influences, you can process thoughts, feelings, and current situations.
Through meditation, you’ll practice self-awareness, identifying the root of (and solution to) your stress.
You may not have a breakthrough immediately, but it’s certainly a practice worth trying a few times. Just approach it with an open mind and compassion for yourself.
Journaling
Writing in a journal isn’t only for teenage girls. In fact, it’s a fantastic way to identify triggers and how to manage them.
Keep a record of your daily encounters, activities, and experiences. When you go back and review these entries, you’ll identify a pattern and how to resolve the cause of your stress. It doesn’t sound significant, but this simple activity can help relieve a significant amount of stress.
Seek Help
Sometimes built up stress becomes too much to handle and, as we’ve seen, it can have a significant impact on your health. In these instances, it’s best to seek professional help before things get worse. Trained professionals can help you identify triggers and give you the tools you need to release it from your body.
Conclusion
Stress can affect your mental health and have drastic effects on your physical health. It’s highly advised to understand your triggers and how it is affecting your life.
With this information, you’ll know what to pay attention to and how to release stress from your body. Of course, prevention is better than cure. Adopting a healthier and more mindful lifestyle can help prevent the buildup of stress in your body or at least lessen the effects on your health.