With all of the stresses of life — work, relationship problems, family troubles — it’s more important than ever to find ways to treat yourself and make life better.
You may think that you’ll never find the time to relax and enjoy yourself with everything going on around you, but, really, there are some creative ways to reduce stress anytime you want or need to. Sometimes, it just takes a few minutes away from everything to relieve all of your worries and make life great again. Here are a few things you can do the next time you’re feeling a little down or stressed out to get out of the funk and enjoy your life once more.
Color
Do you remember how carefree you were as a child, coloring in coloring books on a Saturday morning? Over the past few years, adults have been taking up this favorite childhood pastime and using it to relieve stress. And the best part is, if you have a smartphone or tablet, you don’t even need to buy any supplies.
The Coloring Book for Me & Mandala app downloads directly to your mobile devices and provides you with hours of relaxing entertainment. You can choose from many different designs to color, from wildlife pictures like bears and birds to flowers and even abstract designs. You also get to choose from over 200 colors, separated into over 25 different palettes that will satisfy whatever creative mood you’re in.
The best part is that you can open the app anytime you have some free time and want to relax a little. The app is constantly updated as well, so you’ll always have new, creative things to color.
Meditate
You may think of meditation as sitting in one place for a long time, but you can actually just take a few minutes whenever you want to meditate and feel better.
The benefits of meditation are numerous. The practice has been shown to reduce stress, increase concentration, increase happiness, and it may even help make you a more healthy person. Just five minutes of mindful meditation can help you receive all of these benefits, and you can do them anywhere you want. There are plenty of helpful videos online and apps as well that can help you if you’re unsure how to begin.
Get Out
Whenever life gets you particularly stressed, sometimes the best thing to do is to get out of the house or office and experience nature.
Taking a walk through a park or forest or along the beach can have a dramatic impact on your outlook and health. The exercise of walking will help you feel rejuvenated and refreshed, and your communing with nature will help you forget about all of the things in life that are stressing you out. Oftentimes, just a 20-minute walk can do wonders for your outlook on life.
Next time you’re feeling stressed, try one of these exercises and see if you feel better.
Harvey Woods is a therapist who writes articles about self-care as a way to manage stress, emotions and generally feel in a happier place in life.
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