13 Ways to Relieve Stress and Anxiety

1. Breathe

Take a moment: Focus on your breath and the cool air coming in, warm air coming out.

Repeat several times.

2. Take Time For You

It is vital that you take time for you.

You need downtime, to recharge your batteries, refresh yourself, and rejuvenate.

You need time for you to destress so that you can continue giving to others.

3. Eat Clean

An increase in leafy green and other vegetables will automatically increase your health, your resilience and decrease your stress.

Eat lean white meat, fish, and healthy fats such as avocado, sesame oil, and coconut oil. Enjoy nuts, seeds, and berries

4. Exercise

Exercise such as brisk walking for 30-40 minutes, 4- 5 times per week will help you destress.

Your cardiovascular and circulatory health will improve, muscles will strengthen, bone density will increase, and you will release “happiness” endorphins.

5. Meditate

Taking time out to meditate every day, even if just for a few minutes, has been shown in studies to decrease stress and increase happiness.

A daily practice is the best way to reap results.

6. Be Mindful

Mindfulness is a form of meditation that can be done anytime, anywhere.

It involves being present to what is happening now, rather than reminiscing about the past or worrying about the future.

Notice your different senses (colors, sounds, textures, tastes, scents) as a way to keep you connected to the present moment.

7.Practice Gratitude

Gratitude is powerful! The more you practice it, the happier and more relaxed you feel.

Try being thankful for things every day!

Really experience the feeling of being grateful and you will become more contented.

8. Think Positive

It’s not so much what happens to you in life as how you respond to what is happening.

You can choose to see the glass as half empty or half full.

What will you choose?

9. Change Limiting Beliefs

Certain beliefs you hold may be holding you back in life.

The good news is, once you identify them, you can change them for more positive beliefs.

Next time you catch yourself thinking a negative thought, just say, “I am no longer that belief. I choose ....” Then insert your new, more empowering belief.

10. Let Go

Instead of trying to control everything, once you realize that ultimately, nothing is under your control, then you can let go and relax.

You may find that when you do let go, things miraculously resolve themselves, all by themselves!

11. Try Yoga

Yoga is a practice with many benefits.

It tones the muscles, increases strength, and flexibility, and prepares the mind for meditation, causing both body and mind to relax.

12. Take Nature Walks

Nature walks have been shown to help relax both body and mind, causing a greater sense of peace and tranquility to the body.

Being in the fresh air with natural beauty is a balm for the soul.

13. Relax

There are so many ways you can learn to relax: A hot bath with Epsom salts, relaxing your muscles one by one, lying down with your feet up against the wall.

When the body is relaxed, stress, and tension melts away, the parasympathetic nervous system takes over, and the body can heal.

3 Ways to Improve Your Physical Wellness

Improving your physical wellness isn’t necessarily easy, but it’s definitely worth the effort.

Your physical health is a crucial part of your life longevity and overall quality of life. Physical health also dictates your daily performance, energy and overall health and mental wellbeing

1. Eat Healthy

Maintaining a healthy diet and proper nutrition is imperative to your overall physical health.

The food you eat provides you with the nutrients your body needs; it also helps provide you with the energy you need to get through your day.

Your eating habits can affect not only your health and overall energy level, it can also affect your mood.

2. Getting Active

A crucial part to improving your physical wellness is getting and remaining physically active. It’s easier to start off simple and work your way up when it comes to physical activity, to help slowly build up your strength.

There are lots of ways to get physical activity in each day. Try these:

• Take the stairs instead of the elevator or escalator whenever possible

• Park further away from the entrance of your destination to encourage more walking

• Stretch regularly throughout the day to improve circulation and relieve muscle tension

• Stay hydrated; be sure to drink plenty of water throughout the day

• Choose healthier snacks and alternative healthier sides

3. Sticking with it

The hardest part of healthy living and eating is actually sticking to it; it’s much easier said than done.

With tempting food everywhere and plenty of everyday stressors to cause you to fall back into old habits, maintaining a healthy lifestyle can seem almost impossible, but you can do it! Monitor your progress and reward yourself when you reach milestones.

Give yourself credit when you make mindful, healthy decisions daily that allow you to stick to your healthy lifestyle in the face of temptation.

The more you monitor your progress and reward yourself for your hard work and commitment, the more likely you are to stick to it. Plus, once you start seeing results, it makes it all the more worth it.

10 Ways to Train Your Brain to Hate Junk Food

1. Play the swapping game.

Take one or two unhealthy foods you really enjoy eating, and replace them with healthy alternatives.

Replace French fries with sweet potato fries that are baked instead of boiled in oil.

Replace white flour with whole grains like quinoa, whole wheat, whole oats and buckwheat.

Try baked kale chips instead of potato chips. Make one or two of these substitutions every 7 to 10 days.

Your brain is incredibly adaptive. It learns that what you eat most of the time is what you will be eating most of the time.

When you slowly move away from junk food, fast food and highly processed foods, to healthier alternatives, your brain notices.

This is how some of your unhealthy cravings began initially. You ate so much of particular things that, even though your brain knew they were not good for you, it began to anticipate and to desire them.

Do this enough, and for a long enough period of time, and you can train your brain to dislike the food that is robbing you of your health and wellbeing

2. Respect the unhealthy power of sugar.

You may think your sugar cravings is absolutely unbeatable. The truth is, the chemical process which made you so powerless to sugar can be reprogrammed to disregard its power.

Sugar has been linked to a growing list of chronic and short-term health problems. The bad news is, if you eat a lot of processed food and junk food, fast food and restaurant food, you are getting more sugar than is healthy for you.

Sugar is in our food and beverages, and it is placed there intentionally. Refined sugar is an incredibly inexpensive flavoring agent, and it is highly addictive. This is how food manufacturers train your brain to crave food that causes disease and illness.

Start cutting back on sugar everywhere you can. This doesn't mean sugar that you are consciously spooning into your coffee or adding to your oatmeal. Sugar is everywhere.

Simply cutting back on processed foods, canned food, frozen food, and eating out will drastically limit your sugar intake.

3. Since a full 70% to 80% of unhealthy eating is emotional or stress-based, cut out the stress.

Learn how to manage stress and anxiety. Get lots of sleep. When your body and brain are tired, anxiousness and depression are constant companions.

Take up yoga, start meditating. Exercise and stay physically active often.

These are all proven stress relievers, and the more stress you can reduce in your life, the easier it is to eat for physical hunger reasons, rather than emotional ones.

4. Sometimes addiction can be beat simply by removing the cause of addiction.

Often addiction is caused because of emotional, financial or mental reasons. Find the triggers that cause you to eat unhealthy.

Purge your pantry. Clear your kitchen cabinets of junk food and nutrient-poor foods. Raid your refrigerator.

Replace unhealthy foods with fresh fruits and vegetables. From your soda and energy drinks, and drink nothing but water, herbal teas, coconut milk, and almond milk instead.

Whether people, food, your environment or junk food ads are driving you to unhealthy food choices, limit your exposure to them.

5. Constantly remind yourself how poorly you feel when you eat junk food.

Remember the energy and mental focus you have when you trade sugar, fried foods, salt, fast foods and processed foods for healthy alternatives like fruits and vegetables.

Try an experiment. Eat predominantly junk food for one week, and journal how you feel after every meal, and at the end of the week. Now do the same thing for one week eating predominantly whole foods. You will feel the difference.

After these 7 days of eating mostly whole foods, refer to your journal. Odds are you will have many more positive experiences recorded after eating fresh and whole foods than you did when you ate junk food and processed food.

6. It is easy to eat right and feel great when healthy food surrounds you.

This means having plenty of fruits and vegetables nearby for a quick snack, instead of reaching for a candy bar or a soda. Healthy treats can be as simple as a handful of almonds or walnuts. If you have some time, make a fresh smoothie with your favorite fruits and vegetables.

The key is to fill your home, office and commute with healthy foods rather than junk food, candy, baked goods, and fast food.

Remember: keep healthy, fresh vegetables, fruits, berries, and nuts nearby, and that is what you will reach to eat instead.

7. Don't instantly believe that you "hate all healthy foods".

Learn to try new, healthy meals you haven't tasted. This is how you develop a new taste profile in your mouth and in your brain, that learns how to enjoy healthy foods, as opposed to junk food.

Look up recipes online and experiment. Learn to prepare meals you never would've thought of trying. Expand your boundaries in the kitchen.

When you learn to try new meals, whether you prepare them or someone else does, you expand your mental limits where food exposure is concerned. If you make these new meals healthy and tasty, you can retrain your brain to love your new choices.

8. Studies show that fad diets are very limited.

Learn to try a variety of foods. When you "eat the rainbow", you enjoy a variety of different-colored whole foods that help your body get a complete range of nutrients, minerals, and vitamins than when you limit your choices to a small number of foods, even when they are healthy ones.

Eat lots of different fruits and vegetables. Try a wide variety of nuts and berries. You probably know that brown rice is healthier than white rice, and sweet potatoes are better for you than white potatoes. In addition to brown rice, quinoa, whole oats, barley, buckwheat, amaranth, bulger, and millet are healthy grains. Freekeh, spelt, farro and teff are as well.

Learn to eat many different kinds of healthy foods, rather than limiting your chances at becoming healthy by streamlining your eating habits.

9. Did you know one of the reasons why your brain becomes hopelessly addicted to junk food has to do with limited water intake, in many cases?

That's right, simply by drinking more water, you can break an unhealthy addiction to any food that is causing you health problems. You are predominantly water.

Your every cell requires water to be replenished on a daily basis, roughly 1 gallon per day. This means all of the food you eat and beverages you drink need to put a minimum of 1 gallon of water into your body daily.

This is a natural and simple detoxing practice. It cleanses your body of toxins, poisons, and waste. It also helps you keep feeling full all day so you can reach weight loss goals if you have them, and there is just no real reason for avoiding drinking water all day long.

This speaks to the power of drinking water as a simple way to make your brain stronger, so it can resist unhealthy addiction and develop healthy cravings instead.

10. You can beat unhealthy food cravings and eating behaviors with sleep and exercise.

When you get 6 to 8 hours of sleep on a nightly basis, you give your mind and body time to rest and repair.

When you're physically active each and every day, you sit more than you stand, and you keep moving as much as possible, you automatically move towards better health and well- being.

Regular exercise promotes healthy sleep behavior, which in turn promotes healthy physical activity.

There are several bodies of research that have proven the connection between physical and mental health. When your body is strong your brain is too. They each support the state of each other, whether healthy or unhealthy.

Keep your body healthy with lots of rest and regular physical movement, and your brain will have the power and ability to resist unhealthy cravings and adopt healthy eating habits.

49 Ways to Take Care of Yourself Every Day

Remember: “It's not selfish to love yourself, take care of yourself, and make your happiness a priority. It's necessary.”― Mandy Hale

1. Learn to process feelings.

Master the skill of processing your emotions in a healthy way.

2. Learn to say NO.

Believe in it, practice it, and use it to avoid overwhelm and overextending yourself that leads to burnout and exhaustion.

3. Proper sleep.

Good sleep is imperative for physical and mental health and wellbeing. It provides the body with the rest it needs to keep you well and helps you perform at your best in all that you have to do on a daily basis.

4. Eat clean.

Real whole food nourishes the body and brain, keeps your weight at a healthy level, and provides you with tons of energy.

5. Solitude.

Spend time alone to clear your mind, gather your thoughts and just slow down, even if it’s just a few moments.

6. Practice mindfulness.

Mindfulness is a practice that makes you focus on the present moment and really pay attention to what is going on, including smells, sounds, feelings, actions, and everything else.

This practice offers numerous benefits, but one of the best ones is that it keeps you in the present moment and prevents you from worrying about the future and constant thoughts of the past.

7. Get a treatment at the salon

A blow-out, manicure, pedicure, anything that makes you feel good and renewed

8. Create a morning routine

With meditation, prayer, visualizations, an uplifting podcast, a morning walk in nature or anything that works for you. Morning rituals help get you centered for the day ahead.

9. Drink a hot cup of herbal tea.

This is great in the evening to calm your mind and body and get ready for sleep

10. Turn off all noise

Including phone, social media alerts, and just sit in silence. You can do this easy self-care practice during any time of the day.

11. Cook.

Cooking helps keep you grounded and in touch with what you are eating.

I find the act of cutting fruits and vegetables to be soothing and relaxing.

12. Break free from negative and/or unhealthy people.

People who do not serve a positive purpose in your life only drag you down.

13. Get up slowly without an alarm.

Get up a little early so you have time to slowly awake, and have some quiet time for yourself.

14. Visit a local botanical garden to sit in and relax.

If you love plants, flowers and trees surround yourself with them as much as possible. Nature is soothing, calming, and restorative.

15. Practice deep breathing several times each day.

16. Meditate.

This practice only takes minutes and can be done anywhere. There are many smartphone apps with guided meditations to help you stop and take care of yourself throughout your day. It helps keep you centered, focus, and relaxed.

17. Do nothing.

Yes, take a few moments each day and do nothing but relax

18. Plan periods of time without plans.

Yes, it is okay to simply have blocks of time during your weekly schedule to do nothing and have nothing planned.

19. Be spontaneous.

The above tip allows you time to be spontaneous, this way you can just do whatever you want, take a drive, read, take a nap, go to lunch with a friend, or visit a place you always wanted to visit.

20. Exercise.

All exercise releases feel-good chemicals in the brain, reduces stress, detoxifies the body and greatly improves mood.

Cardio, aerobics, weight lifting, and even a simple walk around the block are all helpful.

21. Take a scenic drive

22. Practice yoga.

There is a yoga pose for just about every possible purpose, and yoga has more than sixty benefits for mind, body, and spirit. Its effects stay with you long after each session has passed.

23. Recharge with a spa day

24. Be okay with disappointment. Life is full of disappointments, but when we get caught up in the emotion of them it can drag us down, both in spirit and our quality of life.

25. Be your own best friend.

Think about what this means for you. Think of the keywords, love, honor, support, respect, care for, meet needs, be there for, and meet desires.

26. Go on a retreat to rest, refuel and regroup your mind and refresh your spirit

27. Create calming surroundings.

Look around your home, your car, and office, are these areas calming or do they create feelings of chaos or tension?

Clutter is chaotic, and when you are in a cluttered space, you will feel cluttered on the inside.

28. Consider your friends and relationships.

Do they fulfill you, support your wellbeing, and inspire you to be your best, or do they drag you down?

29. Consider your routine.

Is it chaotic and overwhelming? If yes, make changes as needed with a focus on your health and wellbeing.

30. Make a list of your greatest qualities and read it often.

31. Play and have fun as children do.

Childlike play feeds the spirit and promotes emotional health.

32. Review your schedule.

Take a long hard honest look at your schedule, is it overfilled? Are you overly burdened? Make every possible effort to eliminate things that cause overwhelm.

You may think everything on the schedule is important, but considering that your wellness supersedes everything else, you will surely find things that can be eliminated, or find help.

33. Just one thing.

Do one thing that makes you happy every single day. Smell a flower, listen to your favorite song, hug yourself, think of those good things that feed your soul.

34. Unplug.

Unplug all electronics for at least half an hour each day. That means your phone, laptop, tablet, social media, email alerts, all of it!

35. Evaluate your social media updates.

Do you really need to be bothered with constant updates? This type of information overload is really harmful, it promotes stress and prevents your mind from being calm and centered.

36. Listen to your body.

Get into the practice of listening to your body. So often, we run around doing a million things without noticing hunger, thirst, or exhaustion.

37. Dance.

Dancing is great exercise and the music helps release feel-good hormones in the brain. You can dance while cleaning, or simply in your living room or office whenever you want.

38. Stretch.

One of the easiest and quickest way to destress and recharge is to stretch. Do it every day.

39. Plan your meals.

Plan healthy meals for the week, if possible cook everything on Sunday and have it ready to serve, this way you will not get caught in the spiral of “too busy to eat healthy,” where you wind up eating junk and fast food.

40. Practice positive self-talk.

Use positive affirmations to remind yourself of how great you are and how much you deserve self-nurture to promote self-care actions.

41. Spend time in nature.

Nature is soothing, refreshing and re-energizes the mind, and spirit.

42. Get some sun.

Spend a few moments in the sun each day, don’t forget the sunscreen.

43. Inhale wellness.

Essential oils are therapeutic and help create a certain mood, for example, lavender for calm, or peppermint to boost energy, motivation, and mood.

44. Laugh.

There are many benefits of laughter for mind, body, and spirit. Take time to laugh every day, seek opportunities like watching funny shows or movies.

45. Quick nap.

A nap that lasts between 10 to 20 minutes completely rejuvenates your mind and energizes your body so you can tackle anything that comes your way.

46. Take up a hobby or sport you always wanted to do.

Commit to it and make it a part of your self-care ritual.

47. Candlelit dinner for one.

Take yourself out for dinner and celebrate your own company.

48. Journal.

Journaling can be healing, as it allows you to process emotions and reflect.

49. Receive love freely.

Love is the ultimate healer, no matter how bad things get, love can pull you out. Seek it, receive it and give it, and you have the best self-care medicine there is.

Make a commitment to yourself now, that you’ll stop putting yourself on the back burner and start making you a priority on your to-do list.

The smartest investment you can make is in your own self.

Understand the big picture, without self-care, you end up running on empty, and you cannot care for or give to others from an empty cup.

24 Surprising Health Benefits of Mindfulness

1) Reduced anxiety

Anxiety is one of the two most common mental health conditions, with the other one being depression.

Anxiety causes chronic, uncontrollable, and excessive worry.

The practice of mindfulness has been shown in several studies to be very effective.

2) Depression

The conventional treatment for depression includes certain medication and psychotherapy. However, this doesn’t prove to be effective for everyone.

Mindfulness is a great natural way to manage depression.

Antidepressants work by artificially increasing the presence of feel-good chemicals in your brain, such as dopamine and serotonin in an attempt to enhance your mood.

Mindfulness does the same but in a natural way.

3) Mental clarity

It can be hard to achieve mental clarity in today’s society.

Stress and distractions are way too common in all of our lives.
However, if you start practicing mindfulness, you’ll be able to change that.

You’ll be able to achieve mental clarity, eliminate stress from your life and allow yourself to practice relaxation.

This will not only help you focus on particular tasks, but it will also boost your mood and energy.

4) Increased grey matter concentration

As you grow older, the grey matter concentration in your brain begins to deteriorate, however, this is a process that can be slowed down, stopped, or even reversed if you practice mindfulness.

This practice is linked to increased grey matter concentration in areas of your brain, which is responsible for regulating emotions, memory, learning, and sense of self.

5) Reduced stress levels

Stress is without a doubt one of the most common causes of many health problems today and the stress hormone cortisol can cause brain fog and mental deterioration as in problems with focus and concentration.

Practicing mindfulness every day can greatly reduce stress and keep your mind and body healthy.

6) Reduced risk of Alzheimer’s disease

By practicing mindfulness meditation just 30 minutes a day, you can reduce the risk of suffering from Alzheimer’s disease.

7) Increased happiness

Many people are unhappy because they only look at the things they don’t have instead of being happy for the things they do have.

Practicing gratitude for each moment of your life is the best way to start feeling happiness and joy.

There’s no better way to learn about gratitude than to start practicing mindfulness.

8)Improved memory

Mindfulness is known for improving both short-term and long-term memory. Most people deal with poor memory due to stress and multitasking.

9) Improved productivity

You may think that multitasking is the way to go if you want to accomplish numerous tasks within a limited amount of time, but really, it’s not.

Focusing on one task at a time and giving it your full attention is the way to go if you want to be productive.

Mindfulness will help you achieve incredible results daily.

10) It will make you more creative

According to a study published in the Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine, mindfulness has an incredibly positive effect on both divergent thinking and creativity.

11) Reduced symptoms of panic disorder

In a study published by the American Journal of Psychiatry, 22 patients who were suffering from panic or anxiety disorder started going through mindfulness meditation training.

Out of those 22 people, 20 showed significantly reduced symptoms of anxiety in panic after only 3 months of meditating.

12) It will prevent binge eating and overeating

By practicing mindfulness, you’ll learn more about self-control and self-awareness.

This can be very effective when it comes to treating binge eating and night time syndrome

By gaining self-control, you’ll learn how to resist the urge to binge eat your trigger foods.

13) Personal and self-development

By practicing mindfulness, you’ll be able to observe yourself closely without judgment to really get in touch with who you are, your true and real self.

You’ll be able to identify all of your character flaws, and then start working on changing them.

14) Food will start tasting better

Most of us don’t even know how to properly enjoy a meal.
Nowadays, eating breakfast means scoffing down food in the car while on your way to work, while dinner means mindlessly eating while watching TV.

Mindfulness will help you slow down and start noticing the different layers of flavor in the food you eat.

15) Improved sleep quality

You can experience numerous health problems if you don’t sleep well or enough.

Mindfulness is considered one of the best practices for enhancing sleep quality.

16) Reduced emotional eating and stress eating

Many people eat unhealthy food when they’re feeling sad, stress, or worried.

This unhealthy habit can lead to a number of different health issues.

Thankfully, by practicing mindfulness, you’ll have better control over your emotions, which will allow you to resist the urge to eat when you’re feeling stressed out or sad.

17) Recognizing hunger and fullness

Most people don’t know how to recognize the signals their brain sends them, especially when it comes to signals involving hunger and fullness.

Although you may feel hungry at times, maybe you’re dehydrated but just don’t know it. Or maybe you’re full by the time you eat half of your meal, but you always finish the plate regardless.

Not interpreting the signals your brain sends you can lead to excessive weight gain and unhealthy eating habits.

18) It will help you avoid distractions

In today’s world, it takes an enormous amount of mental strength and stability to avoid distractions such as checking your social media accounts or checking your email every few minutes.

However, by practicing mindfulness, you will learn to control yourself and overcome distractions.

19) It will protect you from the dangers of multitasking

The truth is: multitasking is a huge source of stress. It has an overall negative impact on your brain and is also linked to memory loss.

Instead of multitasking, mindfulness will teach you how to focus on one task at a time and how to accomplish it effectively, so that you can immediately start working on the next one.

20) It will help you gain control over your energy levels

By establishing a connection between your mind and body, you’ll be able to gain control over your energy levels and access them accordingly.

You’ll have the ability to calm down or increase energy whenever you want.

21) It will allow you to have better control over your thoughts

By practicing mindfulness you are able to control your thoughts and even erase negative ones from your mind and replace them with positive ones at will.

22 )It will provide you with better control over your emotions

Letting negative emotions control you is very unhealthy.

By practicing mindfulness, you will learn how to be in total control of your emotions.

23) Improved breathing

Mindfulness meditation will require you to breathe deeply.

By breathing deeply, you will inhale more oxygen than you normally do, which means that your brain and the rest of your body will be delivered more oxygen.

This will allow both your brain and body to work more optimally.

24)Improved alertness

By practicing mindfulness, you will be more alert and aware of things that are happening in and around you.