How To Choose The Best Exercise Activities To Reduce Stress Levels

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Hello. As a wellness coach at Women to Women, I speak to hundreds of women who are balancing a multitude of responsibilities and stressors, both good but also challenging. To significantly reduce stress and increase feel-good hormones like endorphins, I highly recommend exercise.

But here’s the catch. To really truly reduce your stress levels, it is important to choose exercise activities that you find fun and look forward to doing. It helps when you’re willing to be flexible with your routine to increase your joy of movement.

For example, if you enjoy hiking or taking vigorous walks but you happen to be tired, recovering either from adrenal fatigue or a cold, the cardio factor of these activities may be too intense. Your stress levels would benefit more from either a shorter duration or a lighter form of movement like stretching.

As you know, muscles need recovery time and choosing to have a rest day or lighter workout is an important part of the healing phase of exercise. I always encourage women to venture into different types of exercise. Mixing up your workout not only works the large and small muscles in new ways, it challenges the mind to problem solve differently.

If you’re tired of the tread mill but do it because you feel you should, that is in effect causing you stress, not relieving it. There are so many fun choices out there. One of my favorites is hula hooping and indoor rock climbing. You could try jump roping, weights, belly dance, Taichi, yoga, pilates, mindful walking, core fusion, ballroom dance.

Movement of any kind does so much for you. It increases oxygenation, blood circulation, flexibility, joint mobility, while decreasing inflammation and mild depression. Also, daily movement helps greatly with the detoxification process by jumpstarting your lymphatic system. This system does not use the heart to pump it automatically, so doing daily movement and even self-massage helps lymph drain and circulate properly. The lymphatic system moves only as much as you do. It helps remove toxins from the body more efficiently and this puts less burden on your body. Have you ever noticed you have more regular bowel movements when you have more daily exercise? One other amazing benefit to movement and detoxification is less constipation and better elimination. Again, this is one less stress on the body. Yes!

Have you ever observed young children and their movements? They rarely just walk and tend to skip, jump, and bounce while walking. We should take a lesson from these kids because as we age we tend to monitor our movements too much and we wear shoes that do not allow for fun or freedom. I advise women to try to commit for one week to wearing comfortable flats at work and on errands. Feel free to add a skip to your step. I bet you’ll start to smile more and feel better in your day-to-day responsibilities. Moving your body daily and even hourly can release lots of nervous energy. Having a workout buddy can be a great way to get in a walk at your lunch hour or at the start or end of your day. Not only will you be increasing your exercise, but you’ll also have some relaxing social time.

For those of you who exercise very consistently or very actively, slowing down can be profoundly relaxing. Try putting classical music on and closing your eyes while making slow and graceful movements that feel natural to your body. When you tense muscles and then relax them, it can release the fascia, the connective tissue that surrounds muscle.

Tight fascia can make us feel stiff and uncomfortable as it is also holding old emotions or patterns. That’s why movements like dance and yoga, and even foam rolling can help unbind deeply held stress in the body and mind. And if you’re having an all-out, crazy, busy day, either you can’t get away from your desk, you’re driving or involved in an all-day task, reducing stress and increasing movement can be a simple and powerful as mindful breathing.

We have all heard it before. Breathe deeply and you’ll feel better. It is so true. Conscious breathing introduces oxygen and energy into the body. In yoga this is called Prana, delivering peace to all the cells in your body through your breath.

Here’s how you start. Place your hands either on your navel or relaxed in your lap, and gently breathe in through your nose. Hold the breath gently, experiencing your lungs expanding gradually, then breathe out slowly through the mouth or your nose. Try doing this throughout the day. This creates an immediate relaxation response and calms your nervous system.

As this becomes a regular part of your day, try learning a new breathing technique like fire breathing or alternate nostril breathing as these will introduce oxygen into your system in different ways and exercise the abdominal area without having to do a single crunch. If you’re feeling stressed or overwhelmed, take a moment to breathe. Your mind and body will thank you again and again.

Thanks for joining me today and I hope you have a joyful day filled creative movement.