Table of Contents
- Key Terms
- What Is Stress and How Does It Affect You?
- What Are the Best Stress Management Techniques for Instant Relief?
- How Does Progressive Muscle Relaxation Work?
- How Can Social Connection and Sensory Experiences Reduce Stress?
- What Stress Management Techniques Reduce Stress Over Time?
- What Are the Best Long-Term Strategies for Chronic Stress?
- How Can You Reduce Email-Related Stress?
- Frequently Asked Questions About Stress Management
- What is the fastest way to relieve stress?
- What is the difference between acute and chronic stress?
- Does exercise really help with stress?
- How does journaling reduce stress?
- What is mindfulness meditation?
- Why does deep breathing reduce stress?
- How can I manage stress at work?
- Does gratitude really help reduce stress?
- When should I seek professional help for stress?
Key Terms
Stress Management: The broad spectrum of techniques and strategies that help a person control their stress levels, improve daily functioning, and maintain mental and physical wellbeing.
Acute Stress: Short-term stress that occurs in response to an immediate perceived threat or challenge, typically resolving quickly once the situation passes.
Chronic Stress: Long-term, persistent stress that continues over an extended period, often leading to negative health effects on both mental and physical wellbeing.
Progressive Muscle Relaxation: A technique involving systematically tensing and then relaxing different muscle groups to reduce physical tension and promote calmness.
Mindfulness Meditation: A practice of focusing attention on the present moment while calmly acknowledging thoughts and feelings without judgment.
The best stress management techniques include deep breathing, progressive muscle relaxation, meditation, exercise, journaling, spending time in nature, and restructuring your life to avoid unnecessary stressors.
While stress can never be eliminated, it can be managed. Stress is a natural part of daily life and serves as an important physiological response to prepare us for challenging situations. This guide covers 21 proven techniques to help you take control of your thoughts, feelings, and physical responses to stress.
What Is Stress and How Does It Affect You?
Stress has both short-term and long-term impacts. In the short-term, it causes anxiety and discomfort. Over time, chronic stress can hurt mental health and lower quality of life.
You can think of stress as having both a short-term and long-term impact. In the short-term, a stressful event can leave you feeling short of breath, anxious, and uncomfortable. In the long-term, stress can gradually hurt your mental health and lower your quality of life.
The techniques below fall into three categories: instant relief methods you can use anywhere, regular practices that reduce stress over time, and long-term strategies for chronic stress management.
What Are the Best Stress Management Techniques for Instant Relief?
For immediate stress relief, try deep breathing, going outside, drinking water, stretching, progressive muscle relaxation, or talking to a loved one. These work within minutes.
1. Identify what’s stressing you out. If you know your stressor, you’ll have far greater control over the situation. You might be able to reduce its impact by mitigating or eliminating it, or by proactively preparing for the stress. Some sources of stress are obvious (like a micromanaging boss), while others are sneakier (like constant email notifications).
2. Take deep breaths. Sometimes the best methods of short-term stress relief are the easiest. Breathe in slowly and fully, hold your breath for a few seconds, then slowly release that breath fully. A few iterations of this will instantly reduce your stress.
3. Go outside. Even if you don’t consider yourself “outdoorsy,” spending time in nature can improve your mood. A change in scenery helps “reset” your stressed mind. Take a break and go outside, even if it’s just for a few minutes.
4. Drink water. Even slight dehydration can decrease your performance and make you feel more stressed. If you’re in a bad mood or feel a headache coming on, take a big drink of water and see if that helps.
5. Get a healthy snack. Focus on healthy foods—fruits, vegetables, nuts, or whole grains. A candy bar might sound enjoyable, but the sugar crash and fatigue that follow make it inadvisable.
6. Stretch. Yoga or any type of stretch-based exercise gives you a break from work, increases blood circulation, and reduces stress. It also keeps you limber, which improves your feelings of wellbeing.
7. Use guided imagery. Guided imagery is similar to meditation in that it distracts you and forces you to center your attention. Many people find it preferable to meditation since it relies more heavily on narration.
How Does Progressive Muscle Relaxation Work?
Progressive muscle relaxation involves systematically relaxing each muscle group from toes to forehead. This technique helped 96% of military fighter pilots fall asleep within 2 minutes.
Start by concentrating on your toes, focusing on relaxing every muscle in them. Next, focus on your feet and relax every muscle. Work your way up through your ankles, calves, thighs, and so on up your body, including your face and forehead. Don’t move on from one body part until you achieve relaxation there.
Take your time—there’s no need to rush through this process. The waves of stress relief you feel are hard to beat.
This technique is used in the U.S. military, where 96% of fighter pilots found it helpful to fall asleep within 2 minutes—even within combat zones.
How Can Social Connection and Sensory Experiences Reduce Stress?
Hugs release oxytocin and other feel-good brain chemicals. Talking to loved ones, using aromatherapy, and physical touch provide immediate stress relief through neurological responses.
8. Get or give a hug. Hugs release a number of feel-good chemicals in the brain, including oxytocin, which helps us develop bonds. Find someone you love (or at least tolerate) and ask for a hug.
9. Talk to a loved one. You can stimulate the release of the same chemicals just by talking to someone you love. Consider calling or texting a spouse, relative, or close friend when you feel overwhelmed. Hearing back from them can immediately make you feel better.
10. Use aromatherapy. The evidence of aromatherapy as a cure-all is mixed, but if you genuinely like certain scents (like peppermint, lavender, or cinnamon), it’s undoubtedly beneficial. Keep candles, incense, or air fresheners in your workspace so you can call upon them as needed.
What Stress Management Techniques Reduce Stress Over Time?
Meditation, exercise, journaling, and creating art offer both immediate relief and long-term benefits when practiced regularly. These habits dramatically reduce baseline stress levels.
11. Meditate. The benefits of meditation are extraordinary, and it’s easy to get started. Mindfulness meditation may be one of the best entry-level forms for stress management. The idea is to clear your mind, observing your own thoughts and allowing them to pass, while focusing your attention on something stable like your breathing. Meditation can clear your head and reduce subjective feelings of stress—especially with regular practice.
12. Exercise. Any form of physical exercise can reduce stress, so work exercise into your daily schedule. Choose something you genuinely enjoy—biking, swimming, boxing, lifting weights, or walking around the block. The endorphins released during physical activity help you feel better both physically and mentally.
13. Journal. Journaling is one of the best ways to relieve stress. Often, just being aware of our feelings and describing them can make them less intense. Journaling forces you to describe your feelings and articulate how they arose—and what you’re doing to manage them. See our complete guide to productivity journaling to learn more.
14. Create art. Creating art in almost any form can relieve stress. Depending on your skill level and preferences, you could play a musical instrument, create a sculpture, or simply doodle on a sticky note. It’s a form of personal expression that allows you to channel your feelings and focus on something other than work.
What Are the Best Long-Term Strategies for Chronic Stress?
For chronic stress, reframe how you perceive stress, restructure your life to avoid stressors, schedule leisure time, practice gratitude, improve self-talk, and build social support networks.
If you suffer from chronic stress, you might need these long-term strategies:
15. Reframe how you see stress. Studies suggest that our perception of stress may play a bigger role in health outcomes than the actual physical stress we feel. Instead of seeing stress as something terrible to avoid at all costs, learn to see it as a natural part of life that has advantages and disadvantages, and remember it can be actively controlled.
16. Restructure your life to avoid stressors. Once you understand what stresses you most, you can rearrange your life to avoid or downplay those stressors. If most of your stress is associated with a specific client, consider firing that client. If you’re stressed because you’re overwhelmed with tasks, consider delegating or asking for more help.
17. Give yourself more leisure time. Leisure time is vital to any long-term health management strategy. Take breaks throughout the day and vacations periodically. Too many people fight stress by burying themselves in more work, which is counterproductive. Schedule your leisure time and make it a priority.
18. Express gratitude more often. Multiple studies have confirmed that expressing gratitude—publicly, in writing, or just to yourself—can improve your mood and reduce stress. Get in the habit of thinking about all the things you’re grateful for. Even in the most stressful situation, there’s something you can find to be grateful for.
19. Improve your self-talk. Self-talk has enormous power over us. If you’re constantly thinking negative thoughts, you’ll feel more stressed. Changing self-talk patterns is difficult—it takes self-awareness, discipline, and patience. Still, if you make a concentrated effort to make your internal dialogue more positive and optimistic, you’ll find yourself less stressed in almost any situation.
20. Get social support. If you’re struggling with acute or chronic stress, tell the people in your life—coworkers, supervisors, friends, and family—about your struggles, and let them know if there’s anything they can do to help. If you’re still having difficulty after making positive changes, consider talking to a professional therapist or your family doctor.
How Can You Reduce Email-Related Stress?
Email is a major stressor for many professionals. Visualizing your email activity helps identify patterns, manage inbox overload, and reduce the anxiety caused by constant notifications.
21. Analyze and manage your inbox. Many stressors are somehow linked to your email account. If email stresses you out, consider using email analytics tools to get a better grip on the stress in your life.
With EmailAnalytics, you can quickly see your top senders and recipients, analyze your busiest times and days of the week, and review the length and complexity of your email threads. Sign up for a free trial today to get control over your inbox—and start taking control over one big piece of your stress.
Frequently Asked Questions About Stress Management
Jayson is a long-time columnist for Forbes, Entrepreneur, BusinessInsider, Inc.com, and various other major media publications, where he has authored over 1,000 articles since 2012, covering technology, marketing, and entrepreneurship. He keynoted the 2013 MarketingProfs University, and won the “Entrepreneur Blogger of the Year” award in 2015 from the Oxford Center for Entrepreneurs. In 2010, he founded a marketing agency that appeared on the Inc. 5000 before selling it in January of 2019, and he is now the CEO of EmailAnalytics and OutreachBloom.
