5 Stress Busters to Detoxify Your Life

5 Stress Busters to Detoxify Your Life

Stress Relief
Science has confirmed what we long felt, that stress interferes with your body’s natural ability to detoxify itself.  That health-protecting ability gets further hindered by the physical and emotional symptoms that stress inspires, such as poor sleep, an overdose of stress hormones, unbalanced diet, and fluctuating blood sugar and insulin.  All of which leads to more stress. With all that roiling around in your body you might think you need to take drastic, and potentially harmful, steps to flush your body of toxins. Fortunately, there are simple everyday habits you can adopt to stop toxic stress in its tracks.  Here are 5 simple stress busters for your body and mind.

1. Train Your Mind

Stress starts in your mind so the first tip retrains your mind away from making the stress worse.  While it is impossible to completely de-stress our lives, taking a few leaves out of the practice of mindfulness we can lessen its impact.  The shortcut steps in a moment of stress are:

Awareness. The first step is the easiest, be aware of when you are stressed.

Focus. It might sound counter-intuitive, but the next step is to focus on the stress in the present moment. Hear the sounds (even if it’s the voice of the person causing you stress), the scents in the room, the physical sensations, your thoughts, and your emotions instead of repressing them to get through the moment.

Acceptance. The third is a more difficult step is accepting it all without fighting or judging – the physical and emotional sensations, your thoughts, and your feelings.

Compassion. The fourth and final step is to have compassion, for yourself first and then the person or situation causing you stress. This final step is the most healing, as scientific studies, such as those happening at the Stanford University’s Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education, prove.

It might seem weird the first few times you do this in the moment – such as at work – but eventually it will become habit and you will feel the physical benefit almost immediately.

2. Move It or Lose It

Stress and a sedentary job are, excuse the pun, a toxic combination since physical movement helps our natural detoxification processes stay online, which helps combat stress.  The best prescription is to do everything you can to keep motion in your daily life. Little things such as walking to talk to your coworker instead of emailing, parking further away from the store, and taking the stairs instead of the elevator to go a few floors away helps.

Then there are the big things, taking a thirty minute walk around the office building, weight training at the gym or at home, and playing with your children. Combine movement with the mindful steps above and you’ll be well on the road to resisting using carbs and sugar to prop up your energy.

3. Pack Healthy Snacks

It’ll only take a few extra minutes during your grocery run and the night before work to make sure that you have healthy snacks and lunch to bring to the office. Carrots, celery, nuts, low-fat organic meat, fruit, rice cakes with natural peanut butter, and chemical-free protein bars will satisfy your hunger, prevent post-caffeine and sugar crash cravings, and help you avoid being pressed for time and settling for unhealthy snacks in the office vending machine.

Stress both drains our energy and fills us up with anxiety and emotions we want to suppress. To alleviate both effects foods filled with sugar and starchy carbohydrates (think: cupcakes) are the usual prescription. We indulge even knowing it will exacerbate the problems of stress (which lowers our metabolism and makes it easier to progressively pack on weight and harder to lose, leading to weight-related health problems).

4. Vegetable Juices and Water Instead of Soda

Caffeine stimulant + corn syrup/chemical sweeteners + calcium-draining carbonation = soda = toxic stress

Instead of grabbing a nearby soda for a quick pick-me-up during the stressful workday, drink water or vegetable juices or watered down fruit juices instead.  The best juices will be naturally made at home and brought into the office, the next best is at a juice store, but if you need to buy pre-made read the ingredients to make sure there are no added chemicals, sodium, and sugars. It’s better for your body, your mind, and are naturally detoxifying.

5. Healthy Detoxification Regimen

Even at optimum health, we need help to combat the vast array of allergens, preservatives, sugar,  and chemicals we ingest from the air, water, and from our foods. If you wake in the morning feeling groggy, anxious for no reason during the day, burnt out at the end, your body is stressed and in need of safe detoxification that you can incorporate into your everyday life. Products such as our Natural Detox Collection and other Natural Stress-Relieving products gently remove toxins from your body and support your body’s natural detoxification ability restoring you to balance.

These simple practices added to your day will leave you feeling more energized, confident, and healthy. This will improve your health, your personal relationships, your job performance, and your quality of life. You have nothing to lose but stress.

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