How to Relieve Stress
with Food and Exercise

You can learn how to relieve stress but before I get into the food and exercise part, it will help to learn more about it. Here's a few things that you should know well.

What exactly is stress?

If you understand that stress has to do with force, you may find it easier to relieve it. Here is the definition of force:


Force (1): strength or energy exerted or brought to bear
Reference: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/force

Stress has to do with two opposing forces. Lesson or eliminate the opposing force and stress reduces or is eliminated. To understand how to relieve stress better, look at these two examples:

  1. You can see very plainly that a grown man weighing 200 pounds trying to sit in a swing built for a child weighing no more than 60 pounds could cause the swing some stress. You can see the swing set was built to hold a certain amount of weight. The 200 pound man is capable of placing more weight on the swing than what it was designed to hold. This places stress on the swing.

    Stress is eliminated if the man gets out of the swing before he breaks it.
  2. Here's a married couple, both working to pay for their newly purchased home. The husband knows the company he works for is laying people off. He becomes concerned that he may be laid off from his job as well. The couple could be short of funds to make their house payment until a new job is acquired.

    This is similar to the swing and the 200 pound man. The house was acquired with the requirement of both husband and wife working to make a certain amount of money. The thought of reducing their income throws the arrangement way out of balance. You can see the weight (as in the swing example) is similar to pressure in this example. This pressure comes from the idea of losing income.

    Finding a more secure job will relieve the stress.

How to Relieve Stress with Stress Eating

Stress eating is not recommended. It can cause more problems without real solutions. This is the type of eating where you go on a sugar binge, or just eat a lot of fattening foods that put you to sleep.

We all know what to eat when we are under stress. It's the stuff that makes you feel really good while you eat it and then really bad afterwards.

It really isn't a solution.

How to Relieve Stress with Healthy Foods

Healthy foods for stress relief can be a better choice. There is one food that I have found highly beneficial for relieving stress. In fact, it's pretty immediate and without negative side effects. This food is the raw cacao beans.

Cacao Beans can be made into a good stress reliever or a bad one. The bad leaves you in a reduced physical condition since it's highly processed, made with sugar and other ingredients that don't contribute to health.

I'm talking here about the good kind. You just have to know what healthy chocolate is and where to find it.

I actually make my own chocolate concoctions using the most nutritious ingredients I can find. I also use stevia to sweeten instead of sugar.

Even though I can deal with stress better by eating raw chocolate treats, I do work to remedy the cause as well as use an appropriate exercise.

This Exercise Reduces Stress

Here's the best exercise I know to relieve stress. I go for a long walk. It's even better when I walk on a dirt path with trees and flowers to look at. I usually try for at least 30 minutes but 45 minutes to an hour is even better. It's amazing how much better I feel when I get out and look at the beauty in life while having a good walk.

I have one last thing to say so you get the correct idea here that helps you know how to relieve stress... and to actually manage stress to the point of eliminating it.

  • Eating healthy chocolate and going for a long walk helps you manage stress.
  • It helps put you in the best frame of mind to determine the actual cause of stress and come up with how to effectively eliminate it.
I'm sure you know there can many areas to deal with at one time but that is another whole article to be written.



Go to Benefits of Exercise from How to Relieve Stress