For many people, stress is a major obstacle to wellness. Stress is a key factor in the development of many, if not most chronic diseases, and can also significantly interfere with our mental and emotional well-being. In short, it?s hard to live a good life if you?re overly stressed.

However, stress isn?t always a bad thing. There are two kinds of stress?acute and chronic. Acute stress is a normal, healthy part of life. It?s what you feel when you see a car driving towards you as you cross the street: a warning that something is going on that you need to pay attention to.

Acute stress is short-term stress. It happens during a stressful situation and usually fades away soon after. Within our bodies, our brains activate our stress response?called the sympathetic nervous system?to help us get through the stressful situation. Afterward, our parasympathetic nervous system switches on, calming us down and bringing us back to homeostasis.

Chronic stress is where we run into trouble. When we become chronically stressed, our sympathetic nervous systems are left constantly running. Elements of our stress response that are meant to be beneficial for brief periods?like slowing down our digestion, releasing stress hormones like cortisol and adrenaline, even deactivating some aspects of our prefrontal cortex?can cause us serious health problems when they persist over time.



How do you know if you?re experiencing chronic stress? Well, you feel stressed out much or most of the time! If you feel like you?re constantly struggling to keep your head above water, chronic stress may be part of what?s going on.

How can I lower my chronic levels of stress?


How can I change my lifestyle to lower my stress?

The first step in changing your lifestyle to help reduce your exposure to chronic stress is figuring out what?s contributing to that stress. Potential aspects of your life to consider include:






Another important question to ask yourself: am I moving enough? Exercise and movement play a huge role in how you feel. Being sedentary?spending most of your day not moving?is a huge stressor on your body and associated with a host of poor health outcomes. Meanwhile, numerous studies emphasize that exercise not only strengthens your body but helps you relax?getting physically active releases feel-good neurotransmitters in your brain and supports your body in calming down. There isn?t one form of exercise that?s better than another either. The best kind of exercise for you is the one you want to do regularly.



Work can be a huge source of stress. Although some stress is a natural part of any job (and isn?t a bad thing), some jobs can leave us feeling frequently overwhelmed. Take note of how you feel at work during the day. If you?re constantly stressed as a result of what you do or who you work with, well, that?s a big deal, and worth paying attention to. Explore what you can do within your work environment to lower your stress, and start at least seeing what other possibilities exist.

It?s okay to work to live, instead of living to work.

Screen time

One stressor many of us deal with constantly in both our work and our home lives is screen time. The internet and social media aren?t necessarily inherently good or bad, but how we use them certainly can be. Spending a great deal of time online or staring at a screen is associated with higher levels of depression and anxiety, among other things. It also means that we?re not moving around, and can interfere with us getting enough sleep.



Sleep itself is of course critical. Lack of sleep stresses us in mind, body, and spirit. Getting enough sleep?at least 8 and as many as 10 hours a night?gives our brains time to repair and reset, lowering our stress and producing hormones we need to feel more at ease.


Few things affect stress more than the relationships in our lives. Virtually all of us need loving, supportive relationships?with friends, family or romantic partners?in order to feel okay. We also benefit from a broader sense of community and feeling like we?re part of our neighborhood or larger social group.

When we have that sort of support in our lives, we tend to feel less stressed almost without trying. Feeling like we have people around us who have our backs makes life?s challenges shrink in size. Conversely, if we don?t have people we can count on, molehills can start to seem like mountains.


How can I change my perspective to lower my stress?

This is more a question of art than of science. Changing how you see the world in order to feel more relaxed and less stressed isn?t a matter of simply following a specific formula. However, there are general concepts and practices that can be useful in helping you to feel more at ease.

A big one is practicing the idea of present moment acceptance. This means that we accept whatever is happening right here, right now. If it?s a pleasant experience, we let it be. If it?s an unpleasant, stressful experience, we also let it be.

The point is that we?re simply learning to accept reality as it is. If we deny our present moment experience, we?re causing ourselves a great deal of stress, because we?re denying reality. But if we stop fighting the here and now, a whole lot of our stress starts to evaporate. By focusing on the present, we also take our minds out of the future, which is where all of our worries lie.


Non-attachment is another great concept to play with. If we understand that everything comes and goes and that no matter how hard we try, we can?t hold on to anything, this can help us relax. We don?t have to worry so much, because it?s all going to come and go anyway, no matter what we do. We might as well just enjoy the ride.

Two final ideas worth considering: control and influence. If we take an honest look at ourselves and our lives, we see we don?t have control over most of what happens in the world around us. We can?t dictate the weather, or the traffic, or how others see us. But we do have influence?what we do and say affects everyone around us. By accepting that we?re not in control (and that no one else is either) and taking responsibility for our influence, we can both feel more relaxed about what happens in the world, and more empowered that we?re doing what we can to make it better.

This can take a lot of the pressure off.

Who should I go see to help lower my stress?

Most holistic health and wellness professionals can help with one aspect of stress relief or another! An integrative, naturopathic or functional medicine physician can help you figure out what your body needs in terms of nutrients?what you should be eating and what supplements you might want to take in order to feel your best. A nutritionist can help with this as well.


Find a Stress Relief Practitioner near you

There are hundreds of talented Stress Relief Practitioners on DaoCloud:



Always Stressed? Here Are 8 Natural Stress Relievers to Try Now
Dr Axe

How Chronic Stress Creates Hormonal Havoc
Dr Hyman

How to be better at Stress
Tara Parker-Pope for The New York Times

Stress Effects on the Body
American Psychological Association (APA)

Five Things You Should Know About Stress
National Institute of Mental Health

Greater Good Science Center?s Mindfulness Quiz