The scenario is all too familiar: after working all day with a crabby boss, you come home to a messy house, the kids are screaming, you fight with your spouse, and you STILL have to make dinner and get MORE work finished this evening. By the time the kids go to bed and you’ve finished up the last of your work, you are exhausted, stressed, and looking for comfort. FOOD is calling your name.
This is an awful revolving cycle. A cycle that has made this world we live in, full of unhappy and unhealthy people. So the trick is to replace those old habits with new stress relievers.
Here are 50 non food related Ideas on how to deal with stress:
1.)Organize yourself, figure out exactly what to do and execute a strategy for getting things done. If you are not good at this, ask a friend who is good at this stuff to help you.
2.)Take a bath
3.)Go for a walk
4.)Go to the gym
5.)Meditate or pray
6.)Drink tea
7.)Call a friend and talk out what is going on with you.
8.)Write in your journal/blog
9.)Stretch or do yoga
10.)Zone out and watch a movie that you like
11.)Curl up with a good book
12.)Take your dog for a walk, or pet your cat if you have one
13.)Clean your house
14.)Do some volunteer work– get out of your head by helping some other people out. Serve food at a soup kitchen, volunteer to play with kids at a homeless shelter, walk dogs or play with cats at the local animal shelter.
15.)Buy a meal for a homeless person in your neighborhood and bring it to them
16.)Call someone you haven’t spoken to in a long time
17.)Call a much older relative or friend. The advice of people older than you with so much more life experience can be incredibly valuable.
18.)Listen to music that you can lose yourself in
19.)Get out of your apartment or house and be out in the world with people, don’t isolate
20.)Draw, paint, do something artistic
21.)Walk around the block then attack your to do list.
22.)Promise yourself a non-food reward for everything you cross off your list, such as 10 minutes to zone out on the internet.
23.)Get a massage
24.)Take a shower
25.)Water your plants
26.)Find something to break, like sticks or branches you find outdoors. Rip up an old tee-shirt. Anything that can feel cathartic and release some tension. Just don’t hurt anyone.
27.)Relax your jaw. Your jaw is the strongest muscle in your body and because of that, you hold a lot of stress in it. Massage your jaw muscles and try to relax them.
28.)Cry
29.)Scream into a pillow
30.)Dance
31.)Go to a spin class, kickboxing class, or to the boxing gym– something that exerts energy
32.)Go for a drive through a neighborhood that you like
33.)Go out to a movie
34.)Smell flowers
35.)Color hard with crayons– releases stress
36.)Garden
37.)Go to the beach and look at the ocean
38.)Think about people you love, call them, tell them your woes or don’t tell them your woes, just connecting can be healing
39.)Paint your toenails
40.)Window shop
41.)Play a musical instrument
42.)Make Love
43.)Write or read affirmations
44.)Give yourself a foot massage
45.)Go for a good run!
46.)Write kind notes or emails to people for no reason
47.)Walk outside and smile at 10 strangers
48.)Write a letter to your higher self or God or the Universe…
49.)Slowly inhale to the count of 5 then exhale to the count of 5. Do this for 5 minutes.
50.)Let it go.
Have a Happy Healthy day!
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