Managing Stress for Fitness
If you’re trying to build muscle, burn fat, or just live a healthier lifestyle, it’s really important to make sure to manage your everyday stress levels.
A certain amount of stress is good for us—it helps us to tackle the challenges of our every day lives.
But too much stress (as many of us suffer from nowadays), can be very destructive to our health and well-being.
Chronic stress can lead to poor sleep, poor nutritional habits, and excess tension in the muscles. All of these things can reduce the amount of muscle that you build, and slow down your progress in your training.
A great way to manage your stress levels is to have stay active with a solid exercise routine, eat healthy, and stay hydrated.
Download the Yoga Studio app in the Apple App Store or on Google Play
It’s also important to include in your day to day life plenty of things that help you to keep a positive, relaxed mindset.
There are a number of breathing techniques and meditation exercises that you can practice to reduce your stress levels.
Many people find that practicing yoga helps them to get into a mindful state and destress.
I really love the Yoga Studio app for my daily yoga and meditation practice. It has routines for multiple levels of practitioners—beginners, intermediate, and advanced. The app also includes routines with different focuses, like relaxation, strength, balance, and flexibility. There are even several guided mediations if you’d like to focus on mindfulness rather than movement. I’ve been using the Yoga Studio app since 2014(ish?) and can’t recommend it enough!
Many people find practicing yoga to be helpful for stress relief and relaxation.
I’m also a big fan of Calm.com’s soothing background soundtracks and guided meditations. There are also lots of podcasts that are geared towards helping you to let go and unwind your anxious mind (see also “Calming Your Nerves and Your Heart Through Meditation” from Harvard.edu).
If you regularly experience chronic stress, it may also be worthwhile taking a good honest look at your lifestyle. There may be things that you need to change to reduce unnecessary stressors in your life.
A great therapist can help you examine your life and work with you to build a healthier, less anxious lifestyle step by step. She can also give you strategies to help manage your stress for when you’re feeling overwhelmed.
If you don’t already, start thinking of your mental and emotional health as just an important piece of your fitness as your diet and exercise routine.
By reducing the amount of stressors in your life and making sure to take enough time to relax your mind and your body, you can actually boost your training progress. You’ll be able to be more present during your workouts and you’ll make your rest time more effective by activating the parasympathetic nervous system.
Not only that, but more importantly you’ll also improve your overall wellness and quality of life.
You don’t have to accept chronic stress as just a given part of your life. In fact, it’s much better if you can learn to live with as little stress as possible by taking control of your lifestyle and the way you think.
Learn to manage your stress to improve your health and fitness!
About the Author
Jayd Harrison is a personal trainer and content creator. She helps people to build muscle, burn fat, and clean up their diets with her online coaching programs and social media content. Check out some of Jayd’s coaching videos on Youtube, or join Jayd live on Twitch and follow on social media.
