Table of ContentsView AllTable of ContentsHow Stress Affects Your BodyHow to Relax Your BodyHow to Relax Your MindBenefits of RelaxingWhen to Get HelpFrequently Asked Questions

Table of ContentsView All

View All

Table of Contents

How Stress Affects Your Body

How to Relax Your Body

How to Relax Your Mind

Benefits of Relaxing

When to Get Help

Frequently Asked Questions

Close

Stress can take a serious toll on your well-being. Finding ways to keep stress levels low can have benefits that resonate throughout your whole life. To protect your physical and mental health, finding ways to relax your body and mind is essential.

Techniques like deep breathing and progressive muscle relaxation can help you calm the stress response when dealing with an acute stressor, which can provide short-term stress relief. Other strategies like spending time with supportive people, practicing meditation, and doing yoga can help combat symptoms ofchronic stress.

At a GlanceStress happens to all of us, but managing it effectively is the key to keeping it from harming your physical and mental health. There are many effective ways to relax your body and mind, including breathing exercises, progressive muscle relaxation, exercise, journaling, creative activities, mindfulness, and social support. You may need to experiment to find the best tools for relaxing your body.

At a Glance

Stress happens to all of us, but managing it effectively is the key to keeping it from harming your physical and mental health. There are many effective ways to relax your body and mind, including breathing exercises, progressive muscle relaxation, exercise, journaling, creative activities, mindfulness, and social support. You may need to experiment to find the best tools for relaxing your body.

How Stress Affects Your Body and Mind

Stress creates both physical and psychological tension, and these tensions can feed off of one another. Feeling physically tense can increase your psychological and emotional tension and vice versa.

Conversely, relaxing your body physically can help relieve psychological stress, and relaxing your mind can help you physically relax and release tension in your body.

When your stress response is no longer triggered, it becomes far easier to approach challenges in a proactive, peaceful way.

What Is Cortisol?Stress triggers the release ofcortisol, which is known as the body’s stress hormone. It plays a role in important body functions, including immune function, glucose metabolism, insulin release, and blood pressure regulation. Too much cortisol, however, can be detrimental to your health.

What Is Cortisol?

Stress triggers the release ofcortisol, which is known as the body’s stress hormone. It plays a role in important body functions, including immune function, glucose metabolism, insulin release, and blood pressure regulation. Too much cortisol, however, can be detrimental to your health.

The key to relaxing your body is to engage in activities that help induce the body’srelaxation response. This can lead to a host of changes that help your body relax and also slow your heart rate, lower your blood pressure, reduce respiration rate, relax your muscles, improve glucose control, and boost your immunity.

There are several effective techniques to relieve tension in your body. Practicing these strategies regularly improves your ability to manage the effects of stress.

Breathing Exercises

Breathing exercisescan be an extremely effective way to reduce stress. When faced with feelings of stress and anxiety, people often engage in rapid, shallow breathing. Learning to take deeper, slower breaths can help ease the body’s stress response.

In one study, participants who learned to control their breathing experienced improvements in sustained attention and significant reductions in cortisol levels.

Progressive Muscle Relaxation

Progressive muscle relaxation (PMR)is a strategy where people learn to relax all of the muscles in their body. This is done one muscle group at a time until the entire body has reached a state of relaxation.

Exercise

Exercisecan be a powerful stress reliever. When faced with an acute stressor, physical activity can help ease feelings of tension and anxiety. Over the long term, regular physical activity helps people become more resilient in the face of stress.

There are many different ways to get regular exercise, whether taking an afternoon walk each day, participating in a sport, or signing up for an exercise class.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends 150 minutes of moderate-intensity physical activity and two days of muscle-strengthening training per week.

RecapFinding ways to relax physically can help ease tension and reduce cortisol levels. Strategies that can help with physical relaxation include breathing exercises, progressive muscle relaxation, and exercise.

Recap

Finding ways to relax physically can help ease tension and reduce cortisol levels. Strategies that can help with physical relaxation include breathing exercises, progressive muscle relaxation, and exercise.

Your experience of stress involves your thoughts and emotions. You may think that you can’t adequately handle the stressors you’re facing (thoughts), and experience fear (feelings). These can accompany and even perpetuate your stress response. Often, reexamining your thoughts can help you to relax emotionally.

You can better understand your thoughts and alter this cycle if you learn how to relax as you face your stressors.Techniques to achieve this include:

Incorporating stress relief strategies such asmindfulness,meditation, oryogainto your daily life can be helpful. Studies have found that practicing meditation is linked to decreased physical arousal, lower heart rate, reduced respiration, and lower overall stress levels.

Benefits of Relaxing Your Body and Mind

Relaxation can have many positive effects. It can help promote better memory, positive thinking, and stronger concentration.

It can also have physical effects, including lowering blood pressure, reducing muscle tension, and slowing heart rate. Practicing relaxation techniques can also help with pain, anxiety, depression, and headaches.

If you find it challenging to relax emotionally and mentally, consider seeking professional help. Your healthcare provider or therapist can help you explore different ways to manage your stress. They can also work with you to develop new coping skills that can help keep your stress levels in check.

For example, your therapist might utilizecognitive-behavioral therapyto help you learn to identify and change negative thoughts that play a role in causing or worsening stress. Once you become better at recognizing these types of thoughts, you can practice challenging and replacing them with more helpful and less stress-inducing ways of thinking..

A doctor may also prescribe medications to help you deal with symptoms of anxiety, depression, or other mental health conditions that might be contributing to your difficulties with stress

Takeaway

It’s important to learn how to manage your stress in a healthy way. If you’re feeling stressed out or you’re struggling to make stress management techniques work for you, consider professional help. A licensed mental health professional can assist you in learning relaxation strategies that can work for you.

There are a number of vitamins that can impact how the body responds to stress. Some of these important vitamins include vitamins A, B, C, and E. Antioxidants such as vitamins A, C, and E may be helpful for combatting the effects of oxidative stress. Supplements containing B vitamins can also be important for maintaining energy levels.Learn More:Vitamins for Stress Relief

There are a number of vitamins that can impact how the body responds to stress. Some of these important vitamins include vitamins A, B, C, and E. Antioxidants such as vitamins A, C, and E may be helpful for combatting the effects of oxidative stress. Supplements containing B vitamins can also be important for maintaining energy levels.

Learn More:Vitamins for Stress Relief

7 SourcesVerywell Mind uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read oureditorial processto learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy.National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health.Relaxation techniques for health.National Institute of Mental Health.5 things you should know about stress.Ma X, Yue ZQ, Gong ZQ, et al.The effect of diaphragmatic breathing on attention, negative affect and stress in healthy adults.Front Psychol. 2017;8:874. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00874Wunsch K, Wurst R, Von dawans B, Strahler J, Kasten N, Fuchs R.Habitual and acute exercise effects on salivary biomarkers in response to psychosocial stress.Psychoneuroendocrinology. 2019;106:216-225. doi:10.1016/j.psyneuen.2019.03.015Larsson A, Hooper N, Osborne LA, Bennett P, McHugh L.Using brief cognitive restructuring and cognitive defusion techniques to cope with gegative thoughts.Behav Modif. 2016;40(3):452-82. doi:10.1177/0145445515621488National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health.Meditation: In depth.National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health.Relaxation techniques: What you need to know.

7 Sources

Verywell Mind uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read oureditorial processto learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy.National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health.Relaxation techniques for health.National Institute of Mental Health.5 things you should know about stress.Ma X, Yue ZQ, Gong ZQ, et al.The effect of diaphragmatic breathing on attention, negative affect and stress in healthy adults.Front Psychol. 2017;8:874. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00874Wunsch K, Wurst R, Von dawans B, Strahler J, Kasten N, Fuchs R.Habitual and acute exercise effects on salivary biomarkers in response to psychosocial stress.Psychoneuroendocrinology. 2019;106:216-225. doi:10.1016/j.psyneuen.2019.03.015Larsson A, Hooper N, Osborne LA, Bennett P, McHugh L.Using brief cognitive restructuring and cognitive defusion techniques to cope with gegative thoughts.Behav Modif. 2016;40(3):452-82. doi:10.1177/0145445515621488National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health.Meditation: In depth.National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health.Relaxation techniques: What you need to know.

Verywell Mind uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read oureditorial processto learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy.

National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health.Relaxation techniques for health.National Institute of Mental Health.5 things you should know about stress.Ma X, Yue ZQ, Gong ZQ, et al.The effect of diaphragmatic breathing on attention, negative affect and stress in healthy adults.Front Psychol. 2017;8:874. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00874Wunsch K, Wurst R, Von dawans B, Strahler J, Kasten N, Fuchs R.Habitual and acute exercise effects on salivary biomarkers in response to psychosocial stress.Psychoneuroendocrinology. 2019;106:216-225. doi:10.1016/j.psyneuen.2019.03.015Larsson A, Hooper N, Osborne LA, Bennett P, McHugh L.Using brief cognitive restructuring and cognitive defusion techniques to cope with gegative thoughts.Behav Modif. 2016;40(3):452-82. doi:10.1177/0145445515621488National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health.Meditation: In depth.National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health.Relaxation techniques: What you need to know.

National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health.Relaxation techniques for health.

National Institute of Mental Health.5 things you should know about stress.

Ma X, Yue ZQ, Gong ZQ, et al.The effect of diaphragmatic breathing on attention, negative affect and stress in healthy adults.Front Psychol. 2017;8:874. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00874

Wunsch K, Wurst R, Von dawans B, Strahler J, Kasten N, Fuchs R.Habitual and acute exercise effects on salivary biomarkers in response to psychosocial stress.Psychoneuroendocrinology. 2019;106:216-225. doi:10.1016/j.psyneuen.2019.03.015

Larsson A, Hooper N, Osborne LA, Bennett P, McHugh L.Using brief cognitive restructuring and cognitive defusion techniques to cope with gegative thoughts.Behav Modif. 2016;40(3):452-82. doi:10.1177/0145445515621488

National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health.Meditation: In depth.

National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health.Relaxation techniques: What you need to know.

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