Self-Care Activities for Managing Stress

This essay discusses self-care activities to manage stress and build resilience. It explores strategies like proper nutrition, sleep, meditation, exercise, social interaction, hobbies, and more.

Running head: SELF-CARE ACTIVITIES
SELF-CARE ACTIVITIES
Name of the Student:
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1SELF-CARE ACTIVITIES
Introduction
Nowadays, with the increase in responsibilities of one’s life there is increase in stress
level. Stress has become the major problem in modern day life and it is inevitable. Stress is
the main cause of many health related issue hence it is necessary to prevent and control for a
better and relaxing life. Therefore, the purpose of the essay is to elaborate the self-care
activities to manage stress situation. This paper predominantly focuses on one of the activity
which helps to build resilience.
Discussion
Stress can be defined in biological or medical context as the emotional, mental or
physical factor that causes mental or bodily pressure and tension. There are many cause of
stress such as pressure due to studies problems, related to work issues, family issues. Stress is
caused due to unhealthy pressure for a longer period of time. We cannot always control the
difficult situation that we face in life, but it is possible to control how efficiently we take care
of ourselves. This is important for developing resilience towards those stresses that is difficult
to eliminate Therefore we should learn how to deal with these stress therefore there are
certain self-care activities for stress which must be practised with regular intervals of time.
The self-care activities help us to take good care of our physical and mental health
and helps us to work more efficiently and effectively. Thus talking good care of health we
can be resilient towards the upcoming challenges and we become less reactive to the stress
we face in life (Wickman et al., 2019). When we take proper care of our body, mind and soul
which keeps us in perfect shape for handling critical stress, which provides more resilience
which helps us manage the uncontrollable stress in life.

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The followings are some of the self-care activities for controlling stress in life.
Maintaining Proper Nutrition- Studies have revealed that having a poor diet can
make us vulnerable to the stresses we face in daily life. It is known that a having stress makes
us more repulsive towards having a healthy diet. When we are busy regarding our works we
find no time for having proper meal and we may have tempted to eat unhealthy food which
can aggravate stress. Hence we must learn to, maintain proper and healthy diet to avoid
stress.
Getting Enough Sleep- Getting enough sleep reduces many problems related to
health issues and for maintaining emotional and physical well-being. Lacking in sleep on a
daily basis would lessen the ability to be productive and to handle stress (Fernandez et al.,
2018).
Meditation- Meditation is the method of focusing for a period of time without
thinking of the external world and worries to gain relaxation and internal peace. Meditation
helps to relax and think more deeply and overcome stress (Jannoo & Khan, 2019).
Exercise Regularly- Exercise is very important for mental and physical health.
Works outs helps our body to release endorphins, which induces happy feelings. It also
supports group motivation and social support. Doing regular exercise becomes a long-term
solution for quick recovery from difficulties and stress (Alavi et al., 2018).
Social Interaction- Social Interaction induces mental stability, as more we involve
with friends and family the less stress we get. Getting involved with good supportive friends
create a positive environment around us which helps to reduce stress and helps to develop
effective listening skills.

3SELF-CARE ACTIVITIES
Finding Hobbies- Involving in the activities we love doing is also a great way to
release stress. It is a way of distracting ourselves from tensions and pressure.
Controlling emotion- Thinking too much on problems will induce more problems
but thinking of solution will induce more opportunities to solve the problems. We get stress
when there are problems hence we must analyse our thought process and keep a positive
attitude towards life.
Maintaining Spiritual Practice- Studies have revealed getting involved in spiritual
and religion activities like prayer is a major stress reliever strategy. It nurtures our soul and
gives mental peace.
Among all the self-care strategy, according to my view I feel meditation is one of the
strategy which helped me to control my stress. Meditation helps to relax and enabled me to
think deeper about the problems, how to overcome my stress and get a solution to that
problem. Meditation helped me to control my aggressiveness and being more focused and
concentrated towards my work (Santhnam & Preetha, 2018). Due to mediation I am able to
concentrate on my work more efficiently.
There are certain methods of meditation I follow for effective meditation and to avoid
distraction
Meditating in a silent and fresh ambience.
Visualising and object with closed eyes, I usually prefer small dots, burning candle and
pictures.
Chanting any phrase or sound helps to focus in a better way.
I usually meditate for 15 to 20 minutes and I find it satisfying.

4SELF-CARE ACTIVITIES
I have referred many articles that confirms that psychological changes occur in our
body during meditation, these changes induce endorphins which helps to tackle anxiety and
reduces our perception of pain (Conklin et al., 2018). According to my personal experience
earlier it was difficult to maintain work-life balance, there was huge stress and burden but
after practising meditation I have felt many changes within me which has helped me to
overcome my circumstance and to maintain work-life balance. Meditations has built
confidence within me and helped me to build resilience. Apart from meditation the other self-
care activities have benefited me to tackle stress in my life.

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Conclusion
Therefore, it can be inferred from the above discussion that self-care activities are
important in today’s life. I have been benefited in many ways from mental to physical
stability and my stress level has been decreased to maximum extent. The above mentioned
self-care activities must be practiced by all the individuals and the outcome of these activities
has proven to be beneficial to the people of all category. It has already been proven that how
stress can hamper our life on daily basis henceforth taking certain measures can save us from
risking our life. It has benefited me in all possible ways and it will be beneficial to others who
are unable to cope with the stress they face in life.

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Reference
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