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Taking some time out for yourself every day from the daily grind can be a positive experience and help reduce your stress levels. Remember the reason that you are doing the activity- for yourself. If you are looking about and comparing yourself with others or judging your performance, it may not be beneficial to you. Besides increasing your fitness, activities will also increase your endorphins and help you feel good all round. Here are 5 activities that you could try out to reduce stress and make you feel great!

 

1/ Yoga- Yoga is a great way to connect your mind and body. Don’t think of yoga as just slender young models on the beach contorting themselves in painful looking positions. Yoga is for everyone- age, size or ability. The great thing about yoga is that it helps you learn to focus on ‘being present’ and clearing your mind.  The physical poses help you focus on being present, you just need to listen to your body and work to your own ability. The best and probably most difficult part of yoga is doing shavasana, is where you need to be still for a period of time- mind and body. When you can do this, you will walk away feeling amazingly relaxed!

2/ Walking- Taking a walk by yourself is a great, easy way to clear your mind. So that you will benefit from walking, take some time to look around. Take in your surroundings and clear your mind. Take a deep breath, smell the smells, look at the trees and birds- take it all in.

3/ Swimming- Some people think that swimming needs to be competitive and you need to be a good swimmer so that you can ‘go swimming’. Entry to local swimming pools is inexpensive. If you are not the best swimmer, there is generally a ‘slow lane’ that you can just meander at your own pace. When you have a consistent technique, looking down at the black line in the pool, breathing, moving your arms and kicking can be very relaxing. Initially, you will need to focus on these actions so that you can stay afloat but eventually you will find this is automatic. 

4/ Slow running or jogging- Going for a jog is not for everyone whether you can do this and would depend whether you have any injuries or health issues. If you have never been jogging before, it doesn’t mean that you can’t do it. A great way to start out is to jog for a minute or two and then go back to walking. Alternating between walking and running, you will find that each day it gets easier to jog for longer. When you can jog at a pace where you are not getting puffed, jogging is a great way to clear your mind. You can see things in your surrounds, take notice of things that are happening and clear your mind. You can cover a lot of distance by running and it is a great way to get out and see lots of wonderful views. 

5/ Gardening- Go outside in the fresh air and doing some gardening can be a great way to reduce stress. Smelling the earth when you pull out a weed. Feeling productive and just getting close to nature can make you feel great. Even though some tasks can be quite physically demanding in the garden, it doesn’t feel like work. You will reap the rewards of your hard work in not only the positive feelings, but the great garden that you will get to look at and enjoy every day!

We have lots of resources that you can learn more about these topics, you could start with our new short course Managing Stress, or why not study our Health and Wellbeing course for a more in depth look at living well. 



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