These days, it seems that most of us are dealing with stress on a daily basis. Stress and anxiety have become pretty natural parts of our lives, as our hectic schedules keep sending a lot of stress to our door. However, it’s crucial that you do everything you can to reduce your level of stress because it can negatively affect your health and lead to many serious illnesses.
This may be easier said than done, but there are many ways to instantly reduce stress and feel much better. However, did you know that you can effectively fight stress with technology? Unplugging from tech definitely has its advantages, but some of the emerging technologies actually have the power to help you unwind and improve your mental health.
Read on to explore the best ways to fight stress in the digital age and harness the power of various gadgets and apps designed to make you feel much better.
Incorporate Meditation into Your Everyday Routine
Meditation is one of the best ways to relieve stress, so you should definitely incorporate it into your routine. It can be a bit tough to get started and clear your mind instantly but, luckily, there are plenty of mobile apps to help you out. All you need to do is take 10 minutes every day to sit down and relax and let the app of your choice guide you.
Headspace has a free 10-day meditation program, but it also offers lots of different programs for only $12.99 a month. Pacifica is also an excellent app for helping you deal with stress and anxiety, as it is based on cognitive behavioral therapy and mindfulness meditation. It provides you with various relaxation techniques and enables you to track your moods and set daily challenges. Its free version has a limited set of features, but you can subscribe for a much better experience for only $8.99 a month.
Some other similar and just as effective meditation apps are SAM (Self-Help for Anxiety Management) and Calm, both of which have free and paid versions and help you clear your mind, build your focus and completely eliminate any kind of stress. SAM helps you understand what causes your stress and helps you manage it with self-help exercises, while Calm is a meditation app that helps you reduce anxiety, sleep better and ultimately feel much happier.
Reduce Stress with Wearables and Gadgets
Stress-tracking wearables and gadgets are designed to pinpoint your stress triggers and help you successfully eliminate stress. As such, they provide you with personalized meditation exercises, as well as other well-being exercises to help you unwind your body and mind.
The best ones that you can use are the brain-sensing Muse headband and emWave2, but they do come at a hefty price ($249 and $199, respectively). However, the results are absolutely worth every dime so, if you can afford either of them, you should really give them a try.
The Muse headband uses biofeedback to elevate your meditation experience. It measures your brain activity via EEG sensors and then sends the audio feedback to your headphones, translating your brain signals into the sounds of wind and helping you quickly relax and improve your mood.
On the other hand, emWave2 is a handheld gadget that can improve your mood in an instant, as its pulse sensor tracks your heartbeat and teaches you to slow it down, relax, and achieve emotional composure.
Exercise Daily with Guided Workout Apps
You certainly know that exercising regularly is vital for your overall health, but it is also an excellent stress-buster. Stress fills your whole body with tension, and exercise successfully removes it by pumping up your endorphins and serotonin, improving your blood circulation, increasing your energy, and ultimately improving your mood.
There are quite a lot of free workout apps to stay fit and healthy and effectively fight stress, such as Fitbit Coach, 8fit, Map My Fitness, and many others, so be sure to check them out.
Administer Acupressure to Relax and Relieve Stress
Acupressure is yet another great way to combat stress and relax both your body and mind almost instantly. It is an alternative medicine technique quite similar to acupuncture, and it is done by applying pressure to acupoints on your body’s meridians not only to reduce stress, but also pain and tension.
You can administer acupressure completely on your own, and there’s even an app to guide you, which you can download on Google Play for only $1.99. The Acupressure: Heal Yourself app shows you where your acupressure points are and teaches you how to apply pressure on each in order to release tension and improve your blood circulation, effectively relieving pain and stress.
Combat Stress with Massage Devices
Massage therapy is one of the best ways for dealing with stress and anxiety, as it reduces any pain and relaxes your muscles, eventually improving your mood and your quality of sleep. While you can find a professional massage therapist to help you relax and fight stress, there are now some pretty awesome massage devices that you can buy.
For instance, there are plenty of shiatsu massagers for neck, shoulders, and back, all of which use heat and various automated programs to properly take care of all the tense or strained muscles and relieve any pain that you may be feeling. There are also shiatsu massage pillows, which are pretty much the same, except they require of you to, of course, lie down in order to experience their effect.
As you can see, technology doesn’t have to be a nuisance that prevents you from dealing with stress that you may be experiencing on a daily basis. Granted, it is often the main cause of stress in the digital age, but it can be one of the best tools for combating it.
Therefore, instead of unplugging completely, embrace technology and start using it to successfully beat stress and improve the quality of your life. Start harnessing its power today and experience its amazing health benefits.
