You can practice ways to handle stress and build your stress response.
This Brain Fitness Checklist provides some suggestions to get you started and have been chosen because they have shown the biggest impact on improving a particular lifestyle factor. Identify one or two tips from the list to get started. Then slowly try new ones, as you work toward building brain healthy lifestyle habits.
Here are few ways to practice increasing your Stress Resilience…
Start here:
Learn about common stress triggers.
Practice deep breathing with this short guided activity.
Try this 30 second calming breath activity.
Try this guided meditation and practice diaphragmatic breathing with this short guided activity.
Experiment whether drinking tea reduces your stress (e.g., chamomile, peppermint, and lemon balm tea).
Explore and try the stress effects of aromatherapy (lavender, rose, marjoram, frankincense, bergamot, and chamomile).
Hang out with friends.
Schedule in one thing you enjoy each day (it doesn’t have to take a lot of time).
Find humor in everyday events. Post a picture of yourself laughing where you can see it every day. Buy a comedy book, or go to/watch a comedy show, or visit with a funny friend. Watch this funny video to get quick laugh.
Set better boundaries on your work/relaxation time, such as working a 50 minute hour with 10 minutes break in between.
Challenge yourself more:
Exercise 3-5 times a week for at least 30 minutes each.
Keep a daily diary of times you faced a difficult situation and handled it well.
Deal with a stressor directly instead of avoiding it, if it is physically safe to do so.
Spend time in nature every day.
Learn more about stress resilience and brain health; take the 1 hour course and get access to your personal stress resilience toolkit. (Log into your Brain Health Vital Signs dashboard to access this course).
Tips for getting started
Brain health challenges in the “start here” section are designed to be implemented by anyone, and will be a great starting point, especially if you scored in the Could Improve or Need to Improve categories in a specific lifestyle factor. Other challenges might be a little harder to do. In fact, you might feel resistance about adopting them at first because you may know they will be difficult to maintain for a long time.
Once you have tried 2 or 3 successfully from the “start here” section, challenge yourself with the additional challenges below. Learn more about stress resilience and and brain health; take the 1 hour course and get access to your personal toolkit.
