Are you dealing with a stressful period? Tight deadlines? Demanding job responsibilities? Or simply a bad mood? There are ways to get your mental wellbeing on the right track naturally. This article explores various natural ways for managing anxiety like yoga, meditation, CBD, and more.
Mental health is paramount for our overall wellbeing. When you’re feeling down mentally, you feel it in your mood, mind, body, personal relationships, and many other aspects of your life.
But stress and anxiety aren’t something out of this world. In fact, they are pretty common, with 70% of US adults reporting feeling stress and anxiety daily. So, experiencing them isn’t something that should worry you. But it is also not something that you should neglect.
Now, if your regular methods for coping with your poor mood, stress, anxiety, and general poor mental wellbeing, there are science-backed natural methods that can help.
Yoga
Yoga is a practice that has been gaining a lot of popularity lately. It’s an ancient practice that can be traced to northern India over 5,000 years ago. But it wasn’t until recently that modern individuals started to see this workout type as a way to improve both physical and mental wellbeing.
Yoga is a gentle form of exercise that has a meditative style and focuses on relaxation. It involves breathing exercises and slow, gentle movements that help calm down the nervous system and reduce the fight-or-flight reflex. The way yoga does that is by decreasing the secretion of cortisol, known as “the stress hormone,” and increasing the levels of serotonin, known as the happy hormone, instead.
Research backs this up too. More precisely, a 2017 study that was published in Psychological Medicine revealed that 50% of people struggling with depression reported improvement in their symptoms after only six months of taking yoga classes every week.
Meditation
When was the last time you took a minute just to breathe and be aware of the present moment? If you’re feeling so stressed, you likely don’t do that very often.
That’s what meditation does in a way or another. It helps you pause for a second and focus on your breathing and awareness. This results in decreased levels of stress and anxiety. Other mental health benefits of meditation also include improved focus and concentration, better self-awareness and self-esteem, and fostering kindness. Plus, it can also have benefits for your physical health, improving tolerance to pain and fighting substance addiction.
Meditation doesn’t have to be what you see in movies when patient gurus climb to the top of the mountain and meditate. It can be even just a few moments in which you practice some breathing exercises and stop your thoughts and emotions from overwhelming you. Find out more meditation tips and techniques on Shownd.
CBD
CBD or dried magic mushrooms are natural remedies that have been gaining traction over the past few years among medical specialists and consumers alike. CBD, or cannabinoid, is a compound found in the marijuana or hemp plant which has been found to have several health benefits for both physical and mental affections, among which are stress, anxiety, and depression.
Several scientific studies have shown that CBD products can help reduce the symptoms of people with anxiety, depression, and chronic stress experience. For example, a 2015 study published in Neurotherapeutics journal, which analyzed the existing preclinical studies on how CBD can be used for anxiety and found that this natural remedy can help with several anxiety conditions such as panic disorder, social anxiety disorder, PTSD, OCD, and generalized anxiety disorder.
The best part about using CBD to manage your mental well-being is that it comes in various forms, suitable for all types of preferences and needs. More precisely, it comes in the form of CBD gummies, oil, tincture, vape juice, edibles, and smoking flowers such as those from Organic CBD Nugs.
Don’t worry about the psychedelic “high” sensation associated with marijuana because you won’t get it by using CBD. The “high” feeling is given by another compound found in the same plant, called THC.
Sleep
Good night’s sleep is paramount to good mental and physical health. While we are asleep, that’s when our body and mind recover from the wear it suffered during the day. If we don’t sleep enough or properly, we’re prone to a number of physical and mental issues, including heart disease, type 2 diabetes, depression, and anxiety.
Think about it: after a sleepless night the next morning, you feel something close to a “zombie.” You’re moody, irritable, anxious, out of focus, and so on. Not to mention that you’re feeling physically exhausted. That’s because your brain and body didn’t have the chance to recover, which happens in Stage 3, also known as deep sleep.
In contrast, you simply feel energetic, in a good mood, and more emotionally resilient after a good night’s sleep.
Conversation
Talking about your problems and what’s making you feel stressed, anxious, or depressed can be therapeutic too. This is a science-backed solution, not just any old advice of “talk it out.”
We are often socialized to internalize our feelings rather than give voice to them in order to avoid looking “weak” in front of other people. However, researchers believe that talking about your feelings, fears, emotions, and so on actually triggers a so-called “affect labeling” process which basically diminishes the response of the amygdala when you are experiencing stuff that makes you feel down.
Once you know which situations or events trigger your anxiety, it’ll be important to develop some effective coping mechanisms. This could include deep breathing exercises, meditation, or writing in a journal. If finding self-help strategies isn’t working well enough, it may be time to seek professional help from a therapist or counselor for treatment of anxiety disorders.
Sport
If you’re a sports enthusiast, you likely already know that after a workout, you feel better, both mentally and physically. If not, you should try and experience it yourself.
Now, there’s a very good reason, science-backed, for why we feel better after working out: our brains release chemicals like dopamine and endorphins, known as happy chemicals. Besides that, when you work out when you’re stressed and anxious, your brain gets rid of those chemicals that make you feel this way, like cortisol, CRH, or thyroid hormone. Even 30 minutes a day of exercising can help you keep stress hormones at a minimum and happy hormones at maximum.
