Designing a Stress-Relief Management Plan and How Massage Therapy Can Help You Manage Stress

Stress is something we all experience. Sometimes you can do something about the source. Other times, all you can do is manage your stress. Taking proper care of yourself helps preserve your health and supports a happy, less stressed life.

How Does Stress Impact One's Life?

Stress can have a variety of negative effects on your health, both physical and mental. When you are stressed, your brain's natural systems for perceiving a threat, such as an approaching car or a large dog, stay "turned on." This means your system has elevated levels of cortisol, which then increases your blood sugar and the availability of substances to repair tissues. This is, of course, to prepare you for running from the threat or fighting it...but in chronic stress, you stay in that fight or flight mode, because the threat or perceived threat never goes away.

This increases your risk of mental health issues such as anxiety and depression, but can also impact your physical health. Stress can cause headaches, muscle-aches, digestive problems, weight gain, cognitive issues, and an increased risk of heart disease, high blood pressure, and stroke.

The mental effects of stress can also impact your productivity at work and your relationships with friends, family, and coworkers. People who are stressed can get "snippy" and irritable and are often less productive. Other people's reactions can then increase your stress.

Why You Should be Proactive About a Stress Relief Self-Care Plan?

Even if you are not stressed, you should be concerned about stress relief. Having a self-care plan in place before a stressor hits will help you ride with it and be ready to deal with increased stress.

You should consider working with a therapist to help you develop a proactive coping plan to improve your resilience. You should spend time going through the things that make you particularly stressed and coming up with strategies, particularly if you are vulnerable to anticipatory stressors, which is stressing about things that haven't even happened yet.

A proactive stress relief plan includes good nutrition, exercise (yoga can be particularly valuable), meditation, and establishing things that are healthy "I need this now" for stress. This might mean a relaxing video game, a good book, a bath with a colorful bath bomb, hanging out with your dog at the park, etc. You should also consider massage therapy.

How Can Massage Therapy Be Part of a Stress Relief Plan, and What Are the Benefits?

Massage therapy has been demonstrated to help with stress relief. Getting a massage from somebody you trust releases muscle tension and reduces your perception of threat. Massage can treat headaches and muscle aches that are caused by stress. You should tell your massage therapist you have elevated stress levels, or are concerned about them, so they can use targeted massage techniques for lowering stress.

What Are Some Other Stress Relief Self-Care Tips?

Some other things you can do to help reduce your stress include:
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• Making time for your hobbies and relaxing activities. Schedule "me time" like it was any other appointment, and stick with it.
• Reduce social media usage and take breaks from the news, especially when it feels like the world is falling apart.
• Eat a healthy diet. Try not to eat your stress, but the occasional bit of dark chocolate doesn't hurt.
• Exercise.
• Practice good sleep hygiene and schedule time for enough sleep.
• Spend time with your friends and family, ideally in person. Failing that, try a Zoom call or play an online game with loved ones. Connection is proven to reduce stress and increase happiness.
• If possible, spend time in nature, even if it's only your yard or balcony.
• Never be afraid to ask for help. Seeking professional mental health resources is always a good idea.

If you are feeling stressed, massage therapy can help.

Regular massage therapy can add up, so if you are a Jacksonville, Florida resident, consider our wellness membership plan. With our membership plan, you get lower pricing for massages, discounted access to stress-relief supplements, and one full-body red light therapy session per month. This makes it much more affordable to make a regular massage part of your stress relief self-care plan.

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We are pleased to serve the following Florida communities with massage therapy, chiropractic, organic skincare, acupuncture, red light therapy and more: Jacksonville, Orange Park, Fleming Island, Mandarin, Jacksonville Beach, Nocatee, St Johns, Ponte Vedra and more.

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