3 Practical Tips to Reduce Stress

Managing “health and wellness” with MS is almost an oxymoron. If you ask any “expert,” they will provide some of my favorite pieces of advice that totally cured my MS (can you hear the sarcasm?):

Have you tried yoga?
What about cutting out gluten?
Did you know that dairy is shrinking your brain?
You don’t meditate enough
Are you even trying?

That’s not what this blog is going to be about, so if you’re here looking for the next dietary cure, sorry, but you’re going to be disappointed. I would still invite the folks looking for that information to stick around though, because through the last decade, I’ve tried a lot of methods that have all yielded interesting results that have taught me valuable lessons. THAT is why we’re here today (I also have a background in sports nutrition and a deep passion for food science, but that will come later)!

When it comes to methodology to evoke health & wellness habits that will stick and likely yield you some positive outcomes, I invite you to try focusing on one area this coming week:

Reduce Your Stress

Easier said than done, right? Did you know that women have a higher risk of being diagnosed with MS? Did you also know that the likelihood of this chronic illness having connections to high stress (stress, not cortisol) and disease onset is also being explored?

When I learned that, I remember laughing out loud because it just clicked into place for me. While I am fortunate to not currently have any other diagnosis outside of MS, I do carry an unnecessary amount of stress at all times, and always have.

For this first Health & Wellness article, I encourage you to reduce your stress in 3 simple ways:

Go for a walk outside: You’ve seen this one all around the internet and in every health magazine ever published, but it really does work. I could be having the worst work day of my life, and if I take the 30 minutes to walk my dog, Splash, on a beautiful day, I always return in a better mood. Even if I don’t have the time for a full walk, just walking to my mailbox and back to the porch on a sunny day will be enough to course correct my mindset.

Learn something you’ve always wanted to: Learning a new skill always sounds just out of reach because really, who has the time? I started a bullet journal (AKA, BuJO) this year and blocked out my priorities for the things I want to learn, but have no skills in. One of these things was learning American Sign Language (ASL). I invested in the paid subscription to unlock the entire learning course and all supplemental materials on the app Lingvano, and in the few weeks I’ve been learning, I can 100% say that it’s not only made me happier, but has made me feel more accomplished in an arena I really care about – making the world more inclusive. All within short increments of 10 minutes or less.

Do your favorite “guilty pleasure” hobby: What could be more relaxing than doing the thing you love to do, but always feel guilty doing because it isn’t “productive?” For me, this is indulging in some old school video games. I have played and replayed some of my childhood favorites in times of high stress such as:

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, Majora’s Mask, Twilight Princess, or the Wind Waker (the Gamecube is still my favorite console)
Final Fantasy X for the Playstation 2

My fiance will ask me time and time again how I can replay the same storyline from these classic RPGs when there’s no new DLC, variation in the plot, etc. My answer is the same for when I watch Lord of the Rings and quote it line for line for the 193845635225th time:

It is familiar, and I can change my personal approach or strategy based on the playthrough to make it different, every time

I no longer feel guilty when I choose to play Zelda on a Tuesday night after work instead of working on a painting I started, getting deeper into the 1,000 piece jigsaw puzzle I started, or even read my book. I choose to de-stress my way, without preset expectation.

So, readers, I invite you all to test these stress reducing theories out. The only thing I ask of you is this:

Begin with zero expectations, and enjoy the surprise and delight that comes thereafter.