5 ways to reduce anxiety and stress

Speaking to friends and family it seems that stress, anxiety and even depression is rife, in the capital and beyond. With the pressures on modern life weighing on our shoulders day in day out, it can be difficult to find the time to even contemplate looking after you own mental wellbeing.

Like many of us, I have always had my ups and downs but I have equipped myself with some very helpful tools to get through those difficult days and I thought I would share them with you.

1. Find what brings you joy and do more of it. I know the question after this will often be‘but how do I find the time’ and the answer is you just have to. I love cooking, reading thrillers (slash cheesy love stories) and I love walking. So I cook every day. I try to read a book once a month and I walk to the park every day. These little things that we know make ourselves feel better really do do just that.

2. Eat more fruit and veg. If I am having a rubbish week, there is a 90% chance that the days leading up to the crash were fuelled with sugar and too much wine. Not only does cutting out toxins and processed food have a positive impact on our health but eating more fruit and vegetables has also shown to actually make us feel happier.

3. Get it out, whether its writing it or sharing it. Whether you chose to openly talk about your problems or not is totally up to you. I tend to like to deal with these things myself first and if they escalate and I feel overwhelmed, then I write a list of all the things that are making me feel a bit down and I share them with my husband, mum or best friend. That alone nearly always halves the problems. And if I then look at the same list four weeks later, it’s very rare that I’m still worried by the same things.

4. Remember you’re not the only one. We all have our own issues, it’s part of the great fabric of life. It’s easy to look at the glossy lives of other people on Instagram and think that they never have a sh*t day, but I promise you, we all do! So don’t ever feel that you are alone in this!

5. You are unique and you will do well to remember it! Sometimes I beat myself up because I didn’t act in the way I wanted to or was expected to, but these days I have just come to accept that that’s just how I am and in accepting it I started to like the traits I once despised.