The beginning of the year is the time that most people give serious thought to making positive lifestyle changes for body, mind, and spirit. Yet, there is one major culprit that often undermines even the best of intentions. What is that culprit? It is STRESS. Stress is a fact of life, but we don’t have to make it a way of life. If our goal is to live a sacred, balanced life, we must learn how to manage stress.

Why is reducing stress so important? Well, the American Association of Family Physicians reports that two-thirds of all doctor visits are due to stress-related ailments. It’s also believed that 80 to 90 percent of all diseases are stress-related. If you are female, stress may be even more damaging to your health. Study after study has found that women suffer from both stress and depression more often than men.

For some of us, our biggest stressors might be weather-related situations such as tornadoes, earthquakes, floods, fires, and hurricanes. Similarly, most of us are stressed out by deadlines and work commitments, but stress has many other causes. It can be triggered by emotions such as anger, fear, worry, grief, depression, or even guilt.

Stress can actually lead to high blood pressure, heart problems, muscle and joint pain, fatigue, headaches, and chronic health conditions. If you want to avoid these problems, here are my favorite seven tips to reduce stress, promote relaxation, and bring a sacred balance back into your body and world.

Get moving! That’s right — exercise is one of the best ways to reduce stress; it relaxes muscles and eases tension. Want proof? A study at the University of Southern California shows that patients who took a vigorous walk and raised their heart rates to more than 100 beats per minute reduced the tension in their bodies by 20 percent. A control group, given a tranquilizer, didn’t get such good results!

Go for a walk, hit the gym and do some weight-bearing exercises, or give yoga a try. Studies have shown that those who practice yoga have lower levels of stress hormones than those who don’t.

2. Meditate and Breathe Deeply (really, it’s simple). Don’t worry — you don’t have to be a Buddhist monk to know how to meditate. Here’s how: find a special, quiet space in your home. Spend at least 15 minutes here first thing in the morning and before going to bed. Sit and close your eyes, focus on your breathing. Inhale and exhale slowly and deeply, focusing on the sound and rhythm of your breathing.

Mentally visualize peace and calmness. Your day will start and end on a stress-free note. (For an A-Z guide on how to use meditation to quell stress, look younger, heal your body, and achieve your goals, refer to my audio programs, Choose to Live Peacefully and Wired to Meditate, available on my website.)

3. Eat a stress-relieving diet. Can your food choices really help relieve stress? You bet. Take stress off your digestive system by eating a high-quality, organic, colorful diet with an emphasis on fresh produce, which is high in water content and, therefore, easily digestible. Especially beneficial are antioxidant-rich leafy greens, such as romaine lettuce, spinach, Swiss chard, kale, collards and sprouts.

Also, choose from an array of rainbow-colored fruits and vegetables with every meal or snack, to benefit from a plethora of antioxidants. Just remember this: Produce is the most important health care money can buy. And vibrant health starts in the kitchen by choosing to eat foods in their natural, raw state.

In my motivational talks and seminars worldwide, I often say that you can sit down to a breakfast of bacon and eggs and butter, and then take your cholesterol-and blood-pressure lowering medications. That’s your right. But if you choose to
take charge of your body and eat better foods — a healing natural-foods diet — your body will thank you every day for the rest of your life.

Studies show that heart disease can be reversed by diet alone. Many diabetic patients can go off their medication by dietary changes. Kidney stones can be prevented as well as cancer and obesity. These studies demonstrate that a good diet is the most powerful weapon we have against disease and sickness. And it comes down to four things: breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks.

Look to nature for answers on what to eat. You don’t find any ice cream trees, potato chip bushes or donut vines in Nature. The more natural a food is, the more likely it is to have an abundance of healthy nutrients that boost immunity, protect your body from disease, and promote youthful vitality. It’s your choice and it’s within your power to create a healthy body and life.

4. Keep your body hydrated. Our bodies are 70% water. Our cells are 70% water and planet Earth is 70% water. That’s no coincidence. Each day we need to drink at least 8 glasses of water. At a cellular level, dehydration makes us just as droopy as a neglected violet. Lack of moisture in our faces causes wrinkles the way lack of moisture in plums causes prunes.

Drinking “liquids” won’t do. Although herbal tea, freshly-extracted vegetable juice and diluted fruit juice can count in the water tally, coffee, tea, colas, and alcoholic beverages actually dehydrate the body. They are wet, but they are not water; in fact, they’re “antiwater.”

We need to maintain proper fluid balance for brain and kidney function, to rid the body of waste material and toxins, and to maintain radiant health. Water is also a safe, cheap, and effective appetite suppressant. Often when we think we are hungry, we are actually thirsty.

Get into the habit of carrying a reusable, earth-friendly bottle of water when you walk or drive. If it’s there, you are more likely to drink it. You can refill them from your filtered or purified water source at home.

5. Catch plenty of zzz’s. Lack of sleep undermines your body’s ability to deal with stress. That’s why it’s important to get seven to eight hours of shut-eye per night. You can tell you are getting enough sleep if you wake at a regular time without an alarm. If you require a buzzer to get out of bed in the morning, you are not getting enough sleep.

6. Laugh a lot. Are you worried about something? Maybe you are stressed out about your relationship with a loved one, the monthly bills that are stacking up, or poor grades your son or daughter is bringing home from school. Whatever it is, one way to mollify this stress is to make sure your life is filled with laughter.

According to the researchers, laughter releases endorphins, ‘feel-good’ hormones that act as natural stress beaters. In fact, a good belly laugh gives your heart muscles a good workout, improves circulation, fills your lungs with oxygen-rich air, clears your respiratory passages, stimulates alertness hormones, helps relieve pain, and counteracts fear, anger, and depression, all of which are linked to illness and stress.

Be sure to schedule time into your busy schedule to be with friends and family who make you smile and laugh, and go to movies or read a book that tickles your funny bone. Just make sure you are getting plenty of things to giggle about in your life.

7. Be thankful and reap the health benefits. Each and every day, take a moment to be grateful for all that you have in life. Gratitude is a great stress-buster. What you think about consistently brings more of the same into your life. So focusing on the positive, even during difficult times, is the best way to alleviate stress and transform your life.

Incorporate these seven steps into your daily life starting today. Within no time, you will reap the benefits — joy will be your constant companion, your body will feel renewed, and it will seem like you are walking on air.

© Susan Smith Jones, PhD

For more than 35 years, Susan Smith Jones, PhD, has been one of  the world’s most recognizable names and faces in the fields of holistic health, anti-aging, human potential, and balanced living. She taught health and fitness at UCLA for 30 years, and now travels worldwide as an in-demand motivational speaker and frequent guest on radio and TV talk shows. Susan is the author of 27 books, including her latest bestsellers “The Joy Factor: 10 Sacred Practices for Radiant Health,” “Walking on Air: Your 30-Day Inside and Out Rejuvenation Makeover,” and “Recipes for Health Bliss” (a full-color recipe book), as well as her popular digital seminar series Renew Your Life. To order her books or learn more about her work, please call: (800) 523-9971 ET or visit: www.SusanSmithJones.com