7 Ways to Reduce Work-Related Stress without Turning to Food ...

I started walking before my day of work about eight years ago and it’s been one of the most helpful ways to reduce work-related stress. Just thirty minutes by yourself outside in nature can do wonders for your brain, body, and your emotions. Exercise is a great way to reduce stress and a gentle activity such as walking works well enough without taxing your body and making you more stressed.

Eating in silence automatically helps you eat more calmly and realize when you’re full. When excess noise surrounds us, it may increase cortisol levels and cause us to eat more. Take 30 minutes to yourself during breakfast, lunch, and dinner and eat just until you're full.

Journaling has been found to be one of the best things to do to prevent and resolve binge eating disorders. Just 10 minutes a day, whether as you eat breakfast, right when you wake up, on your lunch break, or before you go to bed, are all great small windows of writing time. Write out your thoughts or scribble them down in a notebook whenever they hit you. You’ll be able to realize what you’re really stressed about instead of using food to try to deal with things.

It’s also important that you confront your daily stresses. If it’s a client you’re working with, consider how much you really need to work with them and if it’s your boss, perhaps go to them and have a mature conversation about some things that are bothering you. If you’re simply overwhelmed with too many hours or multiple jobs, use whatever time you have at home to actually rest and do more calming activities like yoga, Pilates, napping, and reading.

Another way I like to control my stress around food is to take one of my days off work each week to prepare at least 5 days worth of healthy meals and snacks. Chopped veggies, a huge pot of oatmeal I can reheat, salads, smoothie prep bags, and batches of cooked wild rice are all easy things I can use to put together a meal in minutes. Keep snacks like apples, bananas, red pepper slices, celery sticks, berries, grape tomatoes, and baby carrots on hand since these require no prep and you can grab them and go.

Yoga is truly a great activity to enjoy if you’re not doing so already. It stimulates the release of GABA in the brain, which is an amino acid that your body produces to fight stress. GABA has been found to treat binge eating disorders, sleep disorders, and general anxiety. Yoga has been found to be one of the easiest ways to help your body produce this amino acid in a short amount of time.

Too much caffeine can raise insulin levels in the body, which spike your blood sugar and trigger you to overeat. Your body may not even be hungry but high blood sugar levels can trick you into thinking you are and makes you even more stressed. Be sure to limit caffeine to one or two cups of coffee and caffeinated tea at the most and opt for decaf coffee or choose green and herbal teas the rest of the day.

Work-related stress is something we all deal with time to time but managing your stress with these tips above can do wonders. Consider talking it out with friends or family since they might be able to help you as well. How do you manage work-related stress?

Sources: dietcure.com, psychologytoday.com, everydayhealth.com, everydayhealth.com