Stress is something we all deal with every day. Sometimes it can get to you. Try out these 5 tips to help relieve stress and live a better life.

1. Get active. Participating in any physical activity helps to combat the effects of stress. Even if you’re not athletic or in good shape, doing something to stimulate blood flow through your body can relieve stress. Getting active releases endorphins that make you feel better. It also produces natural chemicals that enhance your sense of wellbeing. Physical activity helps you feel better without you knowing it.
2. Have a good laugh. Having a good sense of humor doesn’t fix all your problems, but it certainly helps. Laughing even helps if you have to force a fake laugh through your grumpy mood. Laughing helps to lighten your mental load. If you can think about something while also laughing about it, you give your mind a break for a couple minutes. Among those reasons to laugh, it also starts positive physical changes in your body. Laughter makes your stress response restart; similar to pressing the restart button on a phone. So get out and see a funny movie or hangout with your funny friends.
3. Talk to others. Sometimes we get stressed about the day to day grind and we just need someone to talk to. The common instinct is to isolate yourself and shut everyone out, but that’s a mistake. In order to heal and feel better about the situation you’re stressed about, you need to communicate how you feel and why you feel that way. Often times we don’t always know what we’re so stressed about and we just feel stressed. So, talking to a friend or parent can help us better understand what we are actually stressed about. Also, the person you talk to could be going through the same thing you are, and communicating with someone else who understands can really give you the strength you need to know so that you will be ok.
4. Assert yourself. It can be easy to take on too much work without enough time to actually accomplish all the work, which leads to stress. Sometimes all you need to do is be honest and tell someone no. Learning to delegate or take items off your to-do list can be the difference between a stressful life, and a happy well-balanced life.
5. Rest. It has been scientifically proven that not getting enough sleep leads to increased stress and a shorter tolerance for people. Your body and mind need a recharge after the long day of work. When you don’t give your body and mind enough time to recharge, it doesn’t function at the highest level it could. You wouldn’t expect your cell phone to last as long throughout the day without a full recharge, and your body is the same way.   Sleeping is the best way to make your mind and body feel better and reduce your stress.