7 Simple Tricks To Instantly Lower Your Stress Levels

None of us are strangers to stress, whether it’s caused by an overflowing inbox, looming deadlines or a busier-than-usual social schedule. Whatever the reason, stress – and particularly work-related stress , which costs the UK economy an estimated £28 billion – is a pervasive and persistent issue. It can feel overwhelming and impossible to navigate when you’re in the thick of it, but there are strategies we can all adopt to help mitigate its effects.

This stress awareness month , discover seven simple tricks to help you relax and unwind. Soothe with scent Fragrance doesn’t only have the ability to evoke memories, it can also act as an instant anxiety buster, helping to jolt you out of a high-stress state and into a calmer and more relaxed frame of mind. When we inhale scent particles, they travel through the nose to the limbic system – the area of the brain responsible for memory, mood and emotions.



Studies have shown that ylang-ylang has powerful anti-stress properties, thanks to its high concentration of linalool, a compound with sedative effects that can help to soothe an overactive nervous system. When inhaled, linalool has an “anxiolytic” effect (a term derived from the Ancient Greek words for “loosen anxiety”), meaning it helps you feel calmer and less fraught. Another essential oil with soothing qualities is cedarwood, a deeply grounding oil that contains sesquiterpenes, plant compounds that can affect the central nervous system, trigger serotonin production and promote calm.

Transform with touch While stress has been dubbed the number one 21st-century health epidemic by the World Health Organisation, social isolation and loneliness are not far behind it. The good news is that social connectivity, and more specifically physical touch, is an extremely effective stress-relief strategy because it reduces stress hormones like norepinephrine and cortisol, and increases levels of dopamine and serotonin. If you are feeling the effects of stress, you don’t even need to seek out something as intimate as a hug with a loved one – research shows that even a perfunctory hand massage administered by a stranger is enough to reduce active levels of cortisol in the body.

If that’s not your idea of fun, find a loved one and settle in for a good cuddle. Unwind your muscles According to the Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust , “tensing each of the major muscle groups in your body and then releasing the tension” can help you to relax and destress. In fact, it’s a technique used by many famous athletes and musicians to help them prepare for performance.

There are plenty of audio guides online that can guide you through a muscle-focused relaxation exercise. We recommend this guide by the NHS, and Stefanie Williams’s 6 Minute Stretch . Just make sure that you take it slow.

Meanwhile anaerobic exercise like yoga is also useful to help you unwind and relax your muscles, which in turn helps to reduce your overall stress levels. Harness your breath Practising deep breathing is key when aiming to reduce your stress levels. According to the Stress Management Society , our breathing is impacted when we are stressed, “so having a simple exercise to hand to use in these situations is very useful”.

To master the controlled breathing technique, sit or stand in a comfortable, relaxed position and inhale slowly through your nose for a count of five. The Stress Management Society also advises imagining “a ball or balloon in your belly inflating”. Next, hold your breath for five to 10 seconds and then count slowly to eight as you exhale.

It’s recommended to repeat this several times. As a top tip: “As you breathe, let your abdomen expand outward, rather than raising your shoulders.” This mimics a natural breathing position and helps your lungs to fill themselves with fresh air.

Another key breathing technique is the parasympathetic sigh, also known as the cyclic sigh or “box breathing” technique. In 2023, Stanford University found that focusing on long, controlled exhalations can reduce your stress and anxiety levels and boost your mood in as little as five minutes. It’s free, speedy and easy: simply breathe in and take in a second sip of air, before slowly releasing your breath.

Repeat this a few times and you should also notice your breathing return to an even rhythm throughout the remainder of your day. Refocus your vision A common side effect of stress is a tunnelling of the senses. The brain enters what’s known as a high-focus visual mode when we’re stressed.

When this happens, physiological changes to our eyes – and our nervous system – take place to allow us to deal with the threat at hand: as well as our eyeballs rotating inwards, our breathing becomes more rapid and our heart rate increases. To immediately reduce the feelings of anxiety associated with these changes, we can actively choose to engage in panoramic vision, increasing our field of vision to allow our brains to take in more of the visual stimuli around us. Helping to shift focus away from what’s in front of us kickstarts the parasympathetic nervous system, which encourages everything to slow down and our bodies to move out of panic mode.

Reset with sound The benefits of nature for reducing stress are well documented, but did you know the sounds of nature are particularly effective when it comes to lowering anxiety levels? A 2017 study led by the University of Sussex looked at the impact of nature sounds on brain activity and markers of the autonomic nervous system like heart rate and breathing, and found significant decreases in the body’s sympathetic response, which gets switched on in response to stress. If you can’t step outside and into a green space when stress threatens to overwhelm, opt for the next best thing by downloading an app like Nature Sounds . If you’ve ever struggled to get a baby to sleep, you might be familiar with white noise as a soothing aid, but it’s brown noise you need to tune into in order to zone out.

Possessing a lower frequency to white noise and with a neutral, more organic feel, brown noise sounds similar to the steady fall of rain, or the low rumble of thunder. For some (including fans on TikTok, where #brownnoise has racked up more than 100 million views), the continuous, dense nature of the noise acts like a blanket of sound, helping to block out external stimuli. Try a new taste According to a study carried out by Swinburne University in Melbourne, chewing gum can have significant anti-stress effects.

In a study that pitted gum chewers against non-chewers and measured and compared their alertness, stress and anxiety levels, the findings revealed that as well as improved focus, the chewers had lower levels of salivary cortisol levels compared to non-chewers. Reaching for a bar of something sweet is a common response to feeling stressed, but according to a study by Nestle, eating 40 grams of dark chocolate a day for two weeks actually reduced cortisol levels in 30 healthy adults. As well as containing serotonin, for a natural mood boost, and anandamide, which binds to the brain’s cannabinoid receptors for a calming effect, dark chocolate contains valeric acid, a natural relaxant, and magnesium, which is also known for its relaxing properties.

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