Stress Awareness Month has been recognized every April since 1992. Stress is the way your brain and body respond to changes and challenges. It can be helpful by keeping you alert, motivated, and ready to respond to potential threats. However, when stress becomes chronic and isn’t managed effectively, it can take a toll on both your mental and physical health.
Your overall well-being can improve when you learn to notice the signs of stress, understand how it affects your health, and find practical ways to reduce stress in your daily life.
Common Effects of Stress
Stress doesn’t just affect one part of your life. It can show up in your body, your thoughts and feelings, and your behavior.
Recognizing these signs early can help you respond before stress starts to take a larger toll. When left unaddressed, chronic stress has been linked to a range of health concerns, including high blood pressure, heart disease, stroke, obesity, and diabetes.
Here are some of the most common ways stress can show up:
In Your Body
- Getting sick more often due to a weakened immune system
In Your Mood
- Lack of motivation or focus
- Difficulty concentrating or memory problems
In Your Behavior
- Overeating or undereating
- Increased use of alcohol, tobacco, or other substances
- Withdrawing from friends or activities
- Avoiding responsibilities
What Can Help to Reduce Stress
The good news is that stress is manageable. Small, intentional shifts can make a meaningful difference in how you feel day to day.
You don’t need to change everything at once. Even one simple tool can help interrupt the stress cycle and bring your body and mind back to a more balanced state.
I asked our clinicians at The Halliday Center for Psychotherapy & Wellness to share some of the strategies they often recommend to help clients reduce stress. Here are a few of their go-to approaches:
1. The “Three-Breath Technique”
Dr. Debra Halliday often recommends the three-breath technique as a simple way to calm the nervous system during moments of stress. When your mind feels scattered or overwhelmed, it helps to have something structured and simple to return to. Research shows that even short, intentional breathing exercises can reduce stress and improve emotional regulation.
Here’s how it works:
Breath 1: Where You’ve Been
Take a slow, deep inhale. Bring your attention to what just happened before this moment. Maybe it was a conversation, a task, or something that felt stressful. Don’t analyze or judge it. Just notice.
As you exhale slowly…count to four.
Breath 2: Where You Are Right Now
Take another deep breath in. Shift your awareness to the present moment. Where are you? What room are you in? What’s around you? Simply notice your environment without trying to change anything.
Then exhale slowly…one, two, three, four.
Breath 3: Where You’re Going
Take one more deep breath. Now bring your attention to what comes next. Where are you going after this? Back to work? Home? Rest? Again, no judgment. Just awareness.
Exhale slowly… one, two, three, four.
Why This Works
Stress tends to pull your attention away from the present. This practice gently brings it back, helping your body settle and your mind reset. Even brief mindfulness exercises can reduce stress and improve emotional regulation. Use it anytime you feel overwhelmed or scattered. It takes less than a minute but can shift your state.
2. Move Your Body
Dr. Kayvon Afsarifard often encourages clients to use movement as a way to shift both physical tension and mental stress.
Movement is one of the most effective and accessible ways to reduce stress. Exercise doesn’t have to be intense or time-consuming to make a difference. The most important thing is to choose something you actually enjoy, whether that’s walking, stair climbing, jogging, dancing, biking, yoga, tai chi, gardening, weightlifting, or swimming.
Why This Works
Physical activity helps boost endorphins, improve mood, and regulate your body’s stress response. It also shifts your attention away from stressors and into the present moment, which can reduce stress and create a sense of calm and mental clarity.
You don’t need a strict routine to get started. Even a few minutes of movement throughout the day can make a meaningful difference. Over time, regular movement can support better sleep, improved mood, and a greater sense of balance.
3. Say “no” to things you do not want or need to do.
Dr. Dani Schaer often works with clients on building boundaries and noticing when overcommitment starts to create stress. Taking on too much is one of the most common and often overlooked ways stress builds over time.
Learning to set boundaries is a key way to reduce stress and protect your time and energy.
Whether it’s taking on extra work, attending events while feeling exhausted, or overcommitting socially, these patterns are common, especially in environments where productivity is measured by how busy you are.
Research shows that chronic overcommitment can elevate stress hormones like cortisol, which may impact sleep, immune function, and emotional well-being.
Why Do We Overcommit?
People often agree to additional responsibilities due to social expectations, fear of disappointing others, or discomfort with conflict. These patterns are closely linked to what psychologists describe as people-pleasing tendencies. While they can support relationships, they can also make it difficult to evaluate whether a request is realistic or sustainable.
From a psychological perspective, when demands consistently exceed available resources, the brain begins to interpret situations as ongoing stressors. This can contribute to emotional exhaustion, irritability, and burnout.
Cognitive-behavioral approaches (CBT) often focus on identifying and challenging underlying beliefs such as “I have to say yes” or “I’ll disappoint others if I don’t.” Reframing these thoughts can help individuals respond more intentionally rather than automatically.
Why This Works
Setting boundaries reduces unnecessary demands on your time and energy, allowing your nervous system to return to a more regulated state. When your commitments align with your actual capacity, stress decreases and emotional resilience improves.
Before agreeing to something, take a moment to assess whether it aligns with your capacity and priorities. Clear and respectful responses, such as “I’m not able to take that on right now,” are usually enough.
Learning to say no is not about rejecting others. It is about protecting your time, energy, and mental health so you can be more present and engaged in what truly matters.
4. Get Quality Sleep
Kim Brownell often highlights sleep as a foundational part of emotional regulation and stress management. When you’re well-rested, it’s easier to regulate emotions, think clearly, and manage daily challenges. When sleep is disrupted or insufficient, stress can feel more intense and harder to manage.
Chronic stress and poor sleep often reinforce each other. Stress can make it harder to fall or stay asleep, while lack of sleep can increase irritability, reduce concentration, and lower your ability to cope. Over time, this cycle can affect both mental and physical health.
Improving sleep often comes down to consistent habits. A few simple changes can support better, more restorative rest:
- Go to bed and wake up at the same time each day to support your body’s natural rhythm
- Keep your bedroom quiet, comfortable, and slightly cool
- Turn off electronic devices at least 30 minutes before bedtime
- Avoid large meals and alcohol close to bedtime
- Limit caffeine in the afternoon and evening
It can also help to give your mind time to slow down before sleep. Simple practices like reading, gentle stretching, or breathing exercises can signal to your body that it’s time to rest.
Why This Works
Sleep helps regulate stress hormones, supports emotional processing, and restores cognitive function. When sleep improves, your ability to reduce stress and respond to challenges improves as well.
5. Connect With Others to Reduce Stress
Stress often leads people to withdraw, even when connection is exactly what’s needed. You might feel like isolating, canceling plans, or keeping things to yourself. While this can feel easier in the moment, it can also increase feelings of stress and disconnection over time.
Our clinicians often emphasize that human connection plays an important role in emotional well-being. Talking with someone you trust can help you process what you’re experiencing, gain perspective, and feel less alone.
Why This Works
Social connection helps regulate the nervous system, reduce stress and feelings of isolation, and increase emotional support. Even small moments of connection, like a quick conversation, a walk with a friend, or sharing part of your day, can lower stress and improve overall well-being.
Connection doesn’t have to be overwhelming or time-consuming. It can be simple and consistent. Reaching out, staying engaged, and allowing yourself to be supported are all part of managing stress in a healthy way. For some, support from friends or family may be enough. For others, it can be helpful to have a more structured space to explore stress, emotions, and patterns in a deeper way.
Therapy can offer that space. At The Halliday Center for Psychotherapy & Wellness, we provide a supportive, non-judgmental environment where you can better understand how stress shows up in your life and develop practical tools to manage it. For those who benefit from shared experiences, our Connection Circle, an online therapy group that meets twice a month, offers a space to reduce stress and connect with others in a meaningful and supportive way.
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