How to feel chill like a cucumber [Full guide].

Being happy and healthy requires one to feel at ease. Being chronically stressed is not only exhausting, it’s a major cause of serious inflammation, which can lead to some pretty serious diseases. You don’t want that!

In addition, nobody likes feeling stressed out all the time. When negative thoughts race through your mind all day long you can feel quite a state of anxiety, which affects your ability to think clearly and logically, thereby impacting your performance at work and quality of life.

Below are some simple tips that will help you become chill as a cucumber, reduce stress and generally feel happier.

1. Mindfulness.

This is the practice of centring your attention on the present moment, and immersing yourself in a deep and calming state of flow.

Aside from the cliche photos and meditative-poses, mindfulness is a really powerful practice that can be utilised to stay calm. It’s a way of filtering out stressors that come up in everyday life, and respond to them in a calm and collected manner, instead of getting stressed whenever something out of the ordinary comes up.

Staying calm, level headed and focused under pressure is a massive advantage. People who get consumed by stress under pressure tend to think reactively and irrationally, leading to poor decision making which can be make or break under certain circumstances.

So to be mindful and stay calm here’s a few things you can do!

Tips:

1. Focus on mindfulness exercises. A big part of this is simply becoming more aware of yourself. Though it sounds spiritual, the more aware you are of your body and environment, the better you can respond. Many people walk through life on autopilot, never really having much awareness of their feelings or what’s happening around them. A great place to start the ‘waking up’ process is with some Alan Watts.
2. Another way to improve your mindfulness and reduce built up stress is to significantly lower your expectations, so that it becomes very difficult to be disappointed. In practical terms this means hoping for the best but expecting the worse. This is a very different paradigm of thinking, as it forces you to expect the worst-case scenario all the time. The benefit is that you will never be shocked when bad stuff happens, because your expectations have already been adjusted so low. This is awesome because whenever good things happen, it makes them even better as you were not expecting them. Don’t confuse this with being either optimistic or pessimistic, they are different things. The key here is to expect the worst while staying positive. That’s where the magic happens.
3. Second to that is letting go of what other people think. Stop letting other people’s opinion of you dictate your emotions. A sure way to be unhappy is to let other people control your state of mind. A great remedy for this is “honest meditation”. You can grab the app here.
4. Last but not least, a great way to be at peace is to practice what’s called Stoicism, a philosophy that helps change your mindset to better cope with the unpredictable world we live in. A major part of the philosophy is simply accepting the world for what it is, and responding in a calm and collected manner when the unexpected happens, instead of letting what can’t be controlled dictate your emotions. A fantastic place to start is with the Daily Stoic. In addition I recommend reading The Obstacle is the Way by Ryan Holiday, which is all about transforming obstacles into opportunities. You may also want to have a read of Ego is the Enemy, also by Ryan Holiday.

2. Meditation.

Mindfulness meditation involves focusing on your breathing and then bringing your mind’s attention to the present without drifting into concerns about the past or future.

It helps you break the train of your everyday thoughts to evoke the relaxation response, slowly shifting your body into a peaceful state allowing you to drift off to sleep.

Meditation also reduces cortisol levels in the body, which improves sleep quality and time taken to fall asleep.

Tips:

1. Use a free app like Brain.fm to aid your body into a state of calmness using auditory-relaxation. Slip your headphones on and enjoy the peaceful ride into the obis!
2. Grab a sleep induction mat and lay down topless right before bed, exposing your entire back for at least 10 minutes. You will start to notice a “nice and happy” feeling — these are endorphins being released.

3. Natural supplements

Although it’s best to practice mindfulness and introduce meditative practices into your routine first and foremost, using natural supplements can be a good way to reduce stress that little bit more. Think of them as icing on the cake, rather than the full solution. Hence the name “supplements”.

Below is a list of natural supplements and nootropics that have been clinically proven to reduce stress and anxiety, all of which have very well studied long-term safety profiles.

List:

1. L-Theanine is a relaxing, non-dietary amino acid found in green teas like Camellia sinensis. This natural compound is known to promote relaxation without sedation, and generally reduce stress. Having it regularly will allow you to increase your stress-tolerance, thereby enabling your to become calmer in general.
2. Bacopa Monierri (aka Brahmi) has been used traditionally in Ayurvedic medicine to improve intellect, memory and anxiety for thousands of years! It has similarities to L-Theanine, in that it reduces anxiety and keeps you calm, by blocking stress signals in your brain. This is a proactive measure, stopping stress from triggering a response in the body before it happens, rather than calming you down after the fact.
3. Curcumin (from Turmeric) has many Anti-Inflammatory properties that help your body fight foreign invaders and repair damage. Low-level chronic inflammation plays a huge role in disease and depression, therefore it’s important to keep inflammation at bay as best you can. Standard Curcumin extracts in capsule/pill form are not very effective, as their bioavailability is not very high. Whenever you consume Curcumin (or Turmeric) make sure you have it with Piperine (an active ingredient in Black Pepper), as it’s shown to increase the bioavailability by up to 2,000%! Second to that it works best when heated (with food), as it’s a heat-solubilized compound.
4. Rhodiola Rosea is used extensively in Traditional Chinese Medicine. Rhodiola has been shown to improve mood and depression, alleviate stress and fatigue, and boosts concentration. Moreover Rhodiola increases Serotonin and Dopamine levels in the brain while also preventing their breakdown. All of these factors alleviate stressful and depressive symptoms, thereby uplifting your mood and keeping those stressors at a minimum.

You can learn more about all of natural herbs and supplements below:

10 brain boosting superherbs and natural nootropics to kickstart your day.

If you’re interested in making your brain perform better, learn more about Hapi below.

Be happy and stay healthy peeps 😀

— The Hapi team.