For many of us, stress is simply something we live with. In fact, we’re often unaware of the role it plays in other areas of life.

Perhaps you’re reading this because you’re starting your journey in tackling stress and are looking for some tips and solutions. Or, perhaps you’ve already tried the many ‘magic cures’ and ‘quick fixes’ on offer, but still find yourself feeling stressed.

Whatever your relationship to stress, there are proven ways to worry less and enjoy a happier, healthier and more balanced life.

Here we’ll share some proven methods to reduce stress — the last one might surprise you!

Stats about stress

According to The Priory;

• 79% of UK adults feel stressed at least one day a month.
• One in every 14 people in the UK say they feel stressed every single day.
• 74% of UK adults have felt so stressed at some point over the last year they felt overwhelmed or unable to cope.
• 32% of adults said they had experienced suicidal feelings as a result of stress.
• 51% of adults who felt stressed reported feeling depressed, and 61% reported feeling anxious.

These numbers make for shocking reading. But they also show that stress is prevalent in a large proportion of the UK adult population.

The impact of stress in the workplace

Stress has a huge impact on workplace productivity and profitability too.

In 2021/22, 17.0 million working days were lost due to work-related stress, depression or anxiety. In fact, stress, depression or anxiety accounted for 51% of all work-related absences.

Stress-related health issues are estimated to cost the NHS over £11 billion a year. While poor mental health such as stress costs UK employers up to £45 billion a year (Source: Priory Group)

If we want to achieve our potential, and enjoy fulfilling and successful careers, we need to get our stress under control.

How to reduce stress

Spending time in nature is proven to reduce stress, improve your mood and boost your physical wellbeing.

Exercise is another proven method to combat stress. And, if you can take your exercise outdoors, preferably in a natural setting like a field or woodland, you’re onto a winner.

If you’re restricted to the house, you can bring the benefits of nature indoors. Invest in some air purifying indoor plants or place nature photographs or murals on your walls. Switch the TV channel from the latest docusoap to a relaxing nature documentary, and feel your heart rate slow down as your body relaxes.

The stress reduction technique you probably haven’t tried

Chances are, you already know that exercise and a healthy diet are helpful in reducing stress — but that doesn’t mean it’s straightforward to implement and maintain healthy habits!

You may have signed up for the gym — and never gone, or ordered a month’s supply of healthy meals, only to find you can’t stand the way they taste.

If this sounds familiar, stop giving yourself a hard time. Often, our brains are fixed on old routines and thought patterns that make it difficult to change for the better, long-term. We tend to focus on external factors to try and reduce stress, but sometimes it’s our own thoughts that are holding us back from achieving that elusive state of calm.

The good news is there’s another, surprising way to reduce stress — it’s called Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP).

What’s NLP and how can it combat stress?

Over the past few years, neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) has become an increasingly popular method for reducing stress. And for good reason.

The National Library of Medicine explains that “NLP is a powerful instrument that accomplishes psychotherapy unbelievably, and it enables a person to decode the origin of individual words and speech. By doing this, people feel, think, speak, and thus are capable of self-management and influencing others. NLP seeks the relationship among thinking (mental), speech (linguistics), and behavior patterns (behavior).

Instead of focusing on external stressful events, NLP focuses on individual reactions toward the stressful events, and it provides practical strategies to increase individual adaptation capacity and coping. NLP deals with the structure of human experience subjectively, and it determines how one can organize what to see, hear, and feel, as well as how to purify one’s outside world through their senses.”

In short, NLP helps us shift the negative thoughts and bad patterns that make us react to situations in a way that generates stress. If we can re-train our brain to think about, and approach, situations differently, we’ll minimise stress, gain confidence and start to feel better about ourselves all round.

How to access NLP

There are various NLP courses available, many are online and can be undertaken for as little as 90 minutes a week over a few months.

Sue Fraser, Director of Potential To Be, and Jenni Hallam, The Mindset Designer, run online NLP at Work Courses and explain that, “NLP or Neuro Linguistic Programming is the Ultimate Mind Gym. With NLP you can train your mind to be more agile, focused and resilient. It’s just like having a Personal Trainer for the brain.

By the end of a 12-week NLP course you will have a toolbox of proven techniques to help you reduce stress and revolutionise how you think about, and approach, common situations.

NLP will certainly help reduce stress at work, but it can positively impact your personal life too.

If you struggle with stress but feel like you can’t find a solution that genuinely works, NLP could be the game-changer you’ve been looking for.”

Want to register for an online NLP Course?

NLP at Work is running an online course from 12th September to 5th December 2023.

They offer 12 sessions of 90 minutes per week, plus 1–2–1 coaching sessions as part of the package.