I wrote about being in touch with our uncomfortable emotions here and here, but there are times when everything feels too much and we just need an instant distraction to alleviate the uncomfortable emotions.

Below are 8 ways (tried and tested – by me and some studies) you can use to evoke joy almost instantly, especially after a highly stressful day:

1. Sit Down, Drink, and Do Nothing Else

By sitting down, I mean really sitting down, don’t half arse it. And by doing nothing, it literally means doing nothing but drinking. Don’t drink and read. Don’t drink and watch TV. Just drink. Sip it slowly and taste the flavour mindfully. Focus on the details of the cup and the taste of the drink.

By drinking, I mean drinking beverages that can help you feel relaxed, not disproportionately high. 

What drink can make you feel disproportionately high? Alcohol. Because no great story ever started with a salad. That was a joke. I wouldn’t recommend drinking alcohol to reduce stress as it can easily slip into addiction.

Depending on what you are made of (violent soul, sad soul, happy soul), alcohol magnifies it, which often brings unwanted consequences. So don’t become an alcoholic. 

Besides, drinking too much alcohol can damage your kidney and liver. Be nice to your soul, body and all the organs. It’s not to prevent death (death is unpreventable!), but to die peacefully. Many people with a lot of preventable diseases can’t die peacefully as they end up being half alive and half dead. I don’t believe that’s a pretty feeling. On a side note, if I’m ever on life support, unplug me, then plug me back in… see if that works. You know, like when you need to reset your wifi router.

Therefore, after a highly stressful day, it’s recommended to drink teas like chamomile, mint, lavender, rose, and matcha. They help calm your mind and thus, reduces stress. 

Drinking cherry juice also helps as it increases melatonin levels, a hormone that helps you relax and fall asleep. However, beware of too many melatonin as it may lead to depression.

2. Nap

Study finds that 30-minute naps can help regulate hormones associated with stress and the immune system.

So forget turning on the TV, eating junk food, or doing any house chores to distract yourself. Just take a nap, lay down and close your eyes, visualising yourself lying down on a pile of fluffy clouds. Let your mind drift away. 

3. Soak Your Feet in Warm Water

Soaking feet with warm water shouldn’t be only for women who want a pedicure. Even if you don’t plan to polish your toenails, soaking your feet with warm water hydrates your skin, soothes your muscles and can even relieve aches that are caused by standing or walking for hours, especially with uncomfortable shoes.

4. Take a Hot Bath or Shower

If you have a bathtub and using litres of water won’t drain your wallet, or make any of your flatmates declare a civil war, go ahead, jump inside and relax. Get a rubber duck too, if you want. Just because you’re an adult, doesn’t mean you have to stop enjoying things you enjoyed when you were a kid. Leave your real world and immerse yourself in your own world, whatever it may be. 

If you don’t have a bathtub or your flatmate(s) may complain about your water usage, then take a hot shower instead of a bath. 

Warm water, as mentioned above, soothes muscles and relieves aches, helping you to feel a lot more relaxed than not taking shower/bath at all.

5. Take a Cold Shower

I rarely take cold showers as I’m still not that ‘brave’ yet. From a brief experience, it gives me a strange mix of joy and fear, which forces me to fully focus on the cold sensation in my body and to forget everything else. So based on this logic, cold showers help when it comes to relaxing our mind from a highly stressful day. People who regularly take cold showers have been confirming how beneficial it is, including reduced stress levels, higher level of alertness, and more robust immune response. Visit Wim Hof Method, they have more details about the benefits of cold showers. 

6. Do Physical Exercises

While some people don’t see physical exercises as something they want to do after a highly stressful day, some (including me) find physical exercises like walking, jogging, bike riding, or lifting weights relaxing. The logic behind it is that when we’re doing physical exercises, our body releases chemicals called endorphins. Endorphins trigger a positive feeling in the body, similar to that of morphine. So why pay for morphine while you can produce a similar substance from your own body?

7. Go to the Beach or a Park

If you can go to the beach, and if the weather is good enough, you should go.

With the beach, not only the scent of the fresh sea, but the sound of the waves can also soothe your brain almost instantly. According to Sally Nazari, Psy D, owner of Chrysalis Psychological Services and host of the podcast Beyond the Couch, the wave sound — coupled with the visuals — activate our parasympathetic nervous system, which is responsible for slowing us down and allowing us to relax.

If you don’t live near the beach, then go to a park where there are trees. Studies have found that being around trees, and looking at them, stimulate the parasympathetic division of the central nervous system that naturally induces calm.

8. Practice Creativity

Do activities that call up your creativity: writing, drawing, painting, designing, decorating, playing or composing a song. A recent study finds that people who practice creativity experienced a decrease in their levels of cortisol, a hormone that the body secretes to respond to stress. Too much cortisol puts you at increased risk of many health problems, such as digestive problems, memory and concentration impairment, headaches, sleep problems, and heart diseases.

But too little cortisol is also bad for you. Symptoms that you haven’t got enough cortisol include continual tiredness, weight loss, and muscle weakness. So you still need cortisol. Now that makes me think, maybe most artists have continual tiredness and skinny because they don’t have enough cortisol in their bodies. I’ll do more research on this.

Having Said That…

This post is not a suggestion to repress your uncomfortable emotions. You’ll still need to sit down and digest your uncomfortable emotions. Write them down. Discuss them with a trusted friend. If you’re sad, frustrated, and feel the need to cry, then cry. If you don’t have a shoulder to cry on, then be your own shoulder. I personally think crying is better done when we’re alone. Here is my post about crying, why it’s good and when you need to seek help.