9 unconventional WAYS TO SHAKE OFF STRESS

Try these sciencebacked strategies and everyday tips to dial down your body's stress response.

- LIESL ROBERTSON

When you're stressed out, there are few things more infuriating (and less helpful) than being told to 'Calm down', 'Just relax' or 'Breathe'. 'When you're in a state of stress - fight, flight, freeze - the body is designed to run from the situation, not to make sense of it,' says neuroscientist Nicole Vignola. 'So if you try to analyse your thoughts, you can end up catastrophising or ruminating. Luckily, your body has built-in ways to self-soothe; you just need to know how to tap into them.

1 SHAKE IT OFF

No, not the Taylor Swift song although that might be a helpful tool, if that video of Prince William and his flailing limbs at the Eras Tour is anything to go by.

In Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers, neuroscientist Robert Sapolsky explains how zebras in the wild regulate their stress hormones. Imagine you've just managed to run away from a lion. Your heart is beating a mile a minute, and now you're stuck in a hypervigilant state of near-panic - what if there's another one lurking nearby? Zebras, however, are often racing away from a lion one moment and idly browsing on grass the next. Why? Because they use up their stress hormone as they were meant to. Once the clear and immediate danger of a ravenous big cat nipping at their heels is gone, they give their bodies a good shake - and that action 'tells' their system that they are now safe.

According to Sapolsky, the same basic principle works on you too. Giving your whole body a good shake releases stress hormones like cortisol, spurs the parasympathetic nervous system into action, and signals the brain to calm down, relax and let go. There's even a fancy technical name for it, if it helps you feel less silly: It's called therapeutic or neurogenic tremoring.