THE NEW STRESS RELIEF TACTICS EVERY MAN SHOULD KNOW

Don't let life get the better of you try these stress-relieving tactics and calm your mind and body

- LUCY GORNALL

In the UK, a high 67% of men have felt so stressed at some point over the last year, they've felt overwhelmed or unable to cope, according to research by the Mental Health Foundation. Work, finances and health cause the most stress for men; however this stress isn’t just a mental issue.

It's a performance issue, too, affecting everything from your sleep, recovery, testosterone levels, focus in the gym and even how your body holds onto fat. The old advice of ‘just relax’ isn’t always enough now, because modern stress is very different from the stress men were evolved to handle.

Janice Cowin, Senior Psychological Wellbeing Practitioner and Trainee Champion at Living Well UK, says stress is “one of the biggest problems men are facing right now.”

“The stress system in the male body evolved to deal with short, intense challenges; things like physical danger which would then be followed by proper rest,” she explains.

“Today's stress runs at a constant, low-level pressure. Many men feel like they never really switch off.”

So, your body stays on alert all day without a clear end point. Elevated levels of the stress hormone cortisol become the norm. The nervous system, aka, your ‘command system’ rarely drops into the parasympathetic state, which is the rest and digest state; instead it stays in the sympathetic state, which is fight or flight.

“That's not something our biology was built for, which is why so many men feel permanently on the go, but perpetually stressed out,” says Janice.