5 simple ways to minimize stress

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Marielle Segarra (0:18)

You're listening to Life Kit from NPR.

Hey everybody, it's Marielle. We all get stressed, right? One thing I've learned through our reporting at Life Kit is that while it's really important to ground yourself in these moments, that's not where the work ends. Because if you're constantly having these days where your fight or flight response is triggered, there's probably a reason, some underlying cause of your stress. It could be your health or the health of someone you love. It could be a relationship that's falling apart or the fact that you can't pay rent or a fear for your safety.

Aditi Nerurkar (0:54)

These are things that never quite go away. So that fight or flight response is always on at a slow hum in the background.

Marielle Segarra (1:02)

That's Dr. Aditi Nerurkar. She's an internal medicine physician at Harvard, and she wrote a book called The 5 Resets.

Aditi Nerurkar (1:09)

The 5 Resets has been laid out to be a roadmap.

Marielle Segarra (1:12)

A roadmap to recovering from chronic stress. Because stress doesn't just make us feel terrible in the moment, it can also have ongoing effects on our bodies. It puts us at higher risk for heart disease, high blood pressure and strokes, and it can also increase inflammation in our bodies and weaken our immune systems.

NPR health correspondent Ritu Chatterjee talked to Dr. Nerurkar. And on today's episode, they're going to walk us through these 5 resets and how they can help you live a healthier, less stressful life.

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Ritu Chatterjee (3:44)

Aditi says a key part of lowering one's stress is finding ways to rest and recover.

Aditi Nerurkar (3:50)

Rest and recovery are not just nice to have luxuries. They are essential for our brains and bodies, and particularly for the biological features of our brains and bodies, to thrive.

Ritu Chatterjee (4:01)

Now if you're already stressed and overwhelmed, you might be thinking, I have no time for rest and recovery.

Or the idea of adding one more thing on my plate, even if it's to ultimately lower stress, makes me feel even more overwhelmed. Well, that's exactly how most of Aditi's former patients felt when they came to see her. Take for example a patient she calls Wes.

Aditi Nerurkar (4:26)

Wes is a single dad of three. He works two jobs, and his doctors had told him that it's important for him to lose weight because he has high blood pressure, is slowly starting to develop high cholesterol and may develop diabetes down the road.

Ritu Chatterjee (4:43)

She says Wes knew he had to change his diet, but he just couldn't do it because he was living in survival mode.