How to Relieve Stress — Simple, Free Things You Can Do Alone Right Now

The end of a day spent chasing deadlines. A night when one unfair remark won't leave your head. Your body is tired, but the restlessness in your chest won't settle, and for no clear reason you feel irritable. In moments like that, wanting to do something about this feeling right now is completely natural.

Stress grows heavier the longer you endure it. The trick is to let a little go each day, before it piles up. This article gathers practical ways to relieve stress — free, doable on your own, and available right now — sorted by category. It also covers what to try when you try to release it and nothing seems to work.

Knowing the "types" makes stress relief easier to choose

Ways to relieve stress fall into roughly four doorways: move your body, write it out, use your voice, and change your setting. Keeping the whole map in mind lets you pick whatever fits how you feel today.

The important thing is not to force yourself to feel positive. The harder you push to "turn it into gratitude" or "think on the bright side," the more the pushed-down feeling loses its way out. First, get it out. Tidying up can wait.

Relieve it through your body

Built-up tension eases when you move. You don't need a hard workout.

• Take a short walk. Even walking one extra stop on the way home loosens the tightness a little.
• Stretch and roll your shoulders. Loosening a body stiffened by desk work loosens the mind along with it.
• Breathe slowly. Inhale for four seconds, exhale for eight. A few rounds settles a keyed-up nervous system.
• Take a shower, or tidy up. Simple physical tasks are good at pulling you out of an overthinking loop.

All of these are free and doable the same day. The more you tend to overthink, the better a body-first approach works.

Relieve it with your voice

Using your voice is another easy, fast-acting release. Sing loudly at karaoke, hum along to music you love at home, or let out a long "haaa" in the bath. Making sound deepens your breathing and lets pent-up feeling unwind. Alone in the car, or masked by the sound of the shower, and no one has to hear.

Relieve it by changing your setting

Stay in the same spot and the same worries keep circling the same track. Just changing your setting a little shifts the flow of your mood. Open a window and let the air turn over, walk to the corner store, take an unfamiliar route, or step into daylight for five minutes. A small move opens a gap in a clogged mood.

Relieve it by writing it out — even at midnight, even alone

On nights when moving is hard, or for a worry that isn't quite worth telling anyone, writing it out fits well. A feeling has no edges while it's still in your head, but the moment you put it into words, it becomes "something outside you that you can look at," and you can step back from it a little.

Writing out painful experiences and emotions — what psychology calls "expressive writing" — has long been studied and is known to lower stress and improve mood. And it needs no tools and no one else; you can do it at midnight without anyone watching. As something you can do alone, right now, it's remarkably practical.

The knack is not trying to write it well. "This is infuriating." "I'm done." "Why only me." A string of words is fine. No one will see it, so there's no need to smooth it into pretty language. When you're finished, close it without re-reading. That alone changes how heavy the next morning feels.

For those who still can't relieve their stress

"I've tried all sorts of things, and I still can't seem to let it out." Plenty of people feel this way. For most, the reason is that they've grown far more used to suppressing feelings than to releasing them. The more serious, responsible, and considerate you are, the more you tend to put your own feelings last with a quiet "I can just bear this much."

For someone like that, "let it all out" is a high bar to clear cold. Start smaller: get the words piled up in your head out, exactly as they are. You don't have to turn them into anything positive. You don't have to show anyone. Even harsh, curse-like words lose their weight the moment you write them out — the pressure inside reliably drops.

Noroi Nikki is an app for those days. We built it as a place where you can let the negative feelings out as "curses," exactly as they are — seen by no one, staying only within you. Before it all piles up, let today's stress go while it's still today.

References

• Pennebaker, J. W. (1997). Writing about emotional experiences as a therapeutic process. Psychological Science, 8(3), 162–166.