Walking, stretching, and easy leisure activities are all great stress relief exercises but what if you're dealing with toxic or chronic stress? A basic exercise routine that does not include stress management exercises for your specific stress issues can actually increase stress and adversely affect your health. Those dealing with stress due to emotional issues need completely different exercises than those dealing with stress due to survival issues (finances, divorce, illness) or those experiencing stress due to an out of balance life. Finding the best exercises for your specific needs is easy and also the best way to eliminate stress and get healthy faster.

Identify Your Specific Stress Issues
Before you get started with any stress relief exercises it's important to identify your stress issues, specifically how the stress you are experiencing is manifesting itself physically. You are probably well aware of why you are stressed and that all stress produces a hormone called cortisol that wreaks havoc on your health and your waistline. What's more important than the cause however is the effect or how stress is directly affecting your body. To identify the effects simply keep a journal and write down all your physical symptoms including: back pain, headaches, insomnia, anxiety, chest pains, altered breathing patterns, neck and shoulder tension, fatigue, stomach cramps, acne or rashes, depression, no motivation, over eating, under eating, and substance abuse. Monitor all physical problems and write them all down for a week even if you think they may not be stress related.

Focus on Your Primary Trouble Zone First
Once you've written down the effects try to identify the zones where you have the most trouble and focus on exercises for those zones first (get started with my stress relief exercises video below). This may sounds like strange approach but in my fitness therapy business I work with clients who hire me specifically to work with their stress related trouble zones. A great example of this would be a person who is experiencing digestion and appetite problems, low back pain, power struggles at work, as well as stubborn belly fat. These are all issues that are focused right in zone 3 or what some call the solar plexus chakra.

Another example of this is a person who is experiencing weight gain, minor accidents, insomnia due to nightmares, anger management issues, as well as depression. These are all issues that stem from a zone 1 imbalance or what some call the first chakra. Any and all physical symptoms are directly related to the type of stress you experience and those symptoms tend to manifest in one or two main areas of the body. Constantly losing your balance may not seem related to financial troubles but both are about instability just like power struggles and appetite/digestion imbalances are both issues related to getting what we need then letting go.

Set A Specific Stress Relief Goal
In order to really get results from your stress management exercises you must do them daily and staying consistent with a daily exercise plan requires a specific goal that states the specific outcome. Saying that you want to feel less stressed is not specific enough but writing in an exercise journal that you would like to eliminate all anxiety and feel more secure about your ability to support yourself (and/or your family if that applies) is what will motivate you to stick to your daily plan so you can eliminate stress faster and get on with living a healthy more relaxed life.

Eliminate stress fast with more stress relief zone exercises and stress relief tips from How to Eat, Move and Be Healthy! or get started with my stress relief exercises workout.