Time for Stress Balls One Great Reliever

Stress Balls

Stress! We all feel it in one way or another. This year has been one of the most stressful ever! We can ALL agree to that. There are many ways to reduce stress. I have even written some posts where I talk about our pets as a great way to reduce stress and get some great exercise in. The nice thing is there are other ways to relieve your stress.

Have you ever seen those little rubbery balls while you are standing in the checkout line? You know, they look something like this

What got me thinking about these? Well, I got one from work for a Christmas present. Do you think they are trying to tell me something? 🙂

In all seriousness, stress is detrimental to our health. Look at all of the things that can happen just because of stress.

“Stress can play a part in problems such as headaches, high blood pressure, heart problems, diabetes, skin conditions, asthma, arthritis, depression, and anxiety.” (1)

Let’s look at each of these.

• Headaches – I am sure you have heard of tension headaches. These are headaches that tend to appear on both sides of your head. It kind of feels like a pressure pain and not the usual migraine type of headache that causes nausea, sensitivity to light and sound, and worsens when you move your head. Tension headaches usually feel like a mild to moderate pain in the front part of your head, your scalp, or neck, and often go hand in hand with muscle tightness. That’s not to say that stress can’t bring on migraine headaches. I know plenty of people who’s migraines are triggered by stress.
• High Blood Pressure – We all know that when we are under stress our hormones surge. These hormones temporarily increase your blood pressure by causing your heart to beat faster and your blood vessels to narrow. Sometimes when we are under that stress, we can react in unhealthy ways. Here’s the problem. When we react to stress in unhealthy ways, it can increase your risk of high blood pressure ,heart attacks and strokes. What are these unhealthy things? Smoking and drinking too much alcohol are the top two offenders.
• Heart Problems – “Stress can also cause changes that promote the buildup of plaque deposits in the arteries. Even minor stress can trigger heart problems like poor blood flow to the heart muscle. This is a condition in which the heart doesn’t get enough blood or oxygen. And, long-term stress can affect how the blood clots. This makes the blood stickier and increases the risk of stroke.” (2)
• Skin Conditions – I am sure most of us are well aware of stress causing skin conditions. Think back to when you were a teenager. Exam time was the worst! I know I would get flare ups of pimples and acne. Other people can experience things like eczema, rashes, fever blisters, and rashes. Back to the reason I stated above – hormones, cortisol to name the main one
• Asthma – I suffer from asthma. I know first-hand how my asthma flares up when I am under stress. And when your stress is high and you can’t breathe, your anxiety rises. This becomes a vicious cycle.
• Depression – While some depression can be caused by genetics and chemical in-balances in your brain, a lot of it can be caused by stress. Stress wears on you. It runs you down. It can make you be in a bad mood, reduce your productivity, cause problems in your relationships, cause sleep problems, and even make it had for you to just do normal every day activities.

Enough Stress

So enough stress already! Let’s talk about one of the fun ways I reduce stress. Sometimes at work or even at home, I grab one of those stress balls and squeeze it. It becomes almost second nature. I used to not think that these worked to relieve stress, but they really do.

You may wonder how do they work. I wondered that myself especially when I could physically feel the tension and stress leave my body.

“Repeatedly squeezing the egg releases tension and in turn, helps to relieve stress. In addition to the mental benefits, stress balls also boost blood circulation and help with the treatment of carpal-tunnel syndrome and arthritis — and they’re used as a tool for meditation too” (3)

I bet you did not know that there are other benefits to these stress balls. While they are relieving your stress and anxiety, they can also help to strengthen your hands, and increase concentration.

There are many places to get stress balls. I have gotten mine from gifts and also ordered some from Amazon.

Can I make my own?

Some people make their own stress balls. How?  There are many different types. You can use flour, rice, playdough and even orbeez. If you don’t know what orbeez are, they are superabsorbent polymers that grow to 100 times their original size when submerged in water. Your kids may have used them in some of their science classes. However, I have strayed from the topic at hand. Back to how to make your own stress balls.

For stress balls made with rice or flour, follow these directions:

Get a balloon, rice or flour and a funnel.

1. Stretch out your balloon. …
2. Choose your filling: rice or flour.
3. Stick a funnel into the neck of the balloon.
4. Slowly fill the balloon. …
5. Remove the funnel from the balloon and let out as much air as you can. …
6. Tie the neck of the balloon closed tightly.
7. Snip off the excess rubber.

I tried this and it really works, but don’t get cheap balloons… they don’t last. Get the thicker balloons.

If you are making a stress ball with playdough, follow these directions (this is easier with two people):

1. Roll the neck down a bit
2. Use your fingers to stretch and hold the neck open while the someone else drop in chunks of play dough.
3. Fill the uninflated balloon until you have a comfortable handful.
4. Tie the neck into a knot, making sure all the air is squeezed out.

And last, using orbeez follow these directions:

1. Pour a generous amount of Orbeez into a large bowl.
2. Fill the bowl with water and let it sit overnight.
3. Use a funnel to fill the empty plastic bottle with Orbeez.
4. Blow up a balloon to create space for the Orbeez, then twist the opening to keep the air from escaping.
5. Stretch the balloon opening over the top of the plastic bottle.
6. Let the balloon untwist, then turn the bottle upside-down to pour the Orbeez into the balloon.
7. Remove the balloon from the bottle, squeeze out the extra air and tie it off.

Final Thoughts

So there you have it – stress balls! Give them a try and let me know what you think.

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