5 Surprising Micro Habits to Better Manage Stress
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5 Surprising, Daily Micro Habits to Lower Your Stress Levels

5 Surprising, Daily Micro Habits to Lower Your Stress Levels
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Published on August 21, 2026
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Unchecked stress can wreak havoc on your health. Chronic stress can lead to headaches, digestive problems, muscle tension, and trouble sleeping.

Some stress reduction techniques are best used during moments of immense stress. But others work best when you practice them, even on the days when you don’t feel stressed, says Susan Albers, PsyD, a psychologist at Cleveland Clinic.

“It’s important to do these stress reduction techniques before the stress hits,” Dr. Albers says. “It’s almost like learning how to swim before you’re in choppy water.” You’re setting yourself up to better cope with stress when it inevitably happens, she says “If you learn these techniques, they become your automatic go-to when you’re feeling stressed.”

Try the following research-backed stress reduction techniques, which can be done in just a few minutes. Practice them daily and you’ll start to find yourself doing them during moments, or in the aftermath, of intense stress.

1. Focus on Neutral Aspects of Stressful Situations

A practice called focused attention, which involves deliberately directing your attention toward neutral aspects of a stressful situation, has been shown to reduce stress levels, according to a study that followed 39 college students.

The participants looked at a series of images, some of which contained distressing scenes, and rated the emotional experience triggered by those images. They then underwent focused attention training (during which they were taught to focus on non-emotional elements of the images) and looked at (and rated) the images again. For example, when looking at an image of a traffic accident with an injured person, they were taught to focus on the neutral background (the surrounding roadway, buildings, and trees in the image), explains one of the study’s coauthors Sandra Monica Dolcos, PhD, research assistant professor in the department of psychology of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

The second time around, the participants found the images less distressing. “We wanted to see whether the intervention changed participants' emotional responses,” Dr. Dolcos says. “After the training, participants rated negative pictures as less negative.”

Some of the participants also underwent brain scans before and after the training.

 After the focused attention training, the brain scans showed that the participants’ reactions to the images were less negative because they engaged regions of the brain involved in regulating emotional responses, and this reduced the stress the images brought up, Dolcos says. The skill helped the participants become more adaptive in stressful situations.

You can practice focused attention during or ahead of stressful situations by focusing on the non-emotional aspects of the situation. For example, if you’re stressed about an upcoming meeting with your boss, you can focus on the setting of the meeting, how you’ll prepare for the meeting, and what you’ll do after the meeting.

2. Try Humming

“Humming can also help, as it’s been shown to kick off the parasympathetic response,” Albers says. Your parasympathetic nervous system is a network of nerves that helps your body relax after stressful situations.

 Your sympathetic nervous system activates your fight-or-flight response, and the two systems work together to help your body kick into action (this is the sympathetic part working) when you’re in danger and calm down after the threat has passed (this is the parasympathetic part working).
When you hum, your vocal cords stimulate your vagus nerve, a key component of the parasympathetic nervous system.

 And accordingly, research shows that humming reduces physiological markers of stress when you practice it.

It helps if you do it regularly over time, too. A small study found that a daily humming routine can increase your heart rate variability (the degree of fluctuations in the amount of time between your heartbeats).

Higher heart rate variability tends to be a sign of a more active parasympathetic nervous system that is able to slow a stress response.

So, when you hum for a few minutes, it helps lower the body’s stress response in the moment. By implementing a daily humming practice (even for just a few minutes), you can increase the threshold at which you experience stress, Albers says. This means it’ll take more for you to start to feel stressed out.

Try humming for a few minutes in the shower, on your lunch break, or in the car on your way home from work.

3. Cue Your Favorite Song

Listening to music you enjoy can also reduce your stress level, says Helen Lavretsky, MD, professor in-residence in the department of psychiatry at UCLA in Los Angeles.

Research shows that music reduces stress by lowering the stress hormone cortisol and lowering your blood pressure.

 It can also lead to higher heart rate variability. While research suggests that music in general can reduce physiological stress markers, classical music and self-selected music (a song you like) have been found to be especially helpful.

You can listen to your favorite song immediately after a stressful event (such as a difficult exam) to reduce stress. Alternatively, taking a few moments to listen to your favorite song each morning or evening (to help wind down) could help reduce your overall stress level, Dr. Lavretsky says.

4. Practice Cyclic Sighing for 5 Minutes a Day

“Breathing practices are practical and easy,” Lavretsky says. Implementing a specific breathing practice called cyclic sighing into your routine — for just five minutes a day — can help reduce your stress level over time. One study of 108 volunteers found that practicing cyclic sighing for five minutes a day for just one month could lead to increased joy, energy, and peacefulness.

To practice cyclic sighing, you breathe in through your nose until your lungs are expanded, and then take another small breath to fill your lungs as much as possible.Then slowly exhale through your mouth (or your nose, if you prefer).

In the study, the participants who practiced cyclic sighing saw improvements in mood as well as reduced respiratory rate after the month of practicing it. Your respiratory rate is the number of breaths you take each minute; a high respiratory rate could signal distress. In the study, cyclic sighing was found to be more helpful than other stress reduction techniques, such as mindfulness meditation.

5. Do a 5-Step Grounding Practice

Albers also recommends the 5-4-3-2-1 grounding technique, which is known to reduce symptoms of both stress and anxiety.

 Though it takes only a moment, this technique can help your nervous system get better at transitioning into a calmer state.

To practice this technique you name five things you can see, four things you can feel, three things you can hear, two things you can smell, and one thing you can taste. Carving out a few minutes of your day to practice this (or other) grounding techniques daily can reduce your stress level over time, Albers says.

By bringing attention to your senses, you interrupt anxious thoughts, which is why the 5-4-3-2-1 exercise is effective at reducing stress. It works best when you practice it regularly.

EDITORIAL SOURCES
Everyday Health follows strict sourcing guidelines to ensure the accuracy of its content, outlined in our editorial policy. We use only trustworthy sources, including peer-reviewed studies, board-certified medical experts, patients with lived experience, and information from top institutions.
Resources
  1. Chronic Stress Puts Your Health at Risk. Mayo Clinic. July 21, 2026.
  2. Hohl K et al. Enhancing Resilience, Flexibility, and Well-Being Through Cognitive-Emotional Training: Behavioral and Neural Evidence. Scientific Reports. August 18, 2026.
  3. Parasympathetic Nervous System (PSNS). Cleveland Clinic. June 6, 2022.
  4. DeFrancesco M et al. The Vagus Nerve and Voice. The National Center for Voice and Speech. May 30, 2025.
  5. Trivedi G et al. Humming (Simple Bhramari Pranayama) as a Stress Buster: A Holter-Based Study to Analyze Heart Rate Variability (HRV) Parameters During Bhramari, Physical Activity, Emotional Stress, and Sleep. Cureus. April 13, 2023.
  6. Saskovets M et al. Effects of Sound Interventions on the Mental Stress Response in Adults: Scoping Review. JMIR Mental Health. March 24, 2025.
  7. Labbé E et al. Coping With Stress: The Effectiveness of Different Types of Music. Applied Psychophysiology and Biofeedback. December 2007.
  8. Balban M Y et al. Brief Structured Respiration Practices Enhance Mood and Reduce Physiological Arousal. Cell Reports Medicine. January 17, 2023.
  9. Grounding Exercises. NHS Inform. December 9, 2025.
  10. A Step-by-Step Look at the 5-4-3-2-1 Grounding Technique. Cleveland Clinic. August 19, 2026.
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Seth Gillihan, PhD

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Seth Gillihan, PhD, is a licensed psychologist in private practice in Ardmore, Pennsylvania, who helps people find personal growth by making important changes in their thoughts and...
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Maggie O’Neill

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Maggie is a writer and editor based in New York. She has worked at Health and SELF, and her work has also appeared in Outside, Vice, CNN, Observer, BBC, The Independent, Verywell H...

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