The inability to really control background processes on stock Android is one of the main reasons I will not be buying any more devices like that. It's my device. The applications all run in sandbox. But I can't reliably stop them from running without uninstalling them? No thanks.
You can stop or disable the applications.
Sadly, worth a mention: Regular reboots can also improve the behavior of the buggy OS & buggy apps.
The five minutes thing raised my eyebrow. I guess that's an indicator of how low you'll live without it.