How to Manage Stress in Everyday Life
Raise your hand if you are stressed because…well, life is stressful.
We live a very fast-paced life. Cell phone in hand, clients can reach us 24/7. Working long hours, kids spending more time in structured activities, and the list can keep going on. Life can sometimes feel downright stressful.
You have things that you control and things that you cannot. Learning to recognize the difference will help minimize your stress.
The habits below are the core to managing everyday stress. They are a combination of mental, physical and emotional wellbeing. When you find yourself being taken hostage by stress, these five core principles are a good place to start when trying to rebalance. Five core habits to manage daily stress
1. Eat Healthy & Workout
Eat Healthy you are fueling your body, which will allow you to have more energy. Don’t want to diet? No worries! Focus on eating whole foods like fruits, vegetables, and good quality meat and dairy. Limit sugar, soda, and processed snacks. Working Out helps energize you, elevates stress, and makes you feel better about your body. Your goal should be to get up and move your body for 30 minutes a day; I don’t care how. Go for a walk, dance in your underwear, move.
2. Get 7-9 Hours Of Sleep
Sleep is a vital part of Your well-being and happiness. When you are well-rested, you can think clearer, handle your emotions better and problem-solve faster. Not to mention, your bodies do magical things when you are asleep. Give it a try and see how you feel when you get good quality sleep regularly.
3. Take Mini-Breaks
Meditating, or doing other relaxing activities such as coloring, going for a walk, spending time with a pet, or reading. In our busy schedule, taking a few moments every hour to disconnect is vital to avoiding burnout.
4. Align Your Days & Tasks With Your Priorities & Goals Does your task list align with your priorities and goals? Do you spend too much time in front of the TV instead of playing with your kids? Are you working long hours and not taking care of your mental and physical wellbeing? Do you say yes to activities and then feel resentful? Make sure you are crystal clear on your priorities and goals so that you can start to work towards them every day.
5. Surround Yourself With Positive People
Finding people who have the same values and goals as you will help keep you motivated and focused. Let go of people who make you feel bad about yourself.
What happens if you are still doing those things, but you still find moments when you are stressed out?
In this post, my goal is to give you the tools to manage your daily stress healthily and productively. Not allowing stress to overwhelm you, but to become a cue for when you need to realign your schedule, let off the gas, or ask for help.
Other ways to relieve daily stress
6. Acceptance There will be moments, days, and even weeks when you will feel stressed out. Accepting that there will be times when you are stressed out is the first step in learning how to not only live with stress but come not to let it consume you.
7. Take Emotional Cold Days Off Take a night, a day, or a weekend where you treat yourself with extra care. Think of it as an emotional cold. If you had an actual cold, you would hunker down on the couch with chicken noodle soup while binge-watching Netflix. Why should your emotional well-being be any different?
8. Creat Joyful Moments Especially when your schedule is packed, make sure you create space in your schedule for something that brings you greater pleasure. It those joys moments that make life worth living for. The questions you need to ask yourself
What brings you joy?
How often do you need to refill your joy cup?
9. Run Your Life Like A COO A COO job to make sure a company's day-to-day operations are running smoothly. If a problem comes up, they find solutions to make sure everyone is working effectively and efficiently. If you are overwhelmed with how busy you are analyze where is the stress coming from? Can you make changes to your routine or ask for help to help minimize the stress? 10. Dance it Out
Sometimes you need to have some fun and let loose, whatever that looks like for you. Have a kitchen dance party, play just dave (even if it's following along on youtube) or get dressed up for a night out with your friends. 11. Get Silly Laughter is the best medicine. Watch a funny movie or go to a comedy club.
12. Get creative
Let your creative juices flow, go wild with random art supplies to see what you create, take a class, or paint by numbers kit.
13. Play
Play a board game, video game, or play make-believe for a little bit with your child.
14. Create Routines
Routines are vital. From running a company to managing a household, they create consistent patterns that everyone is aware of. When you have a consistent routine, you will save time and energy because you are not having to think about what comes next, you will find the fastest method to move you through your routine and use that over and over.
The best way to manage daily stressors is about working smarter and taking a break. The goal is to step away from the anxiety and stress and find a distraction to allow your body to enjoy life, calm down and find some peace.
If you are dealing with more than traffic jams and carpool stress, ask for help. Talking with a therapist is a good place to start. Our bodies are not meant to live in high-stress situations all the time.
If life is too busy and you can’t even find time, then look at your tasks; what can wait, what can be delegated and what can be deleted? Life is not a sprint, and if you don’t take breaks, you will burn out.