Are you feeling stressed? I’d be surprised if you weren’t. Between the growing demands of our jobs, raising a family while working full-time, and the increasing need to stay connected all day every day, most of us feel stressed out more often than we like to admit. Add to it a chronic lack of sleep and exercise and you have a recipe for disaster. Stress kills and that’s no joke. Let’s look at some of the worst negative side effects of stress and what you can do to stress less and relax more.
Stress will cause your blood pressure to rise. You’ve experienced this when you found yourself hot and with a raging headache when you were in a particularly stressful situation. Feeling that way from time to time is no big deal. The real danger is in the lower-level stress we all feel on a daily basis. It can lead to hypertension and a higher risk of suffering from a heart attack or stroke.
Are you ready to actively do something to reduce stress on a daily basis? If not, I would like to encourage you to pick up and develop a daily habit that helps you accomplish just that. Stress not only reduces your quality of life; it can also negatively affect your health. There’s a reason why they say stress kills. Start doing something about it and embrace life to the fullest with some of these simple techniques that help you stress less.
Review and
Release - Stop Trying to Do All the Things
One of the main reasons why we are so much more stressed than
let’s say our grandparents were, is because we are taking on a lot more. We
have families where each partner is working a full-time job and possibly a side
hustle as well to make ends meet financially. That leaves all the hard work of
keeping house and raising a family, which needs to be done during “off” hours.
Most of us no longer mentally clock out at the end of the workday. Instead, we
take our work home and are reachable at all hours via text message or email.
Add to that the stress constant connectivity and social media create and it’s
no wonder we’re more stressed than ever.
It’s time to stop trying to do
all the things all the time and focus on reducing stress in your life. Start by
reviewing everything you do on a given day. A great tool for this is a time
log. Keep a simple piece of paper or a small notebook with you at all times.
Set an alert on your phone to go off every 30 minutes (during waking hours),
and quickly jot down what you’re doing. Be brutally honest. No one else needs
to see this log and you can burn it after you’re done. After a week of logging,
you get a pretty good idea of where you spend your time and mental energy.
Now comes the fun part. Look through your data and decide what you
can let go of. What can you stop doing? Open up some time for yourself to
exercise, meditate, or take a nap so you can catch up on much-needed sleep.
Next, it’s time to review and release all those worries, questions, and “should-dos” that are stressing you out. Get out another sheet of paper or two and start to write down anything and everything on your mind. All the stuff you’ve been thinking about doing. All the stuff that’s been worrying you. Get it all out. Walk away for a few hours and then come back to your list.
Cross out
as much as you can. Things that are out of your control and you decide to
mentally release. Tasks that you feel like you should do, that you really don’t
need to do. Then rewrite what’s left on two different lists. One will be things
you can do, or have someone else do for you. This will become your master to-do
list for the next few months. The other is a list of worries or concerns.
Notice how much smaller and shorter those lists are and how much lighter you
feel just getting it all out of your head.
Start Meditating
One of the best tools for reducing stress is meditation. You can
start with a simple breathing meditation by getting comfortable in a quiet spot
and focusing on relaxing and thinking about nothing but your breath. From
there, give some of the free guided meditations a try. There are even some
wonderful apps out there that turn your smartphone into your favorite new
meditation device. Set aside a few minutes each day to meditate and watch the
stress melt away.
Keep a Journal
This one may surprise you. A journal is an effective tool to help
you worry and stress less. The simple act of writing about what’s on your mind
can be incredibly freeing. A journal is also a great tool to help you look back
and figure out what’s triggering or causing periods of high stress. This is valuable
information to have since you can’t work towards reducing or eliminating a
trigger if you don’t know what it is.
Go for A Walk
Another simple, but very powerful technique is to go for a walk.
Get outside if possible, but if that’s not a good option, hop on a treadmill or
pace around your house. It doesn’t take a lot of walking before you start to
see the benefits. If you only have ten minutes, walk. If you have an hour lunch
break, walk for 20 minutes and spend the rest of the time relaxing and eating.
Make it work and get in the habit of walking regularly.
Sleep
Do you know what one of the most effective ways to de-stress is? It’s sleeping. Yes, exercise is great and meditation is a wonderful tool, but the best thing you can do to stress less on a regular basis is to get a goodnight's sleep.
You already know this is true. Think about how much harder your
job and your life, in general, feel after a night when you were up with the kids,
or working until four in the morning to finish an important project. You get
grumpy, it’s harder to focus, and every little problem suddenly becomes
insurmountable. You feel a lot more stressed throughout the day and it only
gets worse if you end up sleeping poorly for several days in a row.
Thankfully there are a lot of things you can do to improve both
the quantity and quality of sleep you get. Before you tell yourself that you
can’t afford to sleep more, realize that not focusing on sleep will cause you
to be less focused and productive. You’ll actually get more done by investing
time into a good-night sleep.
Start by establishing a bedtime routine. Try to go to bed at the same time every night, even on the weekends. It helps your body get into a rhythm that makes falling asleep and staying asleep easier. Cut distractions from your bedroom. That means leaving your phone in the living room if possible or silent.
Turn off the lights and have a good look around your bedroom. Are there
any small indicator lights or blinking lights? Try to remove them if possible.
Listen for any sounds from electronics and the likes. Make your bedroom a calm,
quiet, and dark place of rest.
Last but not least, watch your screen time at night. Our eyes and
the way they process light, including the light waves from our screens have a
big impact on how alert the body is. One of the worst habits we’ve all
developed is to look at our phones while trying to go to sleep. Instead, focus on calming
activities like reading, talking with your partner, or meditating for an hour
before going to sleep. Reduce screen time for a few hours before bed or at the
least invest in blue light filtered glasses or install an app that changes your
display at night.
Read 3 apps that can help you sleep better at night.
Hug
That’s right. Something as simple as a hug can help you relax and
fight stress. Make sure the hug is genuine on both sides and for best results,
hold the embrace for at least twenty seconds. You’ll start to feel calm and those endorphins will flood your system. Don’t have anyone around to
hug at the moment? Laughing out loud is pretty powerful too. Turn on a fun
comedy that leaves you in stitches.
Clean Up Your Diet
Last but not least, take a look at what you’re putting into your
mouth. A clean diet of mostly whole foods that’s low in sugars and
preservatives will nourish your body and fight much of the damage stress
causes. It will also help you feel calmer and more in control. Start making
some small changes and see if you don’t start to feel better.
