Stressed? You’re human, so yes. You’ve got stress. Indeed, you need stress. After all, you don’t want to be bored or apathetic.
How much stress you need differs from person to person – and from one phase of life to another. I find that accepting small ways of reducing stress daily makes life work better.
Higher stress days sometimes can’t be changed.
Daily stress reducing activities balance you out so that you’re able to tolerate the occasional day of off-the-charts stress that’s bound to occur.
In fact, you can accomplish a lot on high-stress days. That works when you’ve got lower-stress days that prepare you beforehand, and others that give you rest afterward. It’s the overall balance of stress in your life that matters.
Reducing stress is a process.
Reducing stress is simply not a one-time event. You don’t reduce stress one day, and suddenly find your life balanced. Unfortunately, a one time, one day adjustment just is not enough to do, to reduce stress patterns in your life.
It takes time and commitment to reduce the stress you’ve built into your life. Accepting that it is a process allows you to open your mind. With an open mind, you can look for small changes that might make a small difference in your stress level. With an open mind, you can add one small reduction in stress that’s done every day, day in and day out. That way, one small adjustment can begin to turn around your levels of stress.
Some activities by their very nature are stress relieving. For example, natural stress relief might include a form of daily exercise that you enjoy. Think about things that you can work into your day on a regular basis. Such as small exercises!
Change is hard for human beings. Because change is so difficult, it’s important to look at reducing stress in a way that’s going to ease you into doing what you need to do to succeed. Making change easy on yourself enables you to put change into practice. Start with small, easy stuff! Because when you choose easy steps, you really do them.
Choose to act. Because no matter how small your action may seem, action matters. For example, I lift weights three times a week for a few minutes daily and I go for at least a short walk on most days. This regular exercise is an action that helps balance my life. That way, when a more stressful day hits, I’ve got reserves in place and a belief that I’ll put more in place tomorrow.
What small ways prepare folks for the inevitable bumps of high stress days? I’ve found that including activities that go in the direction of reducing stress daily prepares me to handle those inevitable higher stress days that pop up without warning. For example, activities such as meditation, prayer, exercise, reading, socializing and laughter make a difference for me.
What might work for you? Invest a few moments to reflect on what you like to do. As you think of things, consider which of these things that you like to do might act in a way that truly begins to reduce stress for you?
Start now! Because you’ll have days when you can’t reduce stress. You never know when “tomorrow” is going to be an off the charts stressful day. So, I encourage you to include stress busting stuff “each today” as a way of having inner reserves in place. Your life will work better if you’ll make the time and effort to prepare yourself for high-stress days by accepting small ways of reducing stress daily.
Cynthia Ann Leighton inspires you to encourage yourself to keep moving forward.
While you're here, do you want to learn more about this topic? If so, here's a tiny blog post to put innovation into your skills toolbox.
By the way, here's a YouTube to give you a boost into keeping it simple.