On a scale of 1 to 10, how stressed do you feel right now?
Is the scale sliding closer to the 7, 8, 9, maybe even 10? Does it tend to stay there more often than not?
How do you deal with stress? Do you have a go-to method, or do you just try to make it through the day, but then go to bed stressed and wake up stress?
Chronic, never-ending stress can actually cause some major health risks to you. Things like headaches/migraines, hair loss, slower digestion, weight gain, lower sexual drive, and even heart disease.
So it’s extremely important to find ways to combat stress. Use these ten simple tips on how to deal with stress to get yourself back in alignment with what’s important.
How to deal with stress
These 10 tips are in no particular order, but are all amazing ways to help you deal with the stress in your life or stressful situations.
1. Close your eyes and take a few deep breaths
Sometimes we get stuck in our own heads and thoughts spiral out of control. By closing your eyes and taking a few deep breaths it can help calm you down almost instantly. This will help to quickly relieve that immediate stress.
2. Take a break
There is more and more research coming out now showing that taking a break every 50 minutes can actually help increase your productivity.
If you never take a break, the stress continues to pile up and you begin to feel underwater. Taking a break allows you to deal with your stress by taking your mind off daunting tasks. You can come back refreshed and with a clearer mind to tackle those big tasks.
3. List your top 3 priorities
This is maybe one of my favorite tips. Whenever I feel stressed, and like my to-do list is never ending, I always write out my top three priorities.
Take your to-do list and write down the top three things that need to get done that day. Once you’ve completed all three of those tasks, you can move on to other items on your list.
This can help you actually accomplish items off your list rather than mindlessly crossing off things that aren’t actually moving you forward.
4. Do a write and release
Okay, another one of my favorite stress relief tips. A write and release is actually a really simple exercise, and can be done in 5-10 minutes.
Sit down in a quiet space with a notebook or even just a sticky note, and write down all the things that are stressing you out.
Once it’s all written out, burn or rip up the paper. Tell God or the Universe {whatever higher power you might believe in} to take all these feelings of stress from you.
It’s amazing how much less stress you’ll feel once you go through this practice.
5. Change your response
Stress is a reaction to a trigger. The trigger is that growing to-do list, the boss that keeps piling it on, or your family life that doesn’t seem to slow down.
These are all triggers that are causing your stress, or the response to the trigger. Changing the way you react to that trigger can help reduce your stress tremendously. Practice any of these tips as way to change your response.
6. Exercise
To continue to live a healthy lifestyle, it’s recommended to exercise at least 30 minutes a day, five days a week. Exercising raises your happy endorphins and can help you clear your head.
Use exercise as a way to take a break and take a little bit of time for yourself. Even if it’s just a 10 minute walk around the block. This time away from a stressful situation can ground you in what’s really important.
7. Smile
This may sound like a strange one, but smiling during stressful situations can actually help you start to feel better and lower your heart rate.
Your heart rate rises when you’re stressed, so by smiling, or thinking of happier thoughts, your heart rate can come down more quickly, releasing the stress in your body.
8. Ask for help
It’s okay to ask for help. It’s not admitting defeat or you can’t handle it. In fact, it shows strength to ask for help. It shows others that they’re needed, and that contrary to popular belief, you are not super-human.
None of us can be expected to work 24/7 and never experience burnout. That’s why we have friends, family, co-workers and assistants. They’re all there to help us accomplish other tasks so that we can focus on what matters most to us and that we’re actually good at.
9. Repeat positive affirmations
Say this out loud the next time you’re feeling stressed: “I feel clam. My body is loose. I am clear-headed.”
Repeating these affirmations over and over will turn them into beliefs, and what your mind and body will continue to believe. Soon you’ll find yourself feeling clam, loose and clear-headed.
10. Practice gratitude
When you start thinking about all the things you have to be grateful for: your health, the bed you sleep in each night, the food in your fridge, it’s hard to continue to feel stressed by the trivial things.
Practicing gratitude helps you deal with stress in a new way. A way to remind yourself that the small things you may be stressing about don’t measure up to all the amazing things you have in your life to be thankful for.
Dealing with stress
I hope these ten simple tips will help you begin to deal with the big or little stresses you have in life.
Just remember in the end you’ve totally got this, and there’s always someone there for you during tough times!
