Are you tense? Fatigued? Feel as if your brain is foggy? These can all be signs of too much stress! If daily life is wearing you down, try a few of these tips and start to feel better today.
1. Make a list of your current top five stressors. Perhaps it's your son's recent fender bender, your aging cat's health problems, a leaky roof, an important work or school deadline, an overdue bill, or the surprising number on your bathroom scale. List the top five things that cause you stress when you think about them. Simply identifying your stressors helps to increase your sense of control over these situations.
2. Identify and write down one small step you can take to reducing the impact that each issue is having on your life. For example, call your insurance about your son's minor car accident, schedule time to take your cat to the vet, call one roofing company for a quote, schedule just 10 minutes to work towards your deadline, or call your neighbor and plan to take her up on walking around the neighborhood every Saturday morning for exercise and friendship.
3. Take one action right now. Yes, right now! Make a call, schedule an appointment, write in your planner or set an email or phone reminder to spend just 10 minutes working towards addressing one of your stressors. A phone call or email can take just a minute or two, if you let go of perfectionism and set a time limit for yourself. Here's an example of a one minute phone call: "Hello Maria? Hi! Hey, I just have a minute, but I was calling to see if you still walk on Saturday mornings and if you would like some company. Oh that's great! I'd love to meet you at 9 o'clock. I gotta run now, but I look forward to seeing you on Saturday. Ok, bye!" That wasn't so hard, was it?
4. Use a timer. Having too much to do at home increases your feelings of being stressed. Here is an idea to make your daily life less stressful: Set a timer for a short duration (like 20 minutes) and perform urgent but mundane chores such as loading the dishwasher, taking out the trash, and cleaning the toilets. Try to beat the timer. Stop when the timer goes off. The results? A less dirty house, a less stressful you. Do this every day or so and the cumulative results will surprise you (and leave you less stressed)!
5. Reduce your expectations for things that are less important. Such as...? The dust on the tv screen. A perfectly mopped kitchen floor. Homemade ranch dressing (sheesh honey, buy it pre-made in the bottle already). You don't have to be Suzy Homemaker. You need to have healthy, safe, and clean conditions where they matter (dishes, food prep and food freshness, no rotting trash inside the house). But consider lowering your standards in areas that are stressing you out but that do not impact health and well-being. Maybe you don't have to crochet an afghan for your neighbor's baby shower; a pre-made blanket will suffice and save you lots of time and stress. Maybe you don't have to chop fresh vegetables every week for your kids' snacks. Maybe buying a pre-made veggie tray at the grocery store every week will not only save you time but worry that you are not feeding your family healthy food.
6. Brain dump daily. The term "brain dump" has always sounded silly to me, so I never wanted to do it. Within this past year, however, stress levels in my life reached a critical level, so I determined to do everything in my power to regain my sense of effectiveness and reduce my stress. I decided to try the silly brain dump thing. I sat down with a pen and paper and got everything that was nagging at the back of my mind written down in one fell swoop (or brain dump). Big things, tiny things, insignificant things. I wrote them all on paper. Then, I went down the list and on another piece of paper I re-wrote each item, placing it into a specific category. For example, a few of my categories were Work, Family/Friends, Self Care, Home, Finances, Food/Meals. The next morning, I started on my list, picking out tasks I decided were priorities from each category. As I completed a task, I crossed it off. At the end of that night, I re-wrote my categories, leaving out the things I crossed off as done, and added any new tasks that had come up that day. I repeated this process daily. Guess what? Within one week my productivity skyrocketed and my daily experience of stress dropped. I continue using this brain dump productivity method to this day. I get more done now than I ever have, yet I'm not stressed like I used to be just a few months ago! And here's the kicker: tomorrow is Saturday, traditionally the day of endless household chores and mundane but necessary errands for every adult in this country. But you know what my brain dump list for tomorrow looks like? Do you know how many items it has on it? Two. Seriously. Just two. Try this brain dump nonsense. TRY IT. You won't regret it one bit.
You can do this too. You can reduce your stress and become more effective at being the best YOU you can be! Pick something from this list and try it today!
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