Let’s face it, we all greet the day with the intention of making it a great one, but the reality is that sometimes things don’t go as we may have planned.
We may get ambushed with a bunch of responsibilities that we were not anticipating, we may find that we aren’t able to engage in activities that we may have been looking forward to, or my personal favorite, that nothing listed on the agenda gets completed for the day.
To be honest when things do not go as planned, I freak out majorly! And by freak out majorly I mean I immediately start having a panic attack and my anxiety and stress levels shoot through the roof.
As you can imagine at this point, I’m a nervous wreck. The younger me would have sworn it was the end of the world, and all my days were quickly coming to an end. The older me knows much better and has learned how to simply roll with the punches.
Since turning into a mad woman when things become out of my control has not resulted in the best results for my health and happiness, I’ve learned how to effectively lower my stress levels when things don’t go as planned. This is such an important skill to have because there really are so many negative health effects that result from stressing.
I’m talking negative health effects such as headaches that seem to never go away, high blood pressure, heart problems, unfavorable skin reactions from the output of negative energy (such as a rash or breaking out in pimples everywhere), stress can further worsen your anxiety, and can even lead to depression.
These are all things that we want to avoid for our health.
When you apply skills and methods that can effectively help you lower your stress levels, you are lowering your chances of experiencing any, plus more, of these negative health effects. And since health is wealth, and I care about your health and want to help you improve it in any way that you possibly can, I’m going to share with you my top ways to reduce stress in your everyday life.
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Drink less caffeine
I’m not a big caffeine drinker anymore but I use to not be able to go a day without drinking a Sprite or some type of juice. However, I can proudly say that this was a habit that I broke many years ago.
I bring this up because when I am experiencing high levels of stress my first instinct is to drink a soda or go to town on my favorite bottle of juice (and no it was not organic juice). This is the last thing you want to do when you’re feeling stressed out.
I know we all tend to believe that caffeine helps to provide us with energy, but the reality is that it actually does the opposite. There is a placebo effect, which just means a false belief, that when we need a boost of energy drinking a soda, an energy drink, coffee, or anything that has sugar in it will give us the boost we need. And we’re all set for the next couple of hours, if not the rest of the day. Right?
False.
Caffeine may give us a short lived but very quick boost of energy, but once that moment fades away, we will come crashing down hard! This is because caffeine actually promotes fatigue and when consuming large amounts of it can even lead to extreme irritability.
So instead of getting that long-term boost of energy you may have been after, you get something that sort of perks you up for the moment, but deals vicious consequences to you in the long run. The worst part is that caffeine is very addicting. So, drinking it when you are feeling stressed out is only going to train your brain to crave caffeinated drinks when you’re stressed.
And if you’re someone who chronically stresses like me, this is going to be a craving that you have all the time. Giving in to that craving will only push you further away from achieving all your health-related goals, and create a habit that will be very hard for you to break in the long run.
If possible, avoid caffeinated drinks or at the very least significantly reduce how often, and how much of it you drink.
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Increase your physical activity
The best thing you can do to reduce your stress levels is to engage in a physical activity of some sort. For me personally this is making sure that I exercise every day for an average of 15-30 minutes.
Now I understand that this may not be your thing, or it may not be something that you find does help you with lowering your stress levels, and that’s ok. There are literally a ton of things that you can do for a physical activity.
You can:
- go on a walk
- go hiking
- participate in a water aerobics class
- do some yoga
- walk mindlessly around Target (just don’t buy anything!)
- go to a soul cycle class
- go on a bike ride with the kids
- or even clean your house
Literally the choices are endless! The overall goal here is to just get your body moving and your mind focused on something more tangible that is in your control. Stress can cause you to disengage with the world, yourself, your emotions, and even avoid engaging in other activities.
I personally think the best medicine for reducing stress is to just move!
Plus, working out or just increasing your daily physical activity level has so many positive psychological and health benefits. Not only are you working on improving your overall health, but you’re also training yourself to respond to stress in a healthier way. If you ask me that sounds like a win-win situation!
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Prioritize your sleep
Sleep is so important and it’s something that I wish I didn’t take for granted when I was younger. I was the type of teenager who wanted to stay up all night and sleep all day, especially on the weekends.
Even in my early 20s I thought that if I have a super busy day ahead of me, it’d best for me to get as little sleep as I could so that I could power through the day, get done with my priorities early, and play catch up on sleep.
Bad idea.
It literally wasn’t until about 2 years ago when I started to understand the importance of sleep, and make my sleep a priority for me. Sleep helps us keep our mental and physical health in good standing, improves our quality of life, promotes healthy brain functioning, and much more.
While it’s important to get anywhere from 6-8 hours of sleep, what’s more important is the quality of sleep that you get each night. Believe it or not, there have been days when I’ve only gotten a good 4 hours of sleep, but have felt well rested and was able to get through the day as if I got more than 4 hours.
The key is to have a bedtime routine.
This routine needs to help you feel relaxed you so that you can literally get the best sleep of your life every night. This means you should strive to eliminate activity on all electronics after a certain time, stop eating after a certain time, definitely do not drink any caffeinated drinks at night, and eliminate any other bad habits that may be preventing you from getting a good rest at night.
This seems like such a small, simple, and silly thing to do but it really does work wonders. A big factor of stress is feeling irritable and fatigue. So naturally a good way to fight against those stressors is to get more quality hours of sleep so that you can reduce your levels of irritability and stress, and feel a whole lot less fatigued during the day.
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Engage in self-care
This is probably the second-best thing that you could do to reduce your stress levels. Self-care is something that we all tend to neglect to engage in on a daily basis. I too have been guilty of this before but have been working very hard to change this in my life. Self-care is something that needs to be a priority in your everyday life.
Engaging in self-care has many positive health benefits. Consistent engagement in self-care not only helps you to create a healthier relationship with yourself, but it encourages you to experience more positive emotions, increases in your confidence and self-esteem, and can inspire you to keep yourself physical, mentally, and emotionally healthy.
Perhaps my biggest reason for making self-care a daily priority is because it ensures that my needs are being met.
Often times stress can be triggered through unmet needs. Even though there are literally a ton of things that can cause us to feel stressed, and increase our stress levels, sometimes the underlying issue that caused us to become stressed out so easily to begin with may have been because we had needs that were not being met.
This is why self-care is so important. Whether we are aware of those unmet needs or not, it gives us the opportunity to make our health, needs, and happiness a priority. Even if it’s just for 10 minutes a day.
The key to engaging in self-care consistently is to make a habit of out it. There are tons of ways you can practice self-care, and you can engage in it at any time of day. Some of my favorite ways to engage in self-care are:
- exercising
- meditating
- doing yoga
- reading a book
- stretching
- and even journaling
These are things that work best for me.
Self-care is a bit of an experimentation. If you don’t know the type of activities that will help you relax, fulfill your unmet needs, and care for yourself, try various things until you find the right activities for you. Then it’s just a matter of making a habit out of engaging in self-care.
If you aren’t already engaging in self-care daily, change this now! You’ll experience less stress and in moments when you do become stressed, you’ll have tools in your toolkit to help you relieve yourself of it almost immediately.
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Remove stressful triggers
Finally, get rid of stressful triggers. There are so many things that cause me to feel stressed, but by far the most common thing is cluttering my mind and plate with too many responsibilities to do in one day.
I fight against this by prioritizing anywhere from 3-5 activities that need to be completed for the day, and not putting pressure on myself to do much of anything else. Since doing this I have found that I experience less stress on a daily basis, and in those moments when I am stressed, I’m stressed for a short period of time.
I truly do believe that this is because I have intentionally removed stressful triggers in my daily schedule. In fact, I find this method to be so effective that I’ve begin to implement it in other areas of my life, such as in my business, in my monthly goals, in my family, and even in my health-related goals.
This is a change you can start implementing in your life now.
Change up your daily routine for the better, learn how to say “no” and not feel guilty about it, prioritize self-care, and take a hard look at everything that makes your life what it is. What’s working? What isn’t working? Where are areas you can make changes for the better?
Take a look and ask yourself these questions. Then take action to create less space for stress and more space for motivation, inspiration, happiness, and fulfillment. This simple yet effective method is a huge game changer!
All in all
Stress is one of those things that we can’t avoid no matter how hard we try. It’s just a natural part of life and it’s something that everyone experiences. Some more often than others, but none the less it’s an unavoidable experience and feeling.
However, that doesn’t mean there aren’t things that we can do to reduce the amount of stress we may experience in a day, week, or even a month. While these methods are a good place to start the reality is that we all handle and experience stress in different ways.
This is why it’s important to understand the relationship you have with stress, and the way it impacts your life. Once you have done that, then it’s time to create practices, strategies, and tools to help you reduce it. It’s not a one tick pony, or even a one size fits all.
It takes time and some experimentation, but once you’ve found the tools that are most effective for you, the only way left to go is up. You’ll be on your way to less stress and more happiness in no time!
What are some things you do to help reduce stress in your life?
-Xo
Kimora