5 Ways To Reduce Stress In Your Life

Now, we all go through stressful situations, both good and bad every day. But when you implement the plan of action that I am going to set out in this blog post, then you will be able to reduce stress in your life quite considerably.

The first thing you want to do is identify what is making you stressed in the first place. Is there something that you can do differently to avoid the stress? Can you eliminate it? And if you can’t eliminate it, can you manage it?

Now, a good way to find out what is making you stressed is to keep a stress journal. Every time you find yourself in a stressful situation, you want to make a note of it and if these things crop up on a regular basis, then you will notice a pattern and you can think about how you are going to deal with it. Once you have identified a problem, you are half way to finding a solution.

Get Physical

Another way to reduce stress is to get physical. Bear in mind that we are dealing with the fight or fright response mechanism that produces all this extra adrenalin and energy in our bodies and one way to get rid of it is to get physical. So take your dog for a walk if you have one. Walk, cycle or take public transport rather than drive your car. Use the stairs rather than an elevator or escalator at work or at the mall. Park your car at the furthest spot away in the parking lot and walk the rest of the way. All of this is going to burn up this energy that your body is creating for the fight or flight response, rather than internalising it and causing stress.

Then you want to eliminate the unnecessary so that you are not having all sorts of different stimuli coming at you from different directions and you are not having excessive demands being made on your time. So you want to cut down on your commitments. If you find that there simply isn’t enough time in the day to do everything comfortably, you want to decide what is important and pay attention to it, whilst dropping what you consider to be less important. You also want to unsubscribe from email lists. Your aim is to avoid distractions and lots of different email lists can be very distracting.

Another trick is to combine lots of short journeys or errands into one longer task. So, if you need to go to the bank, and to the supermarket and to the post office, do them all in one go instead of separate journeys. The fact that you are getting it all done in one go can eliminate a lot of stress.

Avoid people you find stressful. I know that this may be easier said than done, like if you have a difficult boss that you have to deal with on a day to day basis. But if it is someone else that you have to deal with then you can simply cut them out or communicate via email rather than face to face etc.

Simplify Your Life.

Look for the things that you can do without and do without them. You should also eat healthily. You want to make sure that your body is getting enough nutrients because that can cut down on stress. So, eliminate junk food.  Eating proper, regular meals will ensure that your body gets a balanced diet, which will in turn help your body deal with stress more efficiently.

Cut down on sugar and caffeine because they are both stimulants and when you are trying to reduce stress you do not want stimulants. You want to keep things as calm as possible. And you should also avoid alcohol, cigarettes and drugs.

Finally, Think Positive.  Eliminating negative thoughts helps to reduce stress. Like the old song says, “Always look on the bright side of life”. If you look for the positive in situations then that will reduce your stress levels because you won’t have the constant negativity hammering at you.

This also helps to develop a good sense of humour. Seeing the funny side of situations can help to reduce stress dramatically because it helps to eliminate fear and fear is a big part of the fight or flight response.