How to Manage Stress

How can you avoid stress?

I don't think it is possible to avoid stress. Stress is a fact of life for most of us. So the next thing we can hope for is to lower the levels of stress we are under.

Here are a few ideas on how we could do that:

Time Management: Try making a schedule. Experience has shown that we can usually get more done when we have a schedule. Put things that are important on your schedule and do those things first. Work the rest of your day around what you have scheduled.

Having a schedule has made a big difference for me. Without one I find myself doing a bunch of little things and then at the end of the day, nothing important has been finished. Having a schedule helps me prioritize.

Coping Skills: Examine how you are dealing with stress. Keep a log so you can determine what skills are working and which skills don't work. Remember, what works for one person may not always work for someone esle.

Self Care: Get plenty of rest. Eat well. Don't smoke. Limit how much alcohol you drink. How we take care of our bodies determines how well our bodies will be able to handle stress.

Self Talk: Often we can talk ourselves into negativity. If we find we are starting to think thoughts that can build on our stress, stop immediately and reverse our thinking. We can find positive in just about any situation, so look for the positive and point our thoughts in that direction.

Modesty: I was once told that modesty means knowing ones limitations. Such modesty can help cut down on our stress. We will not stress over things we cannot change. Also, we will learn to say no when things are beyond what we are capable of doing.

7 Tips for Stress-Free Living

We feel stressed when we are pulled in two or more directions. Those pulls create tension, which is stress. It is very much like a guitar string being stretched too tight - the musical note of a string in proper adjustment turns to a high-pitched twang, and finally the string breaks as the stress becomes unbearable.

There are two ways to address the issue of stress in our lives - learning to relax even while life pulls us in multiple directions, and reducing the number and strength of the demands upon our time, energy, and resources. A combination of these approaches is most powerful as some demands are relatively easy to eliminate or manage, while other demands are better dealt with by accommodation.

Here are seven tips for stress-free living...

1. Be clear about your life-purpose. Once you can describe the purpose of your life, you can set life-goals, and once you have major goals in place, you can easily decide which of the calls upon your time, energy, and resources best support your major goals, and which demands are distractions.

2. Be objective in choosing which tasks to undertake. If one of your major life-goals is stress-free living - and I hope it is - the tasks you choose to accept, and those you choose to decline, should reflect that goal. For example, paying your taxes on time is essential to stress-free living. Taxes may not directly address your spiritual purpose, or your intellectual purpose, or your emotional purpose, but not handling your taxes in a timely manner will compromise your ability to achieve any of your life's purposes, as well as creating a stressful life. On the other hand, having lunch with Judy every Thursday may support your life purpose and may not. Learn that it is okay to say NO to those demands that don't support your life purpose.

3. Cultivate the ability to say NO gracefully. Even after you have decided that a particular demand is not aligned with your major goals, there is still likely to be stress associated with declining the demand. You may feel compassion toward the person making the demand. Your upbringing may cause you to feel guilty about choosing not to do what others ask of you. And, the actual act of saying NO may cause embarrassment or fear.

First, be firm with yourself that you do not need to cater to demands that don't align with your life-purpose. Then, set about practicing the art of saying NO gracefully. Don't fall back upon untruths or excuses. Don't even say, "I'd really like to, but..." if that is not a genuine expression of your feelings. Failing to be honorable with your word will make you feel guilty - plus you are likely to get caught at it. Tell the truth - with compassion. Do acknowledge the other person's point-of-view as fully and kindly as you can. Then state your choice not to participate. Try to avoid giving reasons for your decision that the other person could argue with.

4. Don't procrastinate. Do it now, or choose never to do it. Once you become aware of a demand, make the decision of whether that demand aligns with your purpose. If it does, begin the task as soon as practical. Otherwise, decline the request right away. Certainly there are many demands that can't be handled today, but do immediately classify each demand as "do" or "don't do." There is no benefit and much stress associated with keeping a mental (or written) list of "things to do when I have the time." If you have such a list now, rip it up and burn it.

5. Learn to re-negotiate commitments. The report is due tomorrow, the project requires an unexpected amount of research, and your child just broke an arm - big-time stress. For some of us, deadlines are generally useful for keeping focus, but deadlines are also one of the bigger unnecessary causes of stress. There is no shame in occasionally renegotiating a commitment. Your boss or your customer shouldn't want a report that you threw together just to meet a deadline. When renegotiating a deadline, as when saying NO, handle the situation as gracefully as possible - don't feel guilty, do acknowledge the other's position, and be completely truthful and kind.

6. Acknowledge your own humanity. You can't do everything - no one can - and that's okay. Allocate time for sleep and for play, then divide your time among your important projects - those that further your life purpose. If you still have more tasks than time, congratulate yourself on having a large life-purpose, and then narrow your focus. Being overburdened doesn't help you get more done - actually the reverse, plus it destroys your life with stress. So cut back until the tasks match the time. Easy to say and hard to do, but you must reduce your commitments to match your time and resources if you want to live a stress-free and healthy life.

7. Even after you implement the first six tips, you are still going to feel stressed occasionally. When you do, use the tools for managing stress such as conscious breathing, walking, spending time in nature, yoga, and qigong. Make time for these activities daily. Pause every hour for a minute of stretching and conscious breathing. Take time daily for a walk - preferably somewhere green and quiet, yoga, or qigong. Of course you don't have the time for exercises to manage stress, that's why you really need to do them anyway.

Don't Cheat Sleep

Make sure you get the sleep you need each and every day. We might think we will accomplish more if we sacrifice a few hours of sleep, but that is not likely to happen.

If we don't have enough sleep, we will be sluggish. This will lower our effectiveness as well as our efficiecny. It could mean having to redo the things we thought we had accomplished.

There are really few things that can't wait until the next day. Get the needed sleep and reapproach things the next day with a refreshed mind and a revigorated body.

Get Rid of What You Don't Need

Needless clutter tends to add to our stress. It makes it difficult to find the things we need. It causes us to dwell on the need to "clean things up". Why stress over clutter? The simple approach to this is to get rid of one to a few things every day. That way we are not distracting ourselves by making a project of it, but at the same time we are getting rid of what we don't need and not allowing those things to take up our valuable time.

Do One Thing At A Time

In the computer world Windows is called a multitasking software. Multitasking is great for computers, but not so great for human beings. Trying to do too many things at once is a great stress builder. Since I have dedicated this blog series to cutting back stress in our lives, I must start with the concept of Doing One Thing At A Time.

Do one thing at a time. Do it well. Then move on to the next. This is a simple formula that truly does work.

Trying to do too many things at once leads to mistakes and none of these things really gets done well because none are really given our full attention. By doing one thing at a time, we do it right, eliminate having to redo it again because we messed up, and creates a smoothly working atmosphere.

Ultimately, it will reduce daily stress, which will in turn lead to better health.

Relieving Stress May Improve our Health

I have heard for so long that stress can create so many health problems. I recently read an article that suggests stress and cancer can even be linked. I think it is pretty obvious that stress can cause other problems such as high blood pressure, strokes, head aches and other things. Of course, I am not a doctor so I can't speak from a professional point of view on the topic of stress.

I can, however, speak from my own experience.

Stress leads to problems. Chest pains and headaches are only a couple of the health issues I have experienced that I connect to stress in my life. Recently I have even developed high blood pressure. Interesting since my blood pressure has always been low, yet recently the stress in my life seems to be escalating.

I made a conscious decision to try to lessen the stress in my life, but that is certainly more easily said then done. How does one lessen their stress? I recently talked to my doctor, spoke with friends, and am even reading a book to do research on this topic. I believe it is important, not just for me, but for all of us to strive to lower the amount of stress we encounter in our lives.

So I have decided to do a series of short articles on this blog sharing with you what I am doing to lower stress in my life. I am hoping we can all benefit from my quest to lower stress in my life.