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Stressed? Demanding career? Juggling work and family responsibilities? The bills just keep coming? Feeling overwhelmed by life in general? Follow these 5 tips to help reduce your stress levels.
1. Take Control
Realising you’re in control of your life is the foundation of stress management. Managing stress is all about taking charge: of your thoughts, emotions, schedule, and the way you deal with problems. Remaining passive will only increase your stress. Once you recognise what is stressing you, you can begin to plan steps to take action, allowing your mind to come up with options and puts you back in the driver’s seat.
2. Prioritise your time and be more effective
We waste a lot of time doing unimportant tasks so prioritise your day and do the important jobs first. The unimportant ones can wait, and often they will disappear completely leaving you time to do other things. Also, do not put off the unpleasant tasks. Every time we think about them we cause ourselves stress. Give an unpleasant task a high priority and do it first
3. Learn to say NO!
Know your limitations and do not take on too much. A great deal of stress is caused because we like people to like us and do not want to let them down, so we end up doing more than we should. Learn to be assertive and how to say no without upsetting or offending people or at least say ‘not right now’. Remember your time is as precious as their time.
4. Adopt a healthy lifestyle
Short-term coping mechanisms such as drinking too much, overeating or under-eating, zoning out in front of the TV for too many hours are a short-term fix but long term are detrimental to your physical and mental health. If we eat a healthy diet, exercise regularly and ensure we get adequate rest our body is better able to cope with stress should it occur. Also, find time to relax whether it’s a warm bath, a cup of tea or meditation as together with a good night’s sleep, you will be able to do and perform much better and easily make up the time you used to relax.
5. Try to see things differently
If something is bothering you try to see it differently. Talk about your problem with somebody before it gets out of proportion.
Often, talking to somebody else will help you see things from a different and less stressful perspective.
You may also like: Keeping Those Plates Spinning: How To Cope With Stress As An Entrepreneur
About the Author
Deborah Saunders is a fully qualified Personal Performance Coach, NLP Practitioner and accredited DISC Personality Profiler. As a coach and mentor, her focus is helping people who are facing major change whether that’s career or personal transition, to manage time more effectively or helping them to achieve long-held goals or create more fulfilment in their lives.
Photo credit: Danilo Rizzuti www.freedigitalphotos.net
