Stress Management Tips for the Real World

Last week, I tried to con­vince you that like cake, you need stress in your life. But also like cake, if you don’t have enough or if you have too much, it’s a prob­lem. So how do we find and keep that sweet spot of just enough stress? Spoil­er Alert: There is no cake involved.

A quick Google search for the ​“best stress man­age­ment tech­niques” will tell you that eat­ing right, exer­cis­ing, get­ting enough sleep, med­i­tat­ing, and liv­ing in the moment are some of the best ways to deal with stress. It’s true; those are def­i­nite­ly very effec­tive ways to keep your stress lev­el low.

But let’s get real for a minute.

For most peo­ple, doing those things on a con­sis­tent basis isn’t as easy as it should be. The demands of this fast-paced world we live in can be over­whelm­ing and when the going gets tough, the tough often get ice cream. Or drink alco­hol. Or use tobac­co. Or rack up cred­it card debt. Or binge on Net­flix. Or engage in any num­ber of oth­er unhealthy or self-defeat­ing cop­ing mech­a­nisms that actu­al­ly cre­ate more stress.

So what are we sup­posed to do with all this stress?

Go with your gut. No, I don’t mean eat the entire car­ton of ice cream, even if that seems like a rea­son­able solu­tion in the moment. That will only make you feel bad about your­self which increas­es stress and the like­li­hood of fur­ther self-defeat­ing behaviors.

The secret to nail­ing stress man­age­ment is to iden­ti­fy what your instincts are try­ing to tell you.

Say you had a bad day at work and all you want to do is go home and ​“eat your feel­ings,” as the kids say. Hon­est­ly, the kids prob­a­bly don’t say that any­more, it’s hard to keep up. But this urge might mean that you’re in need of com­fort or that you feel emo­tion­al­ly emp­ty. Seek an alter­na­tive source of ful­fill­ment, like cud­dle time with a loved one or a pet. Turn on music that is calm­ing and have a cup of hot tea. Do things that you find emo­tion­al­ly soothing.

If your ten­den­cy is to run away or escape your stress, such as with the use of alco­hol or get­ting lost in a Net­flix binge, you may need a break. Sched­ule time-outs into your dai­ly rou­tine that allow you to escape from real­i­ty for a bit. Set aside your usu­al stres­sors to read a book, watch fun­ny videos, or just go out­side for a few min­utes. Give your­self a healthy escape-sched­ule a day off from work, take a week­end trip, move to Fiji.

If retail ther­a­py is your go-to, con­sid­er what pur­pose shop­ping serves for you. Is going to the store a form of escape for you? Or is it the rush of hav­ing new things you find sat­is­fy­ing? What­ev­er it is, meet the need with­out break­ing the bank and clut­ter­ing up your house. Health­i­er options include win­dow shop­ping or going to thrift stores to search for unique trea­sures. What’s that old say­ing? One man’s trash is another’s man’s healthy cop­ing mechanism?

The key to effec­tive stress man­age­ment is to tune into what your body is try­ing to tell you and find a safe and effec­tive alter­na­tive that meets your spe­cif­ic need.

Here are a few addi­tion­al tips:

• Move it or lose it.
  • If you are mov­ing your body on a reg­u­lar basis you are less like­ly to lose your cool. Phys­i­cal activ­i­ty burns off the extra ten­sion that accu­mu­lates through­out the day and helps to release all those feel-good chem­i­cals in your brain. Phys­i­cal out­lets don’t have to mean expen­sive gym mem­ber­ships or rig­or­ous rou­tines. Gar­den­ing, walk­ing your dog, and as I like to call it, ​“aggres­sive vac­u­um­ing” are great ways to low­er your stress level.
• Talk about the tough stuff.
  • This is eas­i­er for some than oth­ers but a lot of stress can be man­aged sim­ply by talk­ing about it. If something’s nag­ging at you, say­ing it out loud can make it feel small­er and more man­age­able. Hav­ing cof­fee with a friend, see­ing a ther­a­pist, or join­ing a sup­port group are options for ver­bal­iz­ing more of your stress.
• Learn to say no.
  • Set lim­its on your time, it’s okay to say no once in a while if it means main­tain­ing your sanity.
• Learn to say yes.
  • Try new things. How do you know you’re not sup­posed to be an Olympic snow­board­er if you’ve nev­er touched a snow­board? Even if you find out you’re not, you don’t have to be good at some­thing to reap the ben­e­fits. New activ­i­ties can become new healthy cop­ing mech­a­nisms. Or new med­ical bills, whatever.
• Assume the best.
  • Our thoughts are at the root of most of our dai­ly stress. If you assume that the guy dri­ving twen­ty miles per hour under the speed lim­it in front of you is try­ing to ruin your life, odds are you’ll expe­ri­ence more dis­tress than if you take a moment to appre­ci­ate what a safe dri­ver he is.
• You snooze, you lose.
  • Lit­er­al­ly. Hit­ting the snooze but­ton a mil­lion times makes you more tired. It takes much longer than ​“just five more min­utes” to achieve rest­ful sleep. The snooze but­ton is a trick, don’t fall for it.
• Min­i­mize clut­ter in your work and liv­ing spaces.
  • Being sur­round­ed by clut­ter can stress you out. Imple­ment a night­ly ​“clut­ter con­trol” sys­tem by set­ting a timer for five min­utes and hav­ing every­one fill a bag or bas­ket with things that are out of place. Then spend anoth­er five min­utes putting those things away. Just ten min­utes can make a big dif­fer­ence in a messy room. Or try using a ​“one-touch” sys­tem in which every­thing that comes into your home or onto your desk-mail, gro­ceries, paper, gym bags are imme­di­ate­ly filed, sort­ed, dealt with, or put away. This will keep you from accu­mu­lat­ing lit­tle piles of stress all over your house.
• Wear com­fort­able clothes.
  • If you’ve ever gone to work in pants that are a lit­tle too tight or shoes that pinch, you know what I mean. Being phys­i­cal­ly com­fort­able is a sim­ple way to low­er stress.
• Turn down the volume.
  • Con­stant or loud noise can inter­fere with con­cen­tra­tion and trig­ger the body’s stress response, as any par­ent or ele­men­tary school teacher can tell you. When your stress lev­el is on the rise, turn down the vol­ume. Go to a qui­et place or shut off the TV for a few min­utes of bliss­ful silence. FYI: Kids gen­er­al­ly don’t have a vol­ume button.
• Do what you enjoy every day.
  • Build your dai­ly rou­tine around your inter­ests and hob­bies. Life is full of work but it shouldn’t be too full to have fun. Joy and con­tent­ment ward off stress so carve out time every day to do the lit­tle things you enjoy. You’ll nev­er regret all the time you spent bird watching/​painting/​doing the hula.

Thanks for reading!

Until next week,

Nik­ki

*The con­tent in this blog should nev­er be con­sid­ered an alter­na­tive to qual­i­ty med­ical or men­tal health care and is intend­ed to be a source of infor­ma­tion only.