10 days ago, I started a Facebook event with a fellow fitness coach to share tips for reducing stress. Now, I am no expert on stress, but I have lived my life with a fair share of it and I know what works best for me. A little background of my stress life: I am a worrier (I believe that I have mentioned this in past posts). It used to keep me awake at night. I would lay in bed and worry about the most ridiculous things, like what would happen if my house fell into a sinkhole. This late night worrying increased about 1,000-fold when I had children. Now, I was lying awake at night worrying about horrible things happening to my kids. So, on top of already being exhausted and not getting much sleep, I was not able to sleep because of this nonsense. It wasn’t healthy. I started practicing a few of the methods to reduce stress that I covered in this group, and it made a HUGE difference.
So, if you missed out on my event (booooo), I thought that it would be nice to give everyone the tasks that we assigned for the 10 days. Each day we focused on one task, and I suggested that everyone keep a stress journal to try to pinpoint what their stress triggers were. Here’s the list:
- Personal development: This right here is #1 for a reason. Even if you think that you don’t need it, you do. Find some kind of personal development that you are interested in. I LOVE Brené Brown’s books. Her writing style sounds like my inner monologue. But there are loads of podcasts, audiobooks, YouTube videos, etc. out there. Spend at least 15 minutes every day working on yourself, your inner self.
- Music: Notice that you are stressed? Throw on some of your favorite or relaxing music. This was one of the most popular tasks that we posted.
- Have a meaningful conversation with someone important to you: Life is so rushed sometimes and we forget to just slow down and connect with those we care about. Sit down with someone (it could be your partner, a close friend, family, your child) and have a 30 minute conversation. Without looking at your phone. Without the tv on. Just sit and connect with them.
- Find some time for your favorite hobby: Even if it’s just for a few minutes a day. Or start a new hobby.
- say “no:” How often do we feel obligated to say yes? To volunteer ourselves for something that we don’t really want to do. How often are we overloaded because we feel we can’t say no? Well, you can say no. And you should. If you are constantly stretching yourself super thin, you are eventually going to break. So, say no sometimes. Even with superpowers you can’t do everything.
- Self care: Sometimes we forget how important it is to do things for ourselves. We get caught up in doing things for our family/kids/work, and don’t take care of ourselves.
- Get outside: Take a walk, ride a bike, run, jog, skip, or hike. The fresh air and vitamin D will do wonders.
- Take a break from technology: Social media plays a big part in stress these days, and it’s important to just turn it off sometimes. Personally, I like to stop social media consumption at 8pm.
- Get enough sleep: Most people need between 7-9 hours. Without enough sleep, your body can’t work the way that it should. It can’t produce the correct amounts of chemicals and hormones to regulate emotions. If you are tired, you are more likely to become easily stressed. Check out this article from the American Psychological Association about the relationship between stress and sleep.
- Meditation: Another of my personal favorites. We love the Headspace app for this. It has guided meditation/breathing exercises that you can do every day.
Give these a try, and let me know which ones work best for you, or if you have other suggestions let us know in the comments!
