Today We Ll Be Looking at How to Stress Proof Your Life, Well at Least Partly Reduce Stress

Today we’ll be looking at How to Stress –Proof your life, well at least partly reduce stress to be completely honest!

Manage your stress. Some stress is good. It sharpens the mind, raises our libido. A small amount of stress reduces depression and lengthens our life.
Find an hour each day to do things that are relaxing and fun! All work and no play as the saying goes. Life comes with stress built-in, but taking an hour every day off from stressful activities is just great!
Make a list or a mental list for each day in categories must do, should do and could do! Make sure you do the must do’s and try to do or start at least one if not two of the should do’s. What makes you feel good? What intrigues you? What makes you think ‘if only I had the time’ to do that? Could be a walk in the park or maybe starting a new hobby, or resuming a hobby that’s been neglected.
Stop trying to please others all of the time or sometimes even some of the time. You deserve attention for your self, as well as attending to others.
Remember that as well as other people having faults, we have our own faults too. We have to adapt to our own faults as well as adapting to the faults of others!
Work out what is important for us and to us. Your ‘core values’ if you like, and then put them in order of importance. These can change. You might put time with your partner and time with your children as priority time. As the children get older, time spent with them will have less priority as they’ll start living their own lives, hopefully still including us though!
Stop constantly putting things off. Start by doing jobs that are least likely to cause problems or take a lot of time. Assign a task five minutes, then perhaps 10 minutes and so on. It’s easy to find just a few minutes to start a task. Or do the whole task just 10 or 15 minutes at a time. For instance - Painting a room doesn’t have to be done all at once!
Routine is good for some things, like keeping wallets and keys in the same place or making a mental note if you put them down elsewhere than their normal place. Things that are not routine need our full attention. Like noting and repeating to ourself where we have parked the car! Repetition helps, for example mentally repeating to ourself someone’s name when we meet someone new.
We tend to forget things quickly when we are very stressed. So go back and check you turned the iron or cooker off, making a mental note each time you check. Yes, I’ve checked that said to yourself might stop you worrying later whether you’ve carried out the task!
Have a plan B. Life can be unpredictable and if a friend calls to say they can’t meet you, have an alternative lined up. It could just be a pot of silver change kept for hard time!
Having ideals can be great but sometimes we have to compromise. We can’t always choose our friends. Sometimes they choose us as friends! If we all waited until someone absolutely ideal came along, many of us would never marry!
Have a dream! We can live out the parts of the dream we can do!
Aim for excellence. You might be a good cook, become a brilliant one! It’s about taking control, having confidence and finding the necessary information! Make a list of all of your accomplishments! It might inspire you on to higher things!
Try to be happy. Allow for one genuine happiness each day as a minimum. We need things or people or time to ourselves away from the pressures of others, to be happy in ourselves or in company, as we choose.
Give up perfection, at least some of the time. People who want things perfect all of the time often create a lot or a good deal of stress for themselves and for others!
Have a zone of your own, where you can escape from time to time, or as often as need be! This could be a secluded corner of the garden, a garden shed, a room or box room in the attic, or just secluding yourself in your bedroom. Then add a comfortable chair, other trimmings, a long cool drink, and maybe a radio or CD player or a good book to read! All the better if the area is exclusively yours and you can be free from being disturbed! And remember to switch off your mobile phone! Make the bathroom your own from time to time if there’s nowhere else!
You don’t need permission to write, read, draw, rest, do yoga, listen to music, sit and stare. Anything that engenders a sense of inner peace and calm, away from the noise and stress of the world. Anything that evokes the deepest, most peaceful and often most meaningful part of you.
One of the most important remedies for stress is to Relax! Stop worrying, put your feet up and put your all your troubles away, at least for now! Take some deep breathes and feel the tension flow out of you! Great in traffic queues or at the traffic lights! And if the traffic queue turns into a serious hold-up, put the radio on, listen to some music and stop fretting about when the traffic is going to start moving again. It can be very frustrating stuck in a lot of traffic, but accept that it’s beyond your control, you can’t do a lot about it, and chioll out a bit instead!
Take mini-breaks whenever you can! Perhaps not all day or you might be even more stressed if you’ve left something important unfinished. If being with someone takes an effort, this doesn’t count! Try switching off the TV from time to time! If on the other hand you’re with friends you can relax with, this can be a great way to de-stress and recharge your batteries!
Leave work on time! Don’t allow your time to be hijacked by others. Some people can be over-bearing and need a conscious effort to extract yourself from! Have clear goals and stick to them!
Recognise your energy phases. Some of us perform better in the morning, some in the afternoon, some evenings, and some of us into the small hours! Fit tasks around the times when you have the most physical or mental energy. You may have more mental energy at different times to when your physical energy is at its peak.
Do tasks when it works best. Make that phone call you’ve been dreading now - you can relax once it’s out of the way. If you leave it to later, you’ll be fretting all day and still have to find a way to make the call later. Have meetings in the morning where you can. People have more zip then and meetings will usually go smoother and be over a lot quicker that way.
Check emails three times daily, first thing, after dinner and later in the afternoon. It’s easier to deal with a few at a time rather than hundreds all at once!
Limit phone calls, talk to others on the phone when and for how long it suits you. If things are getting lengthy arrange another call or make an excuse. Perhaps there’s a call at the door, or you’re in a hurry to go out etc! Again limit when you use or answer the phone.
Work can often wait; this might not be so for friends and family! And if you’re really stressed, it isn’t a crime to have a quiet five minutes or fifteen minutes while you straighten out lists of things to do, or even relax, though it might be difficult to put your feet up. But if you need to, taking a little time off ‘at your desk’ might be just the tonic. Or head for the coffee machine, or have a short stroll, outside for a few minutes. Click the save button on that document you’re working on and have a deep slow breathing session while you recompose your thoughts!
Sometimes, life seems a little bit flat, and we need to recover our mojo! As in giving our life a bit of zest, a bit of go. Some people get a kick out of roller-coasting or surfing, but it doesn’t always need extreme sports or extreme happenings to bump start our life a bit. It might be going out and meeting new people and socializing, or sometimes sharpening our talent for a hobby or interest. Get busy and set goals that can be achieved by bedtime, or in the next week or two. Give yourself that walk in the park you’ve promised yourself for ages!
Make a note to relax or to be stimulated. You can’t do both at once. A good stimulating exercise session can be followed by a good relax in the bath!
Mentally congratulate yourself for every achievement! And don’t let others knock you down.
Try things differently for a change, brush your teeth with the other hand, walk on different sides of the street than you usually do, or take a different route to the shops or to work.
Sharpen your senses whether you are outside or inside. Try to notice scents or aromas, savour the taste of things, look out for things you’ve missed seeing before. Concentrate on nature, budding leaves, flower combinations. Look for colour and colour contrasts.

Ok maybe you’re lucky and you’re a bit bored. Why lucky? It probably means your life’s a bit low key, as in needing a little more stress! It’s good to feel that you are competent, striving, achieving. Sometimes just finding something to do can provide that necessary stress element, and perk you up in the process. Try smiling to yourself, when no-one’s around! It helps the brain relax.
Recognise what gives you a kick and go and seek it, provided it’s nothing illegal that is! Set yourself a goal to be achieved by bedtime. Tidy your desk, cook that perfect dish! But don’t get to feel better by making things worse for someone else, unless they really, as in really, deserve it of course! Setting yourself challenges makes you feel young and vital.
After completing any challenge or stressful act or event, give yourself space to switch off and relax! Remember that golden rule, either be stimulated, or relax, you can’t do both at once. If you’re even just slightly stimulated mentally, you simply can’t relax properly. If others make you tense, find some space away from them to relax completely.
Work-life or life- work? Do you have the right balance in your life between work and other things? We may have to work to earn a living, but we don’t have to let work dominate our life! You can check out this balance by asking some simple questions about your daily routine. Question 1. Do you feel every day at work is spent dealing with difficult people, or difficult tasks? Question 2. Do you feel loved ones haven’t a real clue about how you feel, or you feel separated from them emotionally? Question 3. Do you regularly not make time for activities that nourish your soul? Question 4. Do you feel you could almost walk out of the house and no-one would really notice until the mortgage has to be paid? In a nutshell, make sure you’re putting time and effort into the people who matter in your life, and activities that make your heart sing!
Work may be unavoidably stressful sometimes, or even all of the time, but is the ‘life’ part away from work and daily chores restful and enjoyable? If not we need to change the balance of the ‘life’ part to include more relaxing activities and more time spent doing things we enjoy. There’s an old adage;- if you don’t look after yourself, you won’t feel up to looking after others! That’s very true and even just ten minutes a day looking after your inner needs, ten minutes of selfishness if you like can help very considerably in the daily grind of things!
So, try to balance the demands in your life or on you. We can only cope with so many demands on our time at once, and if things get just too demanding, we need to divert some of our time towards ourselves and away from the demands of others. And at home, children and partners can be equally demanding on our time and on our energy! Sit back sometimes and realise the great powers around us and the great powers in us! The wind that blows the clouds around and across the sky, or clears away after the storm, just as one example!
Prioritise these demands, not in abstract terms but by your roles, eg Wife/husband/father/mother/son/daughter/brother/sister/employee and put these in order of priority. If your partner for instance puts work first, this can in itself be very stressful. Try to arrange some time together away from other demands. When we are clear about what’s important, and focusing on it, life and things often go more smoothly.
Staying in control over demands made on us is far more important than achieving perfection unless you are an artist painting an important picture for a client! Perfection can come later, once we have got and can keep ourselves organised. And a lot of the time, life just isn’t perfect and getting ourselves and others to strive for ends that are simply not realistically achievable is just causing stress, and in fact impossible stress at that!
Make a to-do list of no more than seven items, and if this is too heavy a list, reduce it to three or four items at most. And ensure your list only contains absolutely have-to -do tasks. I had an extremely busy job, and I got by with an untidy desk and boxes of paper to sort, only tidying and sorting when I had some, or any spare time. That way, all the essentials got done, and though things looked disorganised, in fact I knew where to find whatever I needed and I was actually very highly organised! Ever tidied your room then spent weeks looking for that elusive item you’ve tidied goodness knows where?
Get by with what pleases you, not what pleases others, and if they complain, or even keep complaining, just get used to this and let their complaining wash over your head! Or if need be learn to divert criticism! Outside of work, it’s just you unless for instance your partner or children criticise you. Even then does it really matter or are they just being hyper-critical? If for instance you want to walk around the house bare-feet, what business is it of theirs, provided your feet are reasonably clean!
Check out your habits. Sometimes we stress ourselves by doing things we perhaps shouldn’t (raiding the cake tin late at night!) or that we feel guilty about or by not doing things we should do. If you feel guilty about not cleaning your teeth twice daily, the answer is easy, just get back into good habits not bad ones! Spent too much, just cut back on your spending until it’s sorted out.
Stress can build up, like debts, a little at a time, and in the same way it takes time to get out of debt, so it can take time, or even a lot of time to reduce stress and after very stressful events it can take months if not years to lose all of the resultant stress. A major stressful event such as a job loss or partner change or a bereavement can take up to seven years to fully recover from, at least as best we can recover. Some stressful events leave us emotionally stressed indefinitely. We just then have to learn to live with this ongoing stress, which simply isn’t easy. If you’ve got a headache, or a headache in your life that won’t go away, perhaps a change of view is needed. So you’ve seen the doctor, or taken advice, think then, what is the best outcome you can hope for in the circumstances? It may not be ideal, the ideal may not be achievable, but you can at least consider the best option or the best realistic outcome. This might be just being able to spend some time with someone very ill, or in distress.
How often is stress caused by other people? Try thinking, I’m not all bothered what other people think of me! Let them think what they like that’s their concern, not mine! And if they express views you really don’t want to hear from them, say so, eg if someone refers to your weight, say – well that’s your opinion, so could you keep it to yourself! I don’t need to know your opinion of me! It’s your business how you feel about me, and you don’t have to constantly repeat this to me, or say it out loud! And such-like! If it’s a work colleague rather than a manager, tell them straight they are being busy-bodies and perhaps they should concern themselves about their own work, not yours! Other people have their own agenda. This shouldn’t mostly concern you! Tell them this if you have to!
People tend to fit into one of three categories –energisers who add to your experience and vitalise you, neutral types who have little effect or influence on you, and drainers - those who debilitate you and your efforts and who often belittle what you do.