Stress is a five letter word.
People’s lives are jam-packed with demands on time, money, thoughts, and emotions. It’s no wonder that we often feel “stressed out.”
In this blog, I’ll offer three stress busting hacks.
The first hack is for immediate relief.
The second hack is to reduce a stress attack and get it under control.
Finally, a small lifestyle hack that’ll help prevent stress.
A long time ago, humans developed flight or fight response for basic survival so that our brain could immediately determine if we should run away or if we should fight when our life was in danger.
We still use that automatic response today in response to emergency situations when needed. However, many of us experience this fight or flight response every day over everything.
I know I’m guilty of being so stressed that it takes almost nothing to provoke this survival response.
A few day ago, I was cleaning the house, trying to figure out who to call to come fix my fence, and failing to convince my child that whining isn’t a proper form of communication.
I was multitasking.
Multitasking is often a sure fire way to welcome stress into your life.
If you’re multitasker and always feeling stressed, stop multitasking. Condition yourself to work on one thing at a time. This is a lesson that I continually have to teach myself.
Anyway, I was doing laundry and happened to glance at the water heater. When my eyes looked at the water heater, I saw a water heater that looked like it was caving in on itself.
Bam! My fight or flight was fully engaged.
My heart was pounding and my brain decided to run. I couldn’t literally run away, but my body had a total “flight” response since there was no way I could deal with yet another household disaster. I walked away from the water heater, took a deep breathe, and approached it again with my heart still pounding and frustration bubbling like boiling water.
Upon closer inspection, the manual that was taped on to the side of the water heater created an optical illusion that made it seem dented. Since my nervous system was already overtaxed, I managed invoke my fight or flight response.
Forty minutes later, my heart rate returned to normal, and I realized that I needed to get off autopilot and practice the stress-busting hacks that I actually created but often forget.
To help you and to remind myself, here are my three stress busting hacks.
Hack #1
Fixing stress right this very minute.
This hack is useful for a chaotic or overwhelming situation.
Here are examples of how I implement this hack.
My kiddo is whining about losing her toy, the dog needs to go out, and I’m in the middle of working. When I start feeling overwhelmed, and I feel like my blood pressure is rising, I use this hack.
This hack is also good when your fight or flight response is suddenly triggered.
The Happy Moment.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
Stop for about one minute.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
Relax your shoulders.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
Take deep slow breaths. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
Notice the “happy” in your environment. Look around you, and focus on something that you and like.
Tip: Try to add one happy moment to each hour of the day. By doing this, you’ll relax and de-stress, increase the oxygen in your body, and be settled in the present instead of fretting about your to do list. If you need a reminder, create the habit that every time you pick up your phone, touch a handle (door, cabinet, etc), or stand up, you’ll pause for a happy moment.
Hack #2
Handling a multitasking stress attack.
Stress is created in the mind and quickly passed on to the body, so that a person can enter into fight or flight when needed. In order to release stress and relieve your body of the fight or flight energy, a person needs to notice with their thoughts.
Most of the time, we pay very little attention to our thoughts. As a result, sometimes our thoughts run amok, and we go into multitasking mode.
To help de-stress, process stressful thoughts in these 3 easy steps.
Pay attention and analysis your thoughts.
Are they true? Does the way you’re feeling make sense? Is this logical?
Deal with the thoughts.
Is this something I need to deal with right now?
Can I do anything right now to improve the situation? If I can’t take action right now, can I schedule some time to sit down and work on an action plan to improve this?
Require yourself to release the thoughts.
If the thoughts creep back, remind yourself that you’ve handled this and move on.
Tip: Acknowledge stress, deal with it, and let it go.
Hack #3
Scheduling the chaos.
One of the things that I know creates stress in my life is my very long to do list, which includes the house, cleaning, laundry, the yard, the kiddo, my business, self-care, and the odd and end surprises that seem to pop up endlessly.
A few things on my list require my participation all day long. For example, my kiddo, taking care of myself, and my business are ongoing needs.
Some things (such as laundry, yard care, trash, and cleaning) can be done in a set amount of time so I can do them and forget them. These things are best done every day, and they create stress when they’re neglected.
However, if I let myself get too involved with each activity, I can lose an entire day doing that one activity. As a result, I end up stressed out because the other things didn’t get done.
In my house, we created Chaos Hour. Basically, every morning at nine, we stop what we’re doing and “touch” all of the things on my to-do list. By touch I mean that we do them for a reasonably brief amount of time. As a result, all of the things on my list gets handled.
Chaos hour in three parts:
Actions that need to happen every day (trash, tidy up, cleaning)
Actions that need to get done a few times a week (laundry, yard)
Actions that are an issue or “just popped up” (phone calls, needs fixed)
The beauty of Chaos Hour is that I have time scheduled into my day, and I can count on it. I know that I have time set aside to handle all the required but nuisance actions. After Chaos Hour, I’m free to devote my time to the actions that I need to keep life moving forward.
Tip: If you don’t have an hour to devote to this hack, devote thirty minutes or fifteen minutes. Just remember to do it around the same time every day and stop when the timer goes off. Remember, you’ll come back to it tomorrow.
I hope that these three hacks help you to stress less!
Set up your own Chaos Hour! Get my took kit!
