We all get stressed from time to time, whether it’s something as common as getting irritated by rush hour traffic, getting the kids to get themselves ready for school or deal with a boss who’s IQ seems to be out stripped by his shoe size. You might not give it much thought from day to day but an elevated stress level can be very bad for you, it can lead to a higher heart rate and headaches not to mention the damage to your career if that boss pushes you too far!
So just how do you relieve stress without harming yourself or anyone else?
Take Some You Time
If work is getting busy, your kids waited until you left them at the school gates to tell you they forgot their gym kit/lunch/homework and all the utility bills chose today to land on your doormat set some time aside as soon as possible that you can have to yourself. Just an hour or two will give you something to look forward to and get you through the day. Stop by the supermarket on the way home and treat yourself to your favourite decadent food, a slice of cheesecake, a glass of wine a punnet of fresh strawberries, this isn’t going to be a regular occurrence and everyone deserves a treat from time to time. Run yourself a nice hot bath or find your favourite book or film and just put the rest of the world on hold while you work on you.
Take It Out On The House Work
This might sound like the most pathetic excuse in the world to justify enjoying the house work but something like cleaning the kitchen or doing the ironing can be very therapeutic. It requires very little brain power and you can see the physical results so you get that feeling of accomplishment. Ironing is said to be very calming because the slow and steady repetitive movements help calm the brain down and you’ve got the peace of mind that you’re accomplishing something productive and you’ve got something ticked off your to do list.
Laughter Is The Best Form Of Medicine
There’s nothing like a good laugh to make you feel better. Unless you’ve got a stock pile of things that make you chuckle in your mind somewhere this can be easier said than done. You don’t have to go out to a show or wait for your favourite show to come on TV. Ask your friends if they’ve got any DVD’s of their favourite comedians or just head over to YouTube, half an hour watching a few clips is likely to give you enough of a chuckle to beat some of that stress.
Exercise
Like the housework, exercise is usually a chore but when you look at it as stress relief it becomes much more enjoyable. Head to the gym, invest in your own cross trainer you can house in your living room or just throw on a pair of shoes and start pounding that pavement, however you want to do it get your body and your heart rate moving. Like the ironing, the repetitive movements becomes almost therapeutic and you don’t need to use too much thought power so you can have a day dream for half an hour. Best of all, exercising releases serotonin which is a natural chemical in the body which elevates the mood and can make you feel happy and you can’t feel happy and stressed at the same time.
Take control
If none of these are working for you then the simplest answer might just be to take control of your stress. What exactly is getting you all worked up? Is it one thing or lots of little things? Make a physical list of everything you’re worrying about and come up with a practical solution – do you need to send an email? Make a phone call? Go shopping? Plan a time frame and tick things off your list as they’re completed. If you’re stressing out about things you have no control over or things you can’t action any time soon you need to learn to take a step back and find the knowledge to recognise the difference between things you can change and things you can’t.