It sneaks up on you. An event here, a project there. Sick kids and a messy house. You forgot to make a deposit and now you’re overdrawn. Before you know it, stress has reared its ugly head and overwhelm is creeping in. If you feel yourself going there, try these powerful stress busters to slash through the fog and get back on your feet.
1. Reject thoughts and words that set you up for failure and stress.
Every time you think or say “I don’t have time,” you’re training your subconscious mind. It creates feelings of discouragement, defeat and overwhelm. It makes you want to give up before you’ve started. Your mind won’t even try to find creative ways to get things done because it’s heard the message of “No way.” So reject those thoughts—don’t go there, don’t say it!
2. Stop making sweeping generalizations.
Too often we are controlled by rampant, undisciplined thoughts like “I’ll NEVER get all of this done!” or “I’m ALWAYS so stressed out!” Much of good life management is telling yourself the truth. You do get stuff done and you’re not stressed out every moment of your life. Sweeping generalizations just add to the emotion and anxiety, and they’re not even true.
3. Know what is appropriate for you and your family.
What works well for you now may not work at all two years from now. What worked when your kids were young probably won’t work now. Seek wisdom for what is good for you now. Don’t hang on to routines or techniques just because you used to do it or worse yet, just because it works for someone else. Assess what’s working for you, and figure out where you’re tripping up. Then you know where to start.
4. Connect with loved ones.
Physical touch, laughter and fun are great stress busters. Walk on the beach with your spouse, have a long lunch with a good friend, take a child to the zoo. It will help you regain perspective. Even if you don’t think you’re a people person, humans need humans. That might be a missing link (and missing stress buster) in your life.
5. Take the emotion out of it.
Have you seen the “Keep Calm” sayings everywhere? That’s a good place to start. Get over yourself and look at your schedule and to do’s objectively. Ask yourself “What is?” No weeping, no gnashing of teeth. Just calm down and lay it on the table. Do that with the next stress buster…
6. Get the details and write them down.
If you keep your projects and to do’s and upcoming events all in your head, when something else comes up—or the unexpected happens—it will mess with…your head! How many times have you let something that will take four hours derail your entire week because you haven’t written the details or looked at your schedule? When you have the lists written and the events on the calendar, you work with the list or the calendar to rearrange things instead working with the mess in your brain.
7. You don’t always have a choice about what comes your way, but you can choose how to handle it. Anxious, stressful feelings can be a trigger to examine your thoughts and check your lists.
Sit down and pour it all out on paper or with a mentor. Cry if you need to because that in itself is cleansing and stress-relieving. Then wipe your tears and look at the situation with the emotion taken out. Instead of giving stress all the power, you can take control with these powerful stress busters.
Charlotte Siems is a happily-married mom of twelve who is a speaker, author and coach. After losing 100 pounds with T-Tapp, she became a Master T-Tapp Trainer, sharing her encouraging story with people all over the world. She has built a successful online business and writes about family life and T-Tapp at www.ThisLovelyPlace.com. Charlotte’s life experiences and training have uniquely qualified her to help others create a successful family and business.
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One of the best anti-stress techniques I know is to write everything down that is stressing you out then destroy the piece of paper you wrote it on: you can throw it away or burn it or bury it! For some reason this works for me! Enjoyed the post! Andy
Love this idea, Andy!
I think that stress is so “normal” to us we don’t realize how it can affect us physically. Thanks for taking time to comment!
Ooo, #2 gets me easily, too, Marcia! One day someone told me to stop making those sweeping generalizations and my jaw dropped! Glad to help you gain new perspective!
These are some amazing stress busters for busy people and your article helped me and my family a lot to manage stress in a busy lifestyle. I read your blog very carefully to understand how to manage stress and I had a great time reading it. Thank you for this wonderful post.