Manage Your Stress

Managing yourself can be a real chore. You can be the most uncooperative, resistant person you have to deal with. And you really frustrate yourself when you won’t take responsibility for yourself. Very irritating.

For instance, coming out of the holiday weekend, you feel a better sense of calm. You’ve had a chance to breathe and relax. This is your “ground zero” state of de-stress that you want to maintain. But if you jump into your work and your life like you did before, you will quickly resume your stress-filled life. You have to do something differently.  What will you do?

My Experience

When I read a post from the VeryWellMind website, it reminded me of some ways I can reorder myself to engage life better. For me, rather than get wigged out by thinking of all the things I want and need to do, I would be better served to take inventory and then prioritize. That way, I can focus on what I’m working on and not be distracted by the intrusion of everything else. Then, when I start to get ramped up, it will be my signal to either reorder my priorities or refocus on the task at hand. It sounds so simple but, because of my learned patterns, I can easily become overwhelmed and fade into a mush of tension and pressure.

That’s one thing I will do to maintain my stress equilibrium.  What’s yours? You can get some more great ideas from a post from the Mayo Clinic. It divides stress-managing strategies into four categories: avoid, alter, accept or adapt. Since everyone is different, you will have to find the ones that work for you.

Your Turn

To maintain your state of de-stress, select one practice that will have the impact you want and keep it front and center for a few weeks, until it becomes a learned discipline of leading your life. Then work on another. Soon you will have a series of practices that will help to keep you at “ground zero”.

Don’t squander your “ground zero” state of de-stress, only to fall back into a mess of frenetic chaos that will take you down the wrong path. Use it to recalibrate yourself and maintain the holiday post-calm, even when work and life decide to take you on a roller coaster.