Happy April. I cannot believe it is April already. All the magnolia and blossom is out and weather is amazing, although I am off to the Snowdome today for some now un-seasonal ice skating and tobogganing. April though is national stress awareness month and I thought I'd discuss about how stress affected me recently.
Stress is something that everyone encounters and suffers from. Back in January I was diagnosed with IBS which had been trigger by stress and was being aggravated by lactose. I had to take a huge step back and evaluate everything I was taking on. I felt like I was drowning in assignments and work while trying to maintain something resembling a social life and the spinning plates were starting to fall. Fast forward to now and I'm back eating small amounts of lactose again, with stress defeated and a more relaxed approach to everything without compromising what I need to get done.
Practice Self-Love
In February I wrote a post for Valentines all about self-love, which you can find here, as I had already started down the road to stress recovery. One of my points to practicing self-love was to make time for you which I now probably over indulge in, but who's watching right? I love having long soaks in the bath with my favourite candles burning or just spending the time to do my hair and make up. Focussing on you is key to reducing stress and it's not selfish to be a little self indulgent but it can do wonders for banishing stress.
Stop sweating over the small stuff
Now, I'm hoping i'm not alone here but the big stuff doesn't seem to stress me out as much as the small stuff. I stress about things which don't really matter such as being 5 minutes late to a dinner, where the only consequence to being late is that my friends think I'm a little bit tardy. J is constantly telling me to chill out over little things but is always baffled when I take large things in my stride. The last three months I've been questioning myself when I stress over smaller things and it's helping me to de-stress. Asking questions like is it the end of the world? There is still a way to go but it's made a huge difference.
Work out Priorities
I've had to accept, albeit with difficulty, I just can't fit everything in and do everything no matter how hard I try. There aren't extra hours in a day or days in a week even though sometimes I wish there were. This is where balance comes into effect. I try and prioritise with balance. Assignments, work, my blog, me time, family and my social life all get prioritised with balance. I also find when doing this remembering about working to live and not living to work helps to put things into perspective.
Plan Ahead
Priorising and planning kinda go hand-in-hand. Planning looks at more general things though such as planning to get up 10 minutes earlier in the morning so you don't feel stressed out before you even go anywhere because you are rushing. Plan out tomorrow's outfit the night before. Plan your dinners and lunches for the week so you don't keep popping to the shops to pick up something.
Work it Out
The final stress-buster I like to try is to work it out, quite literally working out helps me run, cycle or lift away my stress. Running is a good thing to try as I find once my headphones are in my ears I completely forget out the world and just focus on the road ahead. When it's angry stress I find lifting weights a stress buster to get the angry stress out. There's nothing like a sense of achievement to defeat stress.
What are your stress-busting tactics? Do you have one that really works for you?
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