How to Stress Less and Just Breathe
Do you ever wish there were more than 24 hours in a day? I used to until I realized that most of what I’m trying to accomplish isn’t life or death. Between work and personal deadlines, running my home, which includes caring for my husband and three pets, and trying to make time for loved ones, it’s enough to make me break down… and I have. But I had to stop allowing myself to become so overwhelmed by life and it’s demands. I realized that by stressing over every little thing and trying to pack my day with tasks, I was accomplishing a lot but at the expense of my mental and physical well-being. My tasks were a priority but I wasn’t prioritizing myself such as going to the gym regularly or meal prepping to save myself time and headache. Once I established my priorities and set my boundaries, I could breathe more throughout the day… to the point where I feel like something is wrong if I have too much downtime.. but that’s a whole other issue. Below are some tips to help you get through most of your days with minimal tears and headache.
- Establish your priorities for the day. Figure out what you absolutely must do for the day in question and what you’re okay with possibly not getting to, then plan your day according to the priority items, including your self care, i.e., working out, stretching, eating, etc.
- Set your boundaries. Decide what interruptions, because there will be plenty, that you will and will not acknowledge. For example, do people always seem to call you when you’re about to sit down for lunch or take care of something? This happens to me often and I simply continue with my task at hand, pending if the need of someone is an emergency or not, and most of the time it isn’t, and I address the interruptions as when and as I see fit.
- Check in with yourself. Do you even feel like accomplish much of anything today or do you need to rest instead? Ask yourself how you’re feeling and plan activities around that, as you are able to.
- Give yourself grace. Sometimes you need to ignore the list you’ve made or the goals you’ve set for yourself for the day, and that’s okay! You’re not a robot, you’re a human with feelings, body aches, emotions, shortcomings, etc. Forgive yourself for not doing all you’ve intended to do at the moment and move on!
- Celebrate the small wins. Look at what you’ve accomplished. Maybe you didn’t get to check off your biggest priority, but maybe you simply got out of bed; sometimes that’s all you can do and that is worth celebrating.
- Rest. Rest in the fact that you are human and not a machine. You can’t do everything in a day, be everywhere at once, and be everything to everyone. It’s okay to take life day by day and do only what you can do. For what you can’t do, don’t sweat it because life happens to all of us and none of us were created to take on the world by ourselves.