Life is full of stressful moments, but there are ways to reduce stress levels. It’s important to keep your stress levels in check before you develop chronic stress, which can be by constantly feeling overwhelmed and pressured.
Living a stressful life can increase your likelihood of heart disease, heart attacks, and mental health problems such as anxiety and depression. You may also experience digestive issues and could see an increase in weight gain.
All of these things can impact your life satisfaction.
While there are unexpected event in life that make you have a stressful life there are ways to reduce the severity of it. In this blog post I share a few way you can adapt a less stressful life!
How To Live a Less Stressful Life
Decrease Your Expenses & Get Rid of Debt
The biggest culprit to stressful living is spending too much money and increasing your debt. First off, if you can’t afford it, don’t buy it. Don’t create the mindset of “I’ll just put it on my credit card and pay it later.” The interest rates on most credit cards are ridiculously high. That’s where credit card companies get you and where they profit from your debt. While the minimum payment might be low, most will be towards the interest payments.
Getting Rid of Debt
One way to combat debt expenses is by following the Dave Ramsey Debt-Free Method. You can click here to see all the free tools and resources his website offers. The Snowball Method is one of the best ways to pay off your debt. With this, you list all your debts from lowest to highest. Next, you make bigger payments on the lowest debt and the minimum on the highest amount of debt. Then you repeat the process until all your debt has been paid off.
One thing to remember is that not all debt is bad debt. In America, you need some debt to build your credit score to get loans, buy a home, a vehicle, etc. In order to make debt your best friend, you need to be mindful of your spending and pay off your credit cards every month. (car loans and mortgages don’t fall in this category.)
Decreasing Your Spending
To avoid falling back into the same spending habits, you need to learn how to live within your means and quit keeping up with the Joneses. One way to cut back on spending habits is by deleting your credit card from websites or your phone, making it a little difficult to buy something. If you’re out and about, take a certain amount of cash instead of taking your credit or debit card.
great Time Management = Less stressful life
Stress can become worse, especially when you lack time management skills. If you procrastinate and leave everything until the last minute, you might feel that anxiety and stress creep in.
A good way to avoid last-minute projects or jumping from one thing to the next is by finding what type of scheduling plan fits your style. A few scheduling methods include a general weekly planner, time blocking, or focus days.
Daily or weekly Planners
Daily planners are a great tool to have! You can find many that are either split in 15 or 30-minute increments. If you feel like you need to become more organized with your time, I recommend starting with this type of planner! It’s a great way to determine how long projects take and how to split up your days.
Weekly planners are the best to have in hand. A planner like this allows you to plan out your days accordingly. This is THE BEST Weekly Planner from Amazon, which is reasonably priced! It’s a great way to plan your week and includes a section for a Habit Tracker, Your Top 3 Priorities, and a To-Do List. It’s a 4 in 1, which is AMAZING!
Time Blocking
Time blocking is a time management method that divides your day into blocks. Each block is dedicated to a specific task. If you have many projects or businesses, time blocking is for you! Google Calendar comes in very handy when you are time-blocking. You can create different calendars for different things. For example, you can create a calendar dedicated to content creation for your blog, another one for your personal life, or a calendar dedicated to your business. You can also use a daily physical planner divided into 15 or 30-minute blocks.
Focus Days
Focus Day Method is the type where you only focus on one specific task every day. This is great again if you have different projects going on. You dedicate the whole day to a business or project which can help you get things done without jumping from one thing to the next all the time.
Unpluging = Less Stressful life
Taking the time out of the day to unplug from your computer, social media, and even your television can decrease stress. Constant brain stimulation and the bulk of information you’re intaking every minute can make you feel more stressed and disconnected than before you got on it.
Find other things you can do that help you calm your mind, such as going for a walk, reading, or spending half an hour outside. It will not be the end of the world if you don’t respond to an email immediately.
Designate A Rest Day
Designate a rest day. This is when you do not worry about your work or household chores. Instead, it’s a day dedicated to yourself where you do anything and everything that YOU want to do. This day of the week can help you reenergize your body and satisfy your life (it gives your brain serotonin & dopamine). There is a time for everything under the sun, EVEN REST, so take advantage of it!
Adapt a Great Work-Life Balance
Since working from home has become popular, there is a gray area regarding work and personal time. Often your boss may find that you should be available after work hours since you have your computer on hand and may ask you to take on another task.
Communication and Boundaries are key in separating and creating a great work-life balance. Creating boundaries may be hard, especially if you are a new employee. But it’s essential to communicate and draw these boundaries from the beginning. If not, once you want to start implementing them later on, it will cause more controversy.
Learn to Enjoy The Now
Learning to live in the present and not in the future is vital. While you should be planning for the future, your mind shouldn’t be set on it. It shouldn’t become a part of your life where you can’t even sit down and soak up the sun because you’re thinking about what next week holds.
Spending your time like this is futile. Nothing great comes from it.
Learning how to Enjoy The NOW can be done in different ways. One way is by meditating. You don’t necessarily need to sit on the floor crisscross apple sauced, but in an area where you can center your thoughts. This can help you with overthinking and anxiety. Another way is by becoming self-aware. Once you catch all those thoughts that focus on the future, you have to power to control them and let them go.
This takes a lot of work, BUT it will help you remove that weight and stress off your shoulders.
Routine
Build YOUR perfect daily routine. A great and productive day starts the night before. Discovering your routine is necessary because you’ll be able to add a sense of flow to your life. You will immediately feel the difference if you create the perfect morning and night routine.
Night routines are essential because you have a designated time to unwind, have laid out your clothes, and know when your head needs to hit the pillow, which sets you up for a successful morning. In this blog post, I share how you can create your perfect morning routine!
Consistent Sleep Schedule
Sleep is a significant factor in reducing your stress levels. Everyone requires a different amount of sleep, some more than the traditional 8 hours and others less than 8 hours. Not only that, but waking up during the right sleep cycle is also super important! You can track this by using online sleep calculators.
With online sleep calculators, you can find when the perfect time to go to bed and the perfect time to wake up. This will help you wake up feeling refreshed and energized. Usually, the feeling of grogginess or moodiness can come from waking up during your deep sleep cycle. I have used online sleep calculators for over two years until I got the hang of it, and it has been the BEST!
Learn to say “No.”
Learn how to say “No!” You may often agree to do things you don’t want to do or necessarily have the time for it. Saying “Yes” when you really want to say “No” greatly impacts your stress. For one, you won’t enjoy the activity fully; second, you’ll be stressing through it all. The word “No” can seem daunting especially if you are a people pleaser BUT being a people pleaser is not great for your mental health. It’s DRAINING. No one is going to hate you, you won’t miss out, and you’ll be in control of your life.
Conclusion: A Less Stressful Life
Stressful stituations are something everyone is going to encounter in life. While these situations are unavoidable there are many ways to try to reduce living a stressful life. Introducing new habits, sleeping habits, boundries, and controling overthinking you can experience a less stressful life.
