1. Take Care of Your Body
Try to do all those things you know are good for your physical well being: get regular exercise; take it easy on the caffeine, sugar and alcohol; get enough sleep; eat healthy food — you know this stuff. This is the baseline of stress reduction.
2. Track Your Physical Comfort
Take time to check in and see how your body is feeling. Once you notice, you can make small corrections to relieve discomfort before it takes over. Breathe into tight places; stretch and move when your back or neck feels stiff; look out the window when your eyes are straining at the computer screen; massage your neck and press the acupoints when a headache is lurking. But you have to notice what’s amiss first.
3. Learn to Relax at Will
Develop a regular practice to ground and relax you. If possible, start and end the day with guided imagery, yoga, meditation, relaxation, deep breathing, petting the cat in a rocking chair or listening to soothing music. Even five minutes, twice a day, will give you some protective ballast against the day’s stresses. And if you can’t manage this daily, do it whenever you can.
4. Take a Mini-break When You’re Getting Crazed
When you find yourself starting to lose it, or butting up against your own rigidity or circular thinking, take a quick break. Step away. Go outside for a walk, do some guided imagery, snuggle your favorite toddler, play some music, call a loving friend or do a couple of yoga stretches. Five minutes of conscious AWOL can clear your mind and give you back your perspective, flexibility and common sense.
5. Dose Your Day with Humor
Humor, by its nature, provides instant distance, balance and perspective, if even for a moment. As long as it’s not aimed at mocking others, it allows us to step back and take everything, including ourselves, less seriously. So practice the art of finding the ludicrous, paradoxical and nonsensical in daily events. And laughing itself is priceless. A belly laugh changes biochemistry and clears out emotional gunk like little else.
6. Be Realistic & Know Your Limits
It’s a wonderful thing to know what you can and cannot do. Wrestle your perfectionism to the ground and don’t let idealized expectations press you into doing more than you can realistically manage. Say no. Set limits. Work smart. This is especially important around holiday time, when trying too hard to do too much creates the exact opposite of the holiday feeling you’re striving for, and you morph into the cranky, resentful, martyred, overworked nightmare you swore you’d never be.
7. Manage Your Time
A corollary is to try not to over-commit. If you do, make a list and prioritize. (Just getting these things out of your head and onto a piece of paper will reduce some stress.) If the list is out of control, look it over and assess what has to go — and then cancel, with apologies. Then tackle things you can finish, one at a time if at all possible. Work mindfully at it, and enjoy the satisfaction that comes with getting it done. Procrastination can be a terrible stressor – we’re always aware of what we should be doing while we’re not doing it, and it’s a real joy-killer and energy-sapper. Do a piece of it and check that sucker off!
8. Keep Asking Yourself If You’d Rather be Happy or Right
A lot of stress is generated — for ourselves and others — by our need to be right, show we’re right, and prove we’re right. And really, so what if we establish we’re right? We cleanse our psychic pallet and de-gunk our day by letting go of an issue and moving on. Mind you, this is not the same as being a chump. It’s about taking care of ourselves, and therein lies the right relationship, clear focus, and, yes, happiness.
9. Practice Staying in the Moment
By mindfully going about your day, and putting your awareness into what you are doing at the moment, you will be using even mundane, everyday activities as the focus of meditation, and simple as it sounds, you will regain peace and balance. Yes, peeling potatoes can be a route to spiritual attainment and inner peace! 10. Notice Little Moments of Beauty and Sweetness This sounds hokey but it works. Notice the beauty around you and take a moment to breathe it in same with a smile, a gracious act, or a loving gesture. Practicing gratitude for these lovely bits and pieces of daily life is a potent way to de-stress, and it’s contagious, too.
Indian Holiday
Indian Holiday Pvt. Ltd. (IHPL) is a 2 time National Tourism Award winning destination management company based in Delhi. This travel blog is an initiative to inform the visitors about all aspects of India that include her history, heritage, culture and tourist attractions and destinations.
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