Note: This article is from a blogger named Aby League, who gives us tips for overcoming stress.
However, because we are unique creatures with different and varied personalities and goals, it is impossible to come up with a lifestyle that suits everyone. All we can do is research, experiment, and share the techniques we have benefited from.
In the bestselling book Nine Things Successful People Do Differently, Heidi Grant Halvorson points to some scientific strategies that help relieve stress.
The fundamental principles of the book, including self-compassion and thinking about things from a broader perspective, are highly recommended for improving productivity in professional and personal life. The author's most important tactics were to think about your flaws gently and understandingly.
A study published in the Journal of Research of Personality suggests that self-compassion positively affects happiness levels, optimism, and personal initiative. People who empathize with themselves are less depressed and more successful.
Last year, I committed to change my life for the better. I vowed to stop wasting time worrying and start spending it with the people who matter most in my life.
Tips that helped me achieve the desired change
1. Be genuinely self-aware
Do you know yourself? Do you fully understand what worries you and what calms you down? In 1921, the renowned psychoanalyst Carl Jung defined two main personality types: introverted and extroverted.
Introverts prefer to spend their time in solitude, while extroverts prefer to be surrounded by others. Two years after Jung published his work, mother Katharine Briggs, and her daughter Isabel Briggs Myers began to study different personality types, and we later came up with the MBTI Myers-Briggs Types Indicator. The main goal was to make Jung’s theory of psychological patterns understandable and useful in people's lives.
You will have a deeper understanding of your perceptions, strengths, weaknesses, emotions, and how you interact with others when taking the test. Your personality can also clarify your habits in the workplace and guide you toward better planning your next career decision.
2. Understand your mental state
It is not easy for some people to follow a set of steps and lead a stress-free life. You may have a medical condition that deprives you of calm and relaxation. According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness in the United States of America, about 18% of adults in the United States suffer from anxiety disorder.
The symptoms of this mental state include fidgets or irritability, feelings of tension and anxiety, heart palpitations, shortness of breath, stomach pain, exhaustion, and insomnia. Antidepressants, psychoanalysis, and complementary therapies like yoga and meditation are among the available treatments.
If your anxiety is interfering with your daily activities or worsening other conditions like depression or sleep disorders, see a doctor right away.
3. Treat yourself gently
Our mistakes and failures define us. If your previous relationship did not work, there is a reason for that. I blamed myself for many years to end a relationship bitterly. Some nights, I remembered our last days together to find out what I did wrong and how I was able to fix the situation. I did not benefit from these painful memories until I finally decided to move on and learn from these mistakes. The same applies to professional decisions. Whenever I make a wrong decision, I try to identify the problem briefly, find a solution, and then move on to the next step.
Author Louise L. Hay writes in her book, You Can Heal Your Life: "Remember that you've been criticizing yourself for years without success, so try praising yourself once and watch what happens."
4. Improve your sleep
Adequate sleep is core to living a better life, and The National Sleep Foundation recommends that adults aged 18-64 get seven to nine hours of consistent sleep each night.
Working as a manager in a real estate company is not an easy task. Meetings last for long hours, which makes me very tired by bedtime. Sleep deprivation affects your health, as it increases the risk of diabetes, heart disease, and high blood pressure and weakens your immunity.
According to Harvard Medical School, lack of sleep affects mental performance, and its latest report warns that “concentration, memory, the ability to perform mathematical calculations, and logical thinking are all aspects of cognitive function that decline due to sleep deprivation.”
So, how to get enough sleep every night? Regulate caffeine consumption, do not drink coffee after 5 pm, avoid using any electronic device (such as a phone, laptop, and TV) at least an hour before bedtime, and finally, tidy up your bedroom and remove any clutter to avoid distraction.
5. Exercise
I am not a fan of sports like most people. I may find the silliest excuse to avoid going to the gym, but about two years ago, I noticed that I could barely catch up with my family members when we went shopping on the weekend. They drew my attention to this. I breathed hard and sweated profusely after only a quarter of an hour of walking, then I gained 20 kilograms of weight and got tired very quickly.
Getting into a fitness program is like climbing a mountain. The beginning is the hard part of the process, but once you get used to it, your body will demand it on its own. I never pressed myself. First, I set a realistic goal of doing an hour of moderate exercise a day three times a week, and then increased it to two hours, including 30 minutes of strenuous exercise.
I also changed my diet, as I am now eating only the number of calories I can burn in the gym, and I lost 10 kilos in six months. In addition to losing weight and being able to move more freely, my outlook on the whole life changed as I learned to listen to my body and its needs.
6. Reduce salt consumption and avoid junk food
I didn't realize I was consuming too much sodium until I gave up junk food for a month. Following my viewing of the Oscar-nominated documentary "Super-Size Me," I experimented on myself.
In this documentary released in 2004, American director Morgan Spurlock ate exclusively at McDonald's for 30 days, and as a result, he gained 11 kilograms, his body mass increased, and his cholesterol rose to 230 mg/ dL. What a frightening consequence!
I was extremely busy with work, writing, and other commitments, and instead of breakfast and lunch, I usually had one meal late in the morning at fast food restaurants. I cooked my food only on the weekend, and it was not very healthy, so this documentary gave me a new perspective.
I decided to set a challenge for myself and refrain from eating out for an entire month. The changes were truly remarkable. I preferred to cook my food because I could not tolerate large amounts of salt. More significantly, I noticed a significant shift in my mood, and I became less stressed and irritable.
7. Arrange your life
Your dirty kitchen, messy office, and the pile of clothes in your bedroom are just stressful. Professor Joseph Ferrari of DePaul University in Chicago says: "The risk of chaos is actual. Too much property is so exhausting that it negatively affects your health and relationships and drowns you in a sea of objects." He also pointed out that your sense of home belonging and your ability to relate to others will decline if your home is chaotic and disorganized.
Marie Kondo, an author and organizational consultant, offers some organizing advice: Keep only the items that make you happy and excited, and then begin cleaning based on item type, not location.
For example, you can start with your closet: Put the pile of clothes in a corner and decide what you will do with each piece of clothing, and you will see the massive number of things you have accumulated. That also applies to your workspace. The cleaner your desk, the purer your mind.
8. Benefit from technology
There is currently an app for almost every type of activity, from project tracking to heartbeat monitoring, so take advantage of it to help you get things done more quickly, but how to choose the right app? You can choose apps that other users have given high marks for, test them out, and decide whether they are helpful to you or not. If you own your own business or oversee some aspects of an existing one, you can also outsource.
You can't run a company without feeling nervous if you try to do everything yourself, and one of the areas you can outsource is social media management. Look for internet bots that help deal with the massive number of inquiries, or find another company that can help you with social media marketing strategies and discover (CRM: Customer Relationship Management) systems. It can help your sales team monitor accounts and activities and write reports.
9. Practice hobbies that you have neglected for a long time
Do you have a passion you postponed practicing? That might be the root of your severe stress. I was a voracious reader and fond of movies before I started working. Also, I gave poems and short stories to numerous on- and off-campus publishing houses.
I believed that working at the company somehow diminished my creative abilities, so scheduling my time to watch movies, read, and write improved my mood even on the most challenging days. It also helped me feel less stressed in the workplace.
10. Stay off the Internet as much as possible
Do you feel anxious because you are online or aware that you might be called into work at any time? According to a new study titled “Exhausted But Unable To Disconnect,” the expectation of responding to emails outside of working hours increases the pressure.
Liuba Belkin of Lehigh University said: "If an organization devotes a culture of constant communication, it prevents employees from separating their lives from work completely, which ultimately causes them chronic stress."
I acknowledge that as a manager of a real estate firm, I made a mistake when I forced my team to stay in touch around the clock. I sent them text messages or emails regarding sales and customer searches, and I didn't care if they rested at home or vacationed with their families.
I realized later that work had made us all anxious and stressed out. We find it challenging to disconnect at specific times because sales are an ongoing process. However, we had the brilliant idea to request that they send their reports ahead of time so that they can take their vacation. If the salesperson is about to close a deal on a holiday, they must tell me when I should call. We can disregard other contacts after we close the deal.
11. Walk as much as you can
Walking has therapeutic effects. Did you know walking for 10 minutes is as good for your mind and body as exercising for 45 minutes? Whenever I feel exhausted from too much activity, I put on walking shoes and walk around the neighborhood, for walking is a powerful symbolism for me. I forget my fears more and more with each step I take, then I enjoy a cup of hot tea and listen to soothing music, this is what I do before I return to my hard work.
12. Live the moment
"The only thing that matters in your journey is the step you take right now," according to German author Eckhart Tolle. I suffered greatly from anxiety for a long time, but until I spoke with a specialist therapist, I had no idea where my irrational fears originated. They urged me to try some treatments, including meditation.
Meditation was not easy at first, and I could not ignore my fears. I usually felt frustrated after the end of the meditation session, but I found my way in the book Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle.
The book involved acquiring the following mindset: Living in the present moment with full awareness. I first began to pay close attention to my surroundings and breathing rhythm, and when I go through a difficult situation, I stop and ask myself: "Do I have a problem at this particular moment?" The answer is often no. According to Tolle, we rarely face a problem in the present, as most of our fears are lurking in the past and the future, and they do not exist.
I ask you to change your lifestyle because, ultimately, you are the captain of your ship. It is said that stress has become the norm in our contemporary society, but we have made it that way on purpose.
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