Tips to Ease Your Mind
We encounter all sorts of stressful situations in our lives on a regular basis. Sometimes we don’t even realize how stressful something is until we are away from it for a while and find ourselves breathing a sigh of relief. Whether it’s a
particular person or persons, a job, a home situation, financial matters, or certain physiological, psychological or environmental factors, there are numerous aspects of our lives that can stress us out. Finding ways to ease your mind can be critical to maintaining your mental and physical health. Here are a few easy tips to help you ease your mind when it feels as if the entire world is pressing down on you.
Know Your Stress Factors
We all have those certain buttons that can be pushed and tend to send us over the edge. Recognizing and understanding what these pressure points are can help you to better combat your stresses and ease your mind. Identifying what stresses you out can be a necessary step in being able to find fixes to these situations or avoid them altogether.
Timing
Sometimes timing is a serious source of stress. Whether it is the time of year (i.e. winter) or even a particular time of day (morning rush hour or when you’re trying to fall asleep), knowing the times that stress you out the most can help you better prepare for them and possibly take steps to avoid them.
Environment
Certain environments can lead to more stress being packed upon you. Long periods of time in dark, drab, and dreary environments or windowless offices can leave you feeling more stressed than usual. Sometimes all it takes is getting outside for some fresh air and a little sunlight to get you back on the right page.
Quick Fixes
Most of us probably have things that can help take our minds off our troubles. These activities don’t always have to be real mindblowers. They could be as simple as a particular television show, movie, video game, or sport or physical activity that takes you away from it all and lifts that burden of stress.
Food Factors
Many people look at the consumption of food as way to de-stress. However, eating unhealthy food in an effort to avoid stress or make yourself feel better could actually make you feel worse. Not only can such food be physically unhealthy, but the fact that you understand its affects and know it is bad for you can lead to further stress and guilt about your actions. So it could be better to avoid the temptation altogether.
People Issues
Friends and family can at times be crucial factors in helping you to reduce stress, but at other times may actually add stress too. Knowing when and how to deal with certain people and when you just need some alone time may help to ease your mind.
Organize Your Day
It could only take five minutes at the start of your day to jot down a to-do list of all the things you need to accomplish. While seeing all these activities in writing could be somewhat stressful, having them down on paper where you can tick them off one at a time might actually relieve some stress and keep you better organized throughout your day.
Communication
Talking with a spouse, children, other family members, friends, or co-workers can help you to avoid stressful situations. It often only takes a couple of minutes to effectively communicate thoughts and ideas to others. Doing so can reduce the chances that these people won’t be on the same page with you and help avoid mistakes that could take much longer to resolve and result in more stress due to lack of communication.
Conclusion
Everyone is different when it comes to what stresses them out and what puts them at ease. Being able to recognize the factors that affect you and add stress to your life can help you to better combat them. Sometimes all it takes are simple actions to relieve or rectify your stressors, and being able to pinpoint these regular stress factors may even allow you to avoid them altogether.
Jamie enjoys writing about the different ways to manage life’s challenges. She is a college professor and a licensed counselor in Houston. Jamie has been helping women and adolescent girls deal with depression, anger, grief and more for nearly a decade.
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Karla,
Great suggestions here, and a subject that everyone can relate to. Some of the things that really struck me in your post were the environment related sources of stress. I moved from Massachusetts to Florida a couple of years ago and have found that my stress level has decreased significantly in the winter. The cold weather and grey skies were always a source of stress for me.
As you’ve said here, it’s important for us to be able to identify the things that trigger our stress levels, and to take corrective action. Thanks, great post!
Kathy Jodrey
Karla, I hadn’t thought of this before, but reading your article reminded me how I love to Organize by writing down all the things I need to accomplish in a day . . . or week. That really is very, very stress relieving. I’m going to recommend this method to some friends who really to need this remedy.