Try these 6 easy stress-reducing tips.
While it’s obvious that negative life changes lead to stress, psychologists have found the positive changes load up our stress levels as well. According to one well-known scale, experiencing outstanding personal achievement is more stressful than having trouble with your boss or taking on a mortgage.
Maybe that’s why the entrepreneurial set is prone to panic attacks: Whether we’re going through the trough of sorrow or peak experiences, the volatility we invite into our lives can be tough to deal with.
These six easy steps just might be what the doctor ordered:
- Step away from the Internet
We knew our phones were stifling our creativity. Turns out they’re taking our well-being, too: British studies suggest that the more time you spend combing through social media on your devices, the more likely you are to feel anxious and overwhelmed. So put the phone down. Get away from the computer. Come on now!
- Mind your diet
Yogurt reduces stress – really. Also, taking the right vitamins can help too: Dietary inadequacies cause a decline in the function of enzymes, which can cumulatively influence our mood states. Vitamins and minerals come to the rescue by regulating biochemical processes in the brain that affect mood.
- Mind your mind
Turns out that anxiety is often just your mind wandering around. To be less anxious, then, we can learn to train it, same as we’d train a puppy.
- Build your relationships
A gigantic body of research links the quality of our relationships to the quality of our physical and emotional health. The more we invest in our relationships, says social science, the more resilient we become.
- Listen to music
Your playlist can make you more productive. And gentle songs can soothe a savage pain receptor.
- Get some exercise
As John Coates notes in The Hour Between Dog and Wolf, the amount of exercise you get predicts the amount of emotional discomfort you can handle. So that’s another reason we all need to work out – luckily it only takes seven minutes.
Ready. Set. Pause. Make you and your workplace work (and feel) better.