Stress Busters: 5 Sanity-Saving Strategies

Here are five stress triggers and how to stop them.

1. Work Pressures

Change your schedule. When most people get in to work, they check their e-mail and voice mail. Save it for later. Spend your first hour, when you're the sharpest, on creative and strategic thinking. While you're at it, break down your day into specific tasks, rather than trying to juggle everything. Studies now show that a 50-minute task takes four times as long if you juggle too many tasks at once. "Are you a starter of all and finisher of none?" asks Julie Morgenstern, author of Making Work Work. If you can, pick one day a week to leave 30 minutes earlier than usual. "It feels like corporate suicide," Morgenstern says, but allowing yourself that early exit will keep you on deadline and make you hyperfocused to complete jobs more efficiently.

2. Personal Pressures

Change the habit, not the world. Destressing isn't about eliminating all of your stresses; it's about getting control of them, one at a time. To do that, you should make micro-adjustments in your life, not big ones that eventually add more stress, says Stan Goldberg, Ph.D., author of Ready To Learn. "What's important is whatever [changes you make to your routine] need to be small enough so that there is a minimal amount of difference between what you've been doing and what you now do," Dr. Goldberg says. If you're working on being prompt, get to every appointment 5 minutes earlier than normal. Successful change is permanent, not dramatic.


3. Self Care

Eat the anti-stress diet. When you're in stress mode, your insides produce more chemical reactions than Marie Curie's lab and you experience surges of the hormone cortisol and sugar levels that spike and plummet, which can leave you feeling under pressure and sluggish. Counteract those reactions with the right foods, says Elizabeth Somer, R.D., author of The Food & Mood Cookbook. For breakfast, avoid sugary cereals or breakfast bars and eat whole-grain cereal and a piece of fruit. Then pop a vitamin with at least 500 milligrams (mg) of calcium and 250 mg of magnesium. Magnesium, which is flushed out when stress rushes in, helps regulate those cortisol levels. For a snack, the crunch of veggie sticks or carrots helps release a clenched jaw and the tension headache you can get as a result of stress. Before bed, go with a light carbohydrate-rich snack, like toast and jam, to quicken the release of the feel-good hormone serotonin, which will help you sleep better.


4. Losing Personal Power

Always avoid "always". One of the biggest booby traps in your life is over generalizing, first dates never work out, she always gets promotions before me, he always arrives at least 5 minutes late. Unconsciously, using "always" and "never" steers you away from feeling that you have any control over changing the things that stress or worry you, says Daniel Amen, M.D., author of Change Your Brain, Change Your Life.

5. Emotional Symptoms

Schedule your emotions. If we let it, stress can eat away at us like a squirrel with a nut. That constantly worried mentality impedes decision-making, says Susan Nolen-Hoeksema, Ph.D., author of Women Who Think Too Much: How to Break Free of Overthinking and Reclaim Your Life. She suggests you write down what you're worried about, then set aside some quiet time (say 30 minutes) to figure out solutions. That way, worrying won't disrupt your work, and you'll be able to think through the answers.

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Originally published at Prevention.com

Comments

[KillgoreTrout43]

Schedule your emotions???? That's the silliest thing I've heard in a while. Why not just be made into an android?

[Nofoolhere]

Allow me to suggest another source of chronic stress that is not getting the attention it deserves,
the cursed "NANO-SHOT" and relentless CACOPHONIC SOUND. The nano-shot is particularly evident AND OFFENSIVE in the chronic INUNDATION of program commercials.

The "nano-shot" is a frame or short sequence of frames that appears for less than a second or two. It is entirely devoid of creativity. The viewer never gets to see the completion of any specific event. For example, a diver going off of a platform is never seen to strike the water, or even complete an acrobatic movement; dancers never complete their graceful movements; a sign containing written information never appears long enough to comprehend even a short sentence; a sequence of such images do not suggest any communication goal of the message; to watch a football game, one is exposed to crushing closeups between plays consisting of discombobulated heads and shoulders floating across an uncertain context of the playing field as though the director is forcing you to compile a reality determine by him/her.

The CACOPHONIC SOUND consists of grinding growls and shrieks of electronic synthesizers, saxophones, relentless frantic drum beats, and screaming voices.

I plan to reduce my exposure to television by 90 percent by December to eliminate this source of stress. I gave up watching football because of these vile techniques midway through the season for the last three years. I will likely do so again this season, except earlier.

[SearchEngines]

This advice could probably help men as well as women because
many of these tips are universal and practical

[magicmary]

What do you do when you're the one with the good stress reduction skills (organization, efficient problem solving, proper diet etc) and you work with adults who's ADD should have been treated 35 years ago? I work with a guy who has a panic attack everytime some little thing comes up and he panics because he's sooooo disorganized. It's exhausting, I tell ya!

[EliDavidson]

Here are some stress buster tips that I give to my coaching clients as well:
1. Take a 10-30 minute walk
Lunch can be a great time to "Shake What Your Mama Gave You". Smiling while you walk is a fabulous anti-depressant. If you can't get in 30 minutes...do 10 minutes and smile extra big.
2. Set your alarm for Quiet Time.
Sit in silence for at least 10 minutes each day. Breathe and listen to your heart. Buy a clock if you have to.
3. It's Bed Time
Buy a DVR and tape your late night shows. You know I am always recommending to set your alarm to go to bed and get more sleep.
4. It's A Great Day
When you wake up in the morning complete the following statement, 'My intention is to enjoy my life today. Today I will _________ to share my gratitude.'
5. Fun is Free
Make time to have more fun! Play games ( there are some good ones in my book Funky to Fabulous) and of course....read more books than you did in 2007.
You can find more of these great tips at http://www.funkytofabulous.com

[angelwax]

Give me a break. Most women aren't sane in the first place. Why would these help restore sanity one never has had. (Disclaimer, this was just sent in good humor)

[whatsthatsound]

Sanity is overrated, anyway.

[ShelaghC]

"Change your schedule. When most people get in to work, they check their e-mail and voice mail. Save it for later. Spend your first hour, when you're the sharpest, on creative and strategic thinking. "

This presupposes that
a. you have a job that affords the opportunity for creativity on any level and;
b. you don't have a boss that insists you check your voicemail and email first thing in the morning in case he or she has left you something to do immediately upon arriving.

[dartagnan]

"Studies now show that a 50-minute task takes four times as long if you juggle too many tasks at once."

Multitasking: The ability to do several things at once, badly.

[ExRepublican]

6) exercise consistently/lightly, until the day you and I croak. Move and then move some more.

BTW, # 6 should be # 1 on the list.