One thing which everyone can admit to being guilty of is letting stress get the better of them. Here at Mankind, we know how easy it is to get caught up in the moment and end up stressing over daily activities which aren’t worth worrying about and letting stress affect your eating, sleeping and thinking habits. To help you out, we’re providing our top tips for stress management so you can be the very best you can be. Besides, being able to relax is something that is often taken for granted and is essential for healthy well-being.
Stress Journal
The first step to conquering stress is figuring out what makes you stress the most and how you usually decide to deal with it. Start by making notes of what situations make you feel stressed and keep a list of the things which you do to try and cope with it. You’ll probably find this list will end up looking a little bit like this;
- Boosting daily caffeine intake
- Smoking
- Emotional eating
- Compulsive spending
- Ignoring your feelings
- Turning into a couch potato
If your list of things you do to cope with stress contain things like this then you’re definitely dealing with it wrong. Instead of turning to these typical responses, there are many other ways to deal with stress which are much healthier and useful in the long run.
Exercise
As mentioned previously, a typical response to stress is to ‘turn into a couch potato’. Deciding to mope around on the sofa watching TV stuffing your face with junk food may feel like the best option right now, but opt to go for a bike ride, run, walk or trip to the local gym or swimming pool instead. Using exercise as stress management will make you feel 10x better afterwards due to the release of feel-good hormone serotonin caused by physical activity.
Be Social
When you’re feeling particularly stressed, it’s quite natural to withdraw from other people such as friends and family. Even though you may feel that being away from other people will make you feel better, spending time socialising and interacting will take your mind off of the cause of the stress to help you manage it a lot better. You’ll also get to spend some time with the people close to you who you don’t tend to see because of your busy lives.
Take a Bath
Bathing is incredibly soothing and can literally melt away some of the stress which is affecting you. For an extra boost to help you with stress management, add a few drops of Mio Skincare Liquid Yoga Bath Soak and breathe in the scent to calm yourself and let your skin receive extra moisture and hydration.
Avoid Unnecessary Stress
Sometimes, stress is made worse by having more stress built up on top of it. Luckily, a lot of the time, this extra stress is unnecessary and avoidable and you just need to learn the tricks to keep it at bay. Learning how to say no to certain tasks is an incredibly valuable skill, ensuring you don’t end up making a plateful of tasks for yourself when in reality, you could have said no to completing half of them with no consequences. As much as you may enjoy being able to help others out, spreading yourself too thin doesn’t help with stress management and only contributes to worsened stress levels.
Time Management Tips
To expand on our last point, unnecessary stress can be caused by poor time management. Stress management and time management go hand in hand and being set a task and forgetting about it until a day before it’s due to be completed instantly heightens your stress, stopping you from being able to work effectively. Using some of our time management tips will help you to keep your time organised and prevent sudden increases in stress due to lack of time management.
Top Time Management Tips
One thing which we all know we could do better at is time management. Whether it be to go out and do the shopping, keep up to date with tasks at work or stay on top of home tasks, sometimes it seems too difficult to manage.
Accept Things
It is extremely common to stress about things which are out of your control and cannot be changed. Rather than stressing about these things, learn to accept that they are out of your control and let go of any tension you’re holding because of it. Making sure to not bottle up any emotions about any issues and accepting that they are present is also huge step for stress management and can really boost your mood. Just ensure to concentrate on the positives and don’t let the negatives drag you down.
Make Relaxation Time
We often take relaxation time for granted and be so caught up in our daily schedules that we haven’t had any time to relax in weeks. When you make yourself a schedule to manage your day, ensure to put in time to just take a breather and have an effective time relaxing properly. Take this time to catch up on your favourite shows, get a well-deserved nap or anything else you fancy before delving back into work.
How do you deal with stress? Have you tried any of our stress management tips yet?
Let us know over on Twitter at @MankindCoUk!
