Nine everyday actions to help you manage stress

Managing stress is usually associated with just reducing the physiological response to stress. However, when you’re f*cked to bits, you don’t just want to not have stress you want to go back to feeling good .

Six months into my stress journey I was proper destroyed. It was 2 weeks from when I got settled again for my heart rate and blood pressure to even nudge down, and bit longer for my head to come down from its alarm state and frantic thought patterns. At this time i started to think about getting actively involved with recovery — and i hit the books around stress management.

I found a lot of references to stress buckets — “Don’t over fill it” they said. Meditate to lower stress, they said. No thanks. Low or lack of stress doesn’t mean i’ll feel good again. It’s assumed as an intrinsic consequence, but after being drained for months, i doubted that just not having stress would be enough.

So my understanding of stress went from buckets to levels, and my approach to recovery was to lower the bad-vibe-o-meter, raise the good vibe marker to build stress resilience - and it had the caveat that it had to be done without additional effort on my side.

Here’s where i landed. My top 10 lifestyle pro-tips to reducing stress and increasing feelings of wellness:

1. Sleep. Getting enough rest helps reduce anxiety by a metric f***ton percent. Sleeping will be hard when under chronic stress, staying asleep will be even harder — but the important bit is getting through and start resetting your sleeping pattern. There’s herbal pills, teas, sleep time rituals, melatonin, try whatever works. Your sleep pattern can possibly normalise in as little as a week. If you can only do one thing on this list, do this. You’ll feel much much better. Nutralife’s Magnesium sleep are prime.
2. Get into a routine. Routine has a bad rep, but lack of routine, or uncertainty about the future adds a lot of stress and anxiety. Knowing what’s happening ahead can help you plan, get off the mental alert response and into a happier state of mind. Try and plan your day in blocks and stick to it, at least for a bit.
3. Eat vegetables & fruits. I’m not your mother, but fruit/veg intake adds micros to your diet as well as antioxidants that improve your sense of wellbeing — and if you feel well, you’ll get less stressed out.
4. Food properly. You know how they say when you feel you hate everyone you’re hungry, when everyone hates you you’re tired? Staying well and properly fed will help you feel less crabby, more energetic and in a positive state of mind. Stress can affect hunger though, if yours disappears you’re in for a bad time — hot tip: yum things increase appetite, try going for things you enjoy until appetite is reestablished.
5. Don’t eat and work. Dedicated eating time during which you’re not working can increase the pleasure response from feeding. More pleasure means less stress. Other things around it such as socialising and just plain not working gives you a mental break from your stressors, too.
6. Water. Dehydration makes you feel down. The more time you can spend in a state of feeling good, the more your perception of stress will diminish. Drink your fluids in any non-caloric drink you like.
7. Stop pushing past your limit. Yeah, sometimes just be tired, it’s fine. Accept it, put down the caffeine and crash. Grinding at the gears without the necessary juice increases mental and physical fatigue leading to reduced feelings of wellness for longer because you’re overreaching.
8. Give yourself an actual break. A wild night to unwind, right? Not at all, adding the physical stress of recovery from alcohol, smoking or others and then sleep deprivation to general stress will overflow your stress bucket. Give yourself some wholesome recovery activities instead if you’re under chronic stress.
9. Get yourself something to look forward to. Find one thing that makes you happy and do it daily, or book a trip in the near future, or find an experience, or set a goal. Anything that can help you think ahead of your current stressful moment and snap you into the good times ahead.
10. Ceci n’est pas un exercise. This isn’t an exercise post, but it helps. I hear.

You can pepper in all the yoga, aromatherapy or meditation you like if that helps you. In stress management the approach needs to be personalised to your stress tolerance and what gives you feelings of wellness as well as stack stress-relief habits on to the above to help you cope better.

If you’re undergoing a lot of stress or have difficulty coping with your current levels, you can also get support through Mindspot or the Blackdog Institute.