If you’re feeling the stress of work, family commitments and more, experiment with these tried and tested tips to alleviate your stress this week.
This post is all about 6 Simple Tips To Alleviate Your Stress
1. Prioritize sleep
I know it’s annoying to hear but getting enough sleep is essential in alleviating stress.
Start with establishing a rough night routine. Try and give yourself at least an hour before getting into bed to calm down, relax a little, and feel prepared for the next day.
Things you can do during this hour could include: doing a short tidy up of your bedroom and one other main room, a shower, a simple skincare routine, teeth brushing and reading in bed.
One especially useful thing you can do before sleep is writing a to do list for the next day. It’ll probably make it much easier to fall asleep.
2. Prioritize movement
I can’t emphasis this one enough… getting movement in is essential for stress reduction. I’m not saying that a workout will solve your problems, but it will get those problems into perspective. Trust me.
When I’m planning my week on the Friday before, I schedule everything around a workout. I only challenge myself to 25 minutes minimum of movement every day, because that’s a doable goal.
You do NOT have to spend money to workout. Take a walk. Take a walk with a little running sprinkled into it. Find out if there are any out door gyms in nearby local parks. Go on a hike. Do a HIIT workout on YouTube – I did those almost every day when I was traveling for three months.
If it’s in your budget to spend money on a workout, I recommend ClassPass. You can pick and choose classes and keep things new and interesting — I think that helps HUGELY in motivating you to take the class. Plus, ClassPass charges you a cancellation or no-show fee, so it holds you accountable.
Personally, I definitely like to keep my workouts varied — I rarely do the same one two days in a row. Currently, I do about two ballet classes per week, two gym sessions, and two hot yoga classes. Then for one day a week, I’m either having a rest day or I’ll do something low impact like a walk.
3. Plan (some!) of your meals
I’m not a massive fan of insanely organized meal prep. I think it causes more stress than it’s worth…
However, the reality is that a lack of food prep normally creates stress, disruption to your day and higher costs of food. We don’t need that in our lives.
Instead, how about starting small? My mum always reminds me to take large tasks and chunk them up into verrryyyy small tasks. One. thing. at. a. time.
For example, if you’re crazy busy, why not plan just your snacks and breakfasts?
The next week, you could try planning snacks, breakfasts and a couple of dinners?
See what happens when you set the bar low. Get into a routine of implementing a small amount of meal prep and see how you go!
4. Consume nutritious food and drink
I absolutely love to bake. If you’ve followed any of my baking recipes, you know this!
That being said, I make sure to consume nutritious food too, because it’ll increase my energy.
When you’re eating a balanced diet, there’s no doubt that you’re going to feel more able to manage your stress.
5. Avoid cancelling social events
It’s really tempting when you’re overwhelmed to cancel all the “fun” stuff in your planner.
But take it from me, it only pushes you further into a stress spiral.
Seeing your friends, or even just being around another people, helps you get perspective. If you’re around good people, they’ll provide a healthy distraction and vice versa.
6. When in doubt, call it day
Sometimes when you’re having a busy work period, or you’re running from one errand to the next, you get into that work flow state. There’s nothing wrong with that, but eventually your body needs to call it a day and rest.
Sometimes I’ll tell myself I can do just one more hour of exam prep, or one more email. But in reality, I know I’m done mentally and physically.
When you feel you’re lagging, it’s best to call it quits and deal with it tomorrow.