I am going to discuss 18 important steps to reduce stress. Is that too many? Well, every one of them is important. Stress is a challenging problem and we need to address it seriously.
Life is Stressful
Sometimes life gives us intense stress, we lose our job, or have huge losses in the stock market, we go through a divorce or face health challenges.
At other times, stress is there under the covers. We do not like our boss or coworkers or office politics, but we cannot leave our job. We have stress in our family relationships. We are frustrated with life because we want to buy that car or house or achieve something, but we are not able to do it.
Is Stress a Part of Life?
Most of us live with stress and accept it. We do not address it. We do not work on remedying it. We think stress is just a part of life.
Stress Affects Us Deeply
But make no mistake, stress affects us deeply. It shows up in our behavior.
You could invite your boss home and he/she could be very sociable. At work, however, something small could trigger a sharp response. It can stun you and ruin the relationship with your boss.
If you look at road rage, it is often people who have lost their mind to stress.
Stress Reduces the Quality of Life
Stress affects our health. It affects our attitude and personality. It can make us irritable and less friendly.
Stress makes us less trusting and more rigid. Stress affects our decision making, focus, and the ability to succeed.
It affects our outlook and perspective on life. Stress affects our success, our relationships, and our happiness.
We do not realize it, but stress reduces our quality of life. Stress stops us from experiencing life in the best manner. It keeps us from living our special moments.
At the end of life, it will not matter how much stress we had in life, what will matter to us then is the memories of life’s moments. If we let stress rob us of those moments, we would have committed the biggest crime against our own life.
Most importantly, stress affects our peace of mind. Peace of mind is the greatest wealth in the world.
Take Stress Seriously
We must address stress head-on. Please take it seriously. Stress and Anxiety are like termites. They eat us from within without us even realizing it.
To say it dramatically, stress is like cancer, or to be less dramatic, stress is like a thorn in your shoe.
We must understand what stress is, why we get stress, and how to reduce stress. It makes no sense to let stress undermine our life.
Sources of Stress
There are several sources of stress.
First, the challenging situations we face in life can generate a lot of stress. Life can be very difficult at times. Second, we live in a culture and society that is wired to increase stress. Which leads to the third source of stress — self-induced pressure. Many times, we are responsible for generating our own stress.
Why is Stress Generated?
Why is stress generated? Stress is generated because of fear, we are afraid of losing something we have — it may be money, health, our house, our relationship. Or, we desire something, and we are afraid we will not get it. It may be a promotion, a job, success, a life partner.
We all want a perfect life and we want life to go exactly the way we want. When things do not go our way, or when it looks like things will not go our way, when people do not do things in the way we expect, our stress increases.
Stress is generated because we are in a contest with life. We either do not like the direction in which life is moving or the fact it’s not moving fast enough. At other times, we are frustrated because we do not know which direction life is moving, it seems to have stalled.
We generate stress because life is not living up to our expectations. We have dissatisfaction and discontent.
Chronic Stress
The problem with stress is that it is not a passing phenomenon. Stress is not there for a day or a week. Stress exists for years and decades. It becomes part and parcel of life. That is when it becomes chronic stress. Chronic stress is a serious problem for our health and well-being.
Anxiety
When we experience intense stress for an extended period, it turns into anxiety. Anxiety is the subconscious mind’s succumbing to stress. Anxiety is involuntary, it is no longer in the domain of the conscious mind. The conscious mind might try and reason with it, but anxiety has a life of its own. Do not allow stress to bother you to the extent and the duration where it turns into anxiety.
Seek Professional Help
Before we go further, if you are experiencing serious bouts of anxiety and stress please seek help from medical professionals, and the help of people you trust.
Advice for Self
If I had some advice to give my younger self and even my current self, it would be to quit the worrying and stress. Enjoy, relish life. Be in the present moment.
We need constant reminders to relax, to reduce stress’s hold on us and SMILE.
Reducing Stress — How do we deal with Stress?
So, what can we do to reduce stress?
Let’s discuss how we can change our thinking and perspective to deal with stress. And, the actions we need to take to loosen stress’s hold on us.
I am going to share 18 steps and techniques to reduce stress. Actually, there can be a lot more techniques, but let’s stick to these 18 for today.
1. Acknowledge you have Stress
If you have something actively disturbing you, you already know you are under stress, however, many times, we are unaware. We do not even realize how stressed we are.
We are like school kids carrying around backpacks with very heavy books. After a while, we do not even stop to ask ourselves why we are carrying around that weight. The first step in dealing with stress is to recognize it, acknowledge it exists. To not be oblivious to it.
Do this simple test. Stop for a few minutes and reflect calmly. Do you feel stressed? Make sure you ask the question sincerely. Do not be superfluous in your asking.
When you slow down and check on yourself, if you are stressed, you will feel it. Your mind and your body, your breathing will tell you. The pressure on your forehead and your temples will tell you. The weight on your shoulders or the tightness in your gut will tell you.
Many times, things bother us, we feel the tension in our body, but do not acknowledge to ourselves we are under stress. If we must address stress, we must start by clearly recognizing we have stress.
Lot of addicts never realize they have an addiction.
Sometimes we think we are very strong, and we can take all the stress. Recognize you are not a superhero and acknowledge stress’s impact on you.
2. Accept the situation
If we want to reduce stress, we must start by accepting the situation. Life is full of times when things go bad, sometimes really bad. We need to accept things have gone bad.
When we resist the situation, when we resist the facts, it increases our stress, because we are fighting with reality. All our energy is consumed by resisting and fighting the facts.
Accept the situation. It’s okay to tell yourself, this is a terrible situation and I hate it, I wish it were different!
Acknowledge that the situation is bad. Then tell yourself — “I need to move forward.”
When you give up the resistance, the push back, it allows you to relax your nerves. At that point, your stress begins to climb down.
Calming your mind allows you to become productive and initiate the process of finding solutions to the problems. Now, your energy and your being can be productively redirected.
Watch for the sadness trap. When you accept reality, make sure you do not swing into a state of giving up. The idea of accepting reality is to prepare you to start a new journey. Think about what you need to do going forward, instead of spending your thoughts on what has happened.
Granted, what you need to do to get back up may seem daunting, and even insurmountable. Do not worry about how steep the climb will be. All you must do is take the first step, and then take the second, and go on.
3. Affirmation/Determination
Once you acknowledge you have stress and accept the situation, it is time for positive affirmation and determination.
Take three deep breaths. Then say to yourself, “I will take care of this.”
Say to yourself, “I want to be peaceful.” Repeat it to yourself many times. It may seem superfluous, but the fact is our subconscious begins to believe the things we say. If we repeat to ourselves, “I am peaceful,” “I want to be peaceful,” the subconscious starts becoming peaceful.
4. Share your Problems and Ask for Help
One reason stress and anxiety become a problem is that we don’t like discussing it. Stress is personal.
We share our success with people, but not our problems. Stress is not something we share or disclose to family or friends. We do not even share it with our spouse or partner. We tend to keep it bottled up. We are private about stress, which is why stress becomes a bigger problem.
I don’t know if it is our sense of pride or ego, we do not like to admit to others we have high levels of anxiety. Often times we do not want to admit it to ourselves that we have anxiety.
Acknowledge to your loved ones you have stress — it is amazing how much we hide from our own loved ones. Make sure they understand this is a serious situation, so they don’t laugh it away or take it lightly.
Ask help from people who can comfort you without judging you, people who you trust. People who can become your pillars, giving your subconscious mind a chance to work through its anxieties. Then you can overcome your anxiety and return to your productive self.
5. Distance yourself from the situation
Distance yourself from the situation. Give yourself a break. Step away if you are able to.
You may have someone who is very sick, yet it is important to take a break, so you can step back, recover a little, and think clearly about how to proceed. Being overwhelmed by the situation kills our thinking power.
If you are invested in the stock market and the markets are very volatile, close the TV or computer for a little while and focus on what is your strategy.
If you have lost your job and are unable to find another one, take a break and think about what you want from life. Perhaps you might discover that another path awaits you.
If work is the source of stress, then take a vacation, even though you might feel that is counter-productive, try it. Many times giving the mind a break can allow it to produce new solutions.
If it is a situation you cannot avoid, still find a way to take a mental break. Then recoup, recover and start doing.
6. Choose your company carefully
Be careful of what company you chose. If you have friends or relatives who are constantly negative, spend less time with them if possible.
Be careful of what you say and what you think. Eliminate negative statements from your day-to-day conversations.
Stay away from watching the news, especially if the news is about a negative event. Watch what you allow to seep into your sub-conscious.
Protect yourself from negative influences, negative information, and negative places and situations.
7. Create positivity
Create positivity around yourself. Say positive things, do positive things, and feel positive.
Repeat this mantra, “I am peace,” as many times as you can and as frequently as you can. Your sub-conscious will hear you and over time it will believe it and it will become a self-fulfilling prophecy. You will find your stress being replaced with peaceful feelings.
When you say positive things, you hear it first. You are the first recipient of your own positivity.
8. Do, Do, Do
The way to overcome stress, the way to overcome a state of despair is to take action. It does not matter how small your actions are, focus on doing.
Endless and needless thinking is the problem. Doing is the solution.
Doing is therapeutic. It is the greatest antidote in the world. When you do even small things, it takes your mind away from thinking about what has happened, what should have happened, what could have happened. It focuses the mind on the task on hand.
The solution to your problems will come from doing — the thousands of small steps that you will need to take. Take those small steps and focus on them.
We cannot change life’s circumstances — life will do what it wants to do. We can, however, chose to respond in the way we want. The best response is doing.
9. Change your perspective on life
Do not let one event or even a series of events define you or your life. Life is much bigger than a single event or even a series of bad events.
I wish life was made of only good moments. The truth is life is made of favorable and unfavorable situations, good and not-so-good moments.
The day we are able to deal with the good and bad times equally will be a powerful day.
Take a birds-eye view of life, then the bumps in the road will seem just part of the journey. Let us all raise our perspective, so we are not inundated by life but learn to ride the waves.
Five years from now, ten years from now, all the current stress will most likely not matter. Do you remember the stress you had five years ago? Even if you can remember it, does it sting as much or trouble as you much now? Similarly, the stress you are facing now will probably not matter as much in the future.
Let us let the river of life take its own course — we can’t always determine where the river will turn next, so let’s do the next best thing and remind ourselves to enjoy the ride.
10. Change your thinking
We need to change our thinking to reduce stress. We are so focused on the outcomes. We want that promotion so much we stop enjoying the work we do. If we really enjoy the work, then the promotion will just be the cherry on the top.
On tests students want the perfect score. If only, the focus was more on learning and enjoying knowledge than the test scores.
If you enjoy the effort, as opposed to constantly worrying about the outcome, your stress will be much lower.
11. Manage your Expectations
Manage your expectations. We want everything to work out perfectly. We want life to work according to our wishes. We want every initiative of ours to be successful. We want everyone else to behave and think the way we want. We want the traffic to clear out when we drive.
Life does not work according to our expectations. Do not become a slave to your expectations. Understand you will succeed at times and fail at times. It’s okay. Your job is to do. Just keep doing and keep your expectations realistic. Be prepared for both — success and failure. Then stress will not grip you as much.
12. Moderate
In life we fall prey to excesses. When we want something, we want the most, we want the best. And then we stretch ourselves beyond our financial capability, or our mental and physical capability.
I have seen so many CEOs push their organization so much that the organization falls apart.
If you remember to moderate, you will not take on unnecessary stress. Do not buy the house that stretches you to the financial extreme. Buy the house where you can be comfortable.
Do not take a high-stress job just for the sake of the money, unless you are absolutely sure you will thrive in that high-stress job. Understand your capabilities and natural rhythm and find jobs and responsibilities that are at the same frequency as you.
If you moderate, stress will never hang around you.
13. Gratitude
If you develop a sense of gratitude, if you actively and consciously express thanks, you will be a more pleasant person and your stress will be lower.
Being grateful reminds you of the things you have accomplished and the things you are fortunate to have. Gratitude protects you from falling into the trap of self-pity and diffidence. Gratitude reduces stress.
14. Help Others
If you can, find some way to help others. You might think, how can I help someone else if I have so many problems. That is the amazing part. If you help others, especially people who have less than you, it can make your problems seem so much lesser.
Helping others can change your perspective and change how big your problems seem to you. Plus, without you realizing it, helping others will leave a positive influence and impact on you.
If you feel you are not capable of helping others — that is never true, we can always help someone else in some manner — at least smile. When you share a smile with others you are helping them feel positive.
15. Make the choice to be happy
We all have the ability to be happy even when the circumstances are challenging. Happiness is a choice.
Sure, there are times that are so devastating that we feel completely defeated and helpless. Only time can help us recover from those situations.
However, the problem is that even when things are not severely bad, we feel terrible and punish ourselves. In those times, it is important to remind ourselves, we can still choose to be happy. We can smile even when things are not going well. We can still be peaceful when the odds are against us. Remember, all your problems and worries are external to you. At your core, you are peace.
Making the choice to be happy will lower your stress.
16. Cultivate Peace
Our lives are so busy. We are constantly “On,” either busy with work and family chores or consuming electronic media. Our mind is always busy. We do not give our minds the chance to slow down.
The constant stimulus keeps our mind on the edge all the time. Dedicate time to calm the mind.
If you have to close the door to your office so you can work uninterrupted do so. Hang a sign on your cubicle that says quiet time or “please do not interrupt” time.
Take a break at home from kids, or from friends and relatives. Become peaceful so you can rejuvenate.
Spend time in nature as often as you can, but definitely at least once a week. Every day spend a few minutes to relax by turning off all electronic devices. Give your mind a chance to recuperate.
In my book I discuss mind-purging or recliner exercises.
Giving the mind a chance to relax will reduce your stress.
17. Breathing
If you find you are in stress, conduct simple breathing exercises. As simple as breathing deeply and slowly. Breathing has a huge impact on us and can tell our body and mind to relax.
So please learn breathing techniques and use them to calm yourself. Deep breathing will reduce your stress.
18. Meditate
The most powerful way to combat stress and the ups and downs of life is meditation. Regular meditation can help you become peaceful. Meditation becomes a protector, a guard against life’s challenging situation.
We spend our time to clean our bodies, but we do not spend the time to clean our minds. Meditation helps our mind rest. If through meditation we regularly clean and rest our minds, we will become more resistant to stress. Our behavior, our confidence, our thinking ability will all improve with meditation.
If you do not know how to meditate, please watch my video on Simple Meditation.
Meditation is a gift that all human beings can utilize. Please experience the calmness and peace that exists within you.
Regular and consistent meditation is the ultimate stress-buster.
Conclusion
Please actively guard against stress and take the steps to feel calm and peaceful.
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Peace
At your core, you are peace. Be who you are. Be peace. Be peace…
— By Ravi Kathuria, Author, “Happy Soul. Hungry Mind.”
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