11 things to consider when you’re stressed out

I’ve heard of several people who’ve been impacted by Shingles in the past year or so.  It’s no surprise given we’ve endured probably one of the most uncertain times in our living history these past two years.  With cost-of-living pressures mounting because of war in the Ukraine, it’s not getting easier.

Add the pressures of children, families, conflict in any realm of life, and the incessant pace of life, and life’s inherent unpredictability, without mentioning loss in all its extremes, and there’s a cocktail right there for life-challenging and life-changing stress.

Here are some practices I’ve adopted over the years:

1.             Find activities to look forward to.  If we have three or four things in any one week that we’re looking forward to, stress is immediately reduced.  Doing this well is about being mindful ahead of time with what consists of your week.

2.             Plan for periods of time that are yours.  It’s not selfish to plan time to ourselves, it’s truly what we need.  Over the years even getting 10 minutes alone in the toilet has at times been just what I needed.

3.             Do one kind thing a day, just because you can.  Exercising choice once again is empowering.  Yet the true wisdom is simply in that boomerang blessing—bless others and look what comes back.  It’s not why we do it, but there’s a wisdom about it.

4.             Consider everything a small thing.  The truth in the saying “don’t sweat the small stuff,” is, it’s all small stuff.  When even the big stuff is considered little, we gain a tremendous perspective.  And a smile is possible in almost every circumstance.  This is one thing that grief teaches us; life only kills us once in grief when we’ve grieved fully on the first occasion. 

5.             Make time for the most important relationships—get those right.  It’s worth the effort to get our closest relationships right, as far as it depends on us.  It’s worth the investment because good relationship outcomes reduce stress.  This is about giving without the expectation of receiving anything at all.

6.             Find a mentor, counsellor or friend who can hold you.  This is about having the support we need.  Most of us will require two or three of these.  We can’t sustain stressful situations in life without caring support.

7.             Apologise well.  I mean it.  Like with point 6, it saves us stress if we can simply own what is ours in conflict to own—what we didn’t do so well.

8.             Exercise.  There, I said it.  One thing I’ve learned in doing vigorous exercise for the past 35 years of my life is the simple satisfaction of having achieved something, plus there’s the endorphin rush that’s like no other high.  Push through the pain and keep aiming high in exercise goals.

9.             Sleep and eat well.  Simply the extension of point 8 for wholesome wellbeing.  Both directly impact mental health for good!

10.          Set goals and stay active.  There’s nothing quite like achieving what we ourselves set out to achieve to reduce stress.  But they must be OUR goals, not someone else’s.

11.          Don’t accept that mental ill health is a final destination.  In the journey of life, we’ll all rub up against disappointment, discouragement, despair, despondency and many D words and others like it.  It’s all part of the journey.  But so too is joy and hope and peace.  Mental ill health is there to be experienced so we can learn from it and grow.  Mental health challenges are unique opportunities to learn more about ourselves.