There’s no such thing as a stress-free life. We’ll each experience it—guaranteed.
Stress is often defined as acute or chronic. Acute stress is the response to an immediate but relatively temporary challenge—for example, an upcoming school exam or a fender bender. Challenges such as these evoke a temporary stress response that will compel you to act. The stress diminishes as you handle the problem.
Chronic stress is a nagging, perpetual sense of anxiety, worry, and negativity that colors your day-to-day life and hinders your physical well-being as well as your ability to improve, grow, and reach for your fullest potential.
We cannot avoid stress in life altogether, but we can reduce it, become better at handling it, and even learn to use it for good. Here are five simple strategies to help you handle stress.
Combat Urgency
Much of the stress we experience stems from a sense of urgency. When everything in life feels urgent, we’re sure to be stressed. To combat stress, you must reduce and mitigate urgency.
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Consider the famous words of Benjamin Franklin: “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” By thinking ahead, doing a little planning, and refining habits and systems, you can greatly diminish the unrelenting sense of urgency and move through life with a bit more grace and momentum.
Be Proactive
Many stressors arise because we’re constantly reacting instead of preparing. When you wait until the last minute, your body goes into emergency mode. You feel rushed, pressured, and overwhelmed. To combat this, plan upstream.
Take time to plan meals a week ahead and schedule bill payments instead of handling them at the last minute. Proactive thinking allows you to feel prepared rather than surprised. A little preparation can prevent a lot of stress.
Set Up Systems
In addition to planning, systems need to be put in place for the many recurring tasks that you manage. Exercising, cleaning, running errands, handling emails, and managing finances are all examples of tasks that are done repeatedly and can be systematized.
A regular daily routine and organization systems can reduce decisions and keep things moving. They’ll soon become as automatic as brushing your teeth.
Leverage Tasks
We often feel stressed because we try to do everything ourselves. But we don’t have to. Whenever possible, delegate or outsource tasks that don’t require your unique skills. This could be anything from household chores to administrative responsibilities.
You might enlist a cleaning service to clean your home, hire a landscaper to mow your lawn, or order grocery delivery. Perhaps you can trade tasks with a family member or friend to help each other. Stress decreases when we stop carrying the world alone.
Nurture Consistently
Stress is easily compounded when you don’t take care of the most important aspects of life. Prioritize solid sleep habits, nourishing food and daily movement, connection with your loved ones, and time spent in spiritual practice. You can’t pour from an empty cup, as they say. To keep stress at bay, you must take care of yourself.
When stress seems to be the norm, it’s a sign you need to step back and make some adjustments to your overall strategies of life. Refining your systems and taking time to be proactive about the various aspects of your life will allow you to do more, be more, and find more peace and clarity.
