How to reduce stress

As someone that has done self-organized studying for several of my certificates and leads a team of people for a nonprofit, my permanent goal is to reduce stress in my life. That is why I wanted to share with you all my little tips for how to reduce stress today. These are questions I automatically ask myself whenever I’m overwhelmed.

What can you make easier in your life?

Human brains tend to make stuff more complicated than it has to be and if we don’t keep that in check it can add a lot of extra stress to our lives. Maybe there are also things in your life where you could ask for help from others. That can be housework, a habit that needs more accountability or a work task you cannot get done by a deadline without burning yourself out. Maybe working in batches could help you when it comes to work tasks, life admin or meals.

What can you stop doing?

Is there something you do that is not important and not adding much positive effects to your life? Get rid of it for now, even if it is something like meditating in the morning. If it doesn’t add to your life and actually stresses you out, then discontinue that part of your routine for a while. Maybe you also worry a lot and could just journal about the worry to analyze it once and for all and have a reference point to stop the thought if it comes back. Maybe there are life projects that simply don’t take center stage right now and should be put aside during your stressful time right now.

What can you ask for help for?

Like I mentioned above you should find things that make your life easier and then you can figure out for which ones you can ask for outside help. Maybe you’re struggling with getting a project done on time and need to ask help from someone you work with or need to extend the deadline. Or you struggle with checking in with others and can ask them to be the ones checking in with you (that can be a hard lesson for who real friends are by the way). Maybe you can even afford someone to help you with some household chores and that can get rid of extra stress.

Which habits help you reduce stress?

Figuring out which habits in your life reduce your stress and which ones stress you out because you have to push yourself to do them is very important. For many, meditation can feel like a chore, but a morning walk can help them clear their mind in the morning. For some, working out in the morning is ruining their energy for the rest of their day and they should switch it to the evening. Some people find peace from journaling, others need a friend to talk to for the same results.

Prioritize your goals and tasks

If we don’t know what our priorities are, we will be overwhelmed and concentrating will be hard for us, even more so if we are neurodivergent. Prioritizing can be hard in very stressful times. Sometimes we need a full pro and con list to figure out which things will have the most impact or are the most important to us. At the end of the day you should have top goals and your daily tasks should also be ranked by priority. That doesn’t mean the hardest task needs to be done first, that doesn’t work for everyone.

Make a Low Energy Self Care list for yourself

We all have low energy days and weeks and having a low energy version of our most essential tasks at hand can be super helpful for both our self care, as well as tasks that are necessary to be done daily or weekly. Maybe you can’t work our on a day like that, but you can stretch. If you can’t journal on a day like that, you can write a one liner about how you feel. Maybe you can’t meditate that day, but do some breathing exercises. If you can’t clean on a bad day, you can at least wipe down necessary areas.

Those are my tips for how to reduce stress. As you can see a lot of big energy shifts come from tiny changes and progress and rest can still fit into a low energy day. Especially when stressed we tend to forget our needs and fall deeper into stress. I made a little eBook about fulfilling your own needs for my email subscribers to tackle exactly that. Go check it out now:

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How to reduce stress by Rabea