Stress Accumulates: How to Relieve Stress Throughout Your Busy Day

Isolated stressful events can trigger stress acutely, but for most of us, the bigger problem is the gradual accumulation of stress throughout the day, every day. Your job, your personal life, and even incidental events like getting stuck in traffic can all gradually take their toll on you, eventually adding up to have a significant impact on your well-being.

If you want to stay on top of the stress problem in your life, it’s important to find ways to relieve stress throughout your day, no matter how busy it is.

Here’s how to do it.

Take Breaks

One of the most important things you can do is give yourself breaks. If you’re working a long shift, take an hour for lunch and several 5- to 15-minute breaks throughout the day. If you’re studying, don’t work yourself for too long before taking a few minutes to step away and relax. And if you’re currently in an environment that prohibits or strongly discourages breaks, you might want to consider finding a different line of work. Taking a few minutes to decompress isn’t unproductive; it’s necessary for both productivity and happiness.

Give Yourself Mini Luxuries

You can also give yourself mini luxuries to enjoy, wherever you feel most stressed. Partaking in these luxuries, even temporarily, can boost your mood and give you a distraction when you’re feeling peak stress levels.

For example, let’s say you work from home; you can upgrade your bathroom with a bidet attachment. Bidet attachments provide the opportunity for a much more pleasant bathroom experience, giving you a moment of comfort and clarity when you take a break from your core assignments.

You could also keep a bowl of candy by your desk, or upgrade your office chair with a back massaging component. Find something that appeals to you, specifically.

Learn to Meditate

Mindfulness meditation is one of the best exercises for dealing with stress. Essentially, all you need to do is focus on the present moment, allowing your thoughts to drift away whenever they naturally arise. There are many techniques that can help you refine this practice, such as deep breathing, and there are many different meditation styles to pursue. Almost all of them can be helpful, though it takes practice to be successful here. Once you master the basics, you’ll be able to call up the power of meditation in almost any scenario.

Get Whatever Exercise You Can

Exercise is one of the best ways to fight stress. It’s also ideal for keeping us in good physical shape and maximizing our lifespans. Ideally, you’ll engage in moderate to vigorous physical activity every day, but a steady workout routine isn’t necessarily going to help you in the moments when you’re feeling the most stressed. You can make up for this by getting whatever exercise you can during your peak stressful times; for example, you can squeeze in some pushups and situps at your desk or go for a walk outside when you need to cool down for a bit.

Practice Attentive Exercises

Attentive exercises, which force your attention on something innocuous, can also take your mind off whatever is stressing you out. For example, you can practice deep breathing, use counting exercises, or even work on simple word and number puzzles to occupy your mind.

Journal

Journaling is an excellent tool for stress management, and for a few different reasons. For starters, it helps you clarify and process your emotions. It also helps you compartmentalize some of your stresses and worries, so you can recontextualize them. It also helps you track your feelings of stress as they develop over time; are you on a trajectory of feeling more stress or less stress?

Talk to People You Love/Like

Human beings are social animals, and we generally feel less stressed when socializing in comfortable, familiar settings. That’s why it’s a good idea to talk to people you love on your stressful days; even a quick, friendly round of small talk with a good friend can be enough to make your stress melt.

Recognize Your Biggest Stressors and Eliminate Them

Throughout the day, you’ll notice the things that stress you out the most. To the extent you can, recognize these stressors and work to eliminate or mitigate them. This could mean anything from changing your commute to requesting new responsibilities at work – or even avoiding certain individuals.

If not properly managed, stress has the power to hurt or even kill you. But as you now know, there are many simple, accessible strategies that can keep stress at bay, even on your most stressful, challenging days. As long as you’re willing to acknowledge and proactively deal with your stress, you can keep it from taking over your life.