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5 Things You Can Do Right Now to Slash Stress
It’s time to stop stressing about your stress level and take action
For months now I’ve been stressing and complaining a lot over… stress. Deadlines to meet, people to serve, negative tweets I can’t not read, all the political noise and the Covid fears… and, you know, the politics of Covid fears. I know I’m not alone, and I recognize that a lot of you have it way worse than me. But who hasn’t felt some of the telltale symptoms of stress lately, the overwhelming sense of dread, emotional numbness, or utter exhaustion under the weight of it all?
I’m so stressed that I forgot I wrote about the science of stress and some common and uncommon stressbusters back in April. I found that article while searching the topic in researching this article, and it includes what I consider, frankly, to be some really hard things like “laugh a little” and “think positively.” Good advice, me, but… hard to follow, sometimes.
The thing is, we all know the most obvious, helpful, and doable things we should or could do to temper our anxiety. We just don’t do them. Sure, some of the stressors are out of our hands (or, more accurately, dropped into our laps): kids at home learning remotely, sick selves or dying loved ones, unpaid bills, Zoom calls, so, so, so many Zoom calls.
But there are ways we can exert control right now.
Ignore some stuff
You know what I mean. We all take in way too much negative stuff each day, particularly via social media with all the news — real or not — in our phones.
Back before the invention of the beloved and dastardly interwebs, the end of the workday meant a half-hour of the evening news, tearing open a bit of junk snail mail, dinner around the table with real live humans, then perhaps a sitcom or a game of Yahtzee. Someone might call, and the entire household could totally ignore the ringing of the lone phone in the kitchen, or let the eager kids answer it.
