In this day and age stress is so prevalent that a lot of people don’t even realise they shouldn’t have it. It’s possible you even think it’s a good thing – that you “thrive on stress”. But if it goes on too long it can become a constant background pressure that will be bad for your health, your relationships and the quality of your work.
Fortunately, reducing stress isn’t actually that hard. By taking even a couple of these steps you can give yourself a little bit of room to breathe and you’ll be amazed how good it feels.
Cut Everything Off
It used to be you got up, went to work, did your job and came home. Sometimes you might have some work to take home with you, but once you had it done you could relax.
Then we got mobile phones, and the Internet, and the Internet on mobile phones and suddenly you were never not plugged in. If you’re the sort of person who finds yourself absently checking your mail on your iPhone when you’re meant to be chilling out and watching TV, this may be your problem.
So stop. For at least a couple of hours every day, just turn off your mobile phone and step away from the computer. At first this might actually increase your stress – that’s called cold turkey. Keep at it.
Avoid Driving
Are you one of those people who’s perfectly amiable and friendly right until you’re sat behind the wheel of a car, when you start swearing and cursing and concocting violent deaths for the other road users in your way?
For some reason driving just tends to bring out the worst in us. Try taking it out of the equation for a while. You can find decent chauffeurs in Sussex or cab drivers in London, even public transport can give you some much needed time to sit quietly and be still for a little while.
You’ll find it helps.
Turn Off the News
Even if you turn your phone off, you may be the sort of person who likes to stay up to date on what’s going on in the world. You know what’s going on in the world? Wars, famines, natural disasters, austerity measures, hacking scandals, basically, unless you tune in for the novelty animal stories at the end, it’s a very depressing thing to watch. And just as mobile phones let work chase you home, in this day and age the news is always on.
Try taking a week to just cut yourself off from that for seven days. It’ll all still be going on when you get back.
Find Someone to Talk to
A lot of people get very worried when you talk about speaking to a counsellor or therapist, because they mistakenly think it’s a sign of weakness, or feel like their problems aren’t serious enough to warrant talking to a counsellor over. However, therapists are able to help with a whole range of problems. If you go to a therapist in North West London it will give you a chance to talk purely about yourself, your feelings and your problems without any fear of being judged.
Therapy doesn’t offer any magical solutions, but sometimes even admitting to someone else, or yourself, how much pressure you are under can be enough to take some of the weight off.
Liam Walters is a freelance writer and blogger who works with Premier Travel Chauffeurs.