A recent survey from the UK mental Health Foundation found that 74% of UK residents felt so stressed over the last year that they could not cope. They felt overwhelmed and unable to handle the situation on their own. This is the kind of stress that leads to mental breakdowns, anxiety attacks, and long-term health issues.
What are you doing to handle the stress in your life? Here are some ways you can take it and keep stress from taking over your life.
1. Take More Breaks
We can get so caught up in our busy work lives that we don’t get the time we need for our bodies and brains to just relax. While it can be dangerous to spend too much time relaxing, as it dulls our mental focus, it can be harmful to not take enough time to relax as well.
Give yourself time to turn off your brain a little bit or detach from the work stress that can permeate your life. If you are one of the many people who work from home or who work off the clock, you may be constantly bombarded with a sense of stress that work could intrude on your life at any time. You may be always thinking about work, even when you aren’t working. Take time to take it easy by watching a video, reading a book, taking a walk, taking a nap, or taking a tea break.
2. Keep Things Organized
Did you know that clutter in your home or workspace can make you feel stressed out? Mental health studies have shown that if you have clutter around you, you are more likely to be unfocused, stressed, agitated, and unproductive. Try cleaning up your home and work area before you try to do any tasks or relax yourself. You may not be able to work well or take time to relax effectively if there is clutter, dust, and dirt around you.
Maybe you don’t have time to clean your home like you wish you could. In those cases, you may want to hire a cleaning service that uses organic supplies to tidy up the place for you and make it look really smart.
Try being more organized and cleaning a little each day to increase productivity and decrease stress. You might be surprised at the difference some cleaning will make in the way you feel.
3. Turn off Electronics
The constant stream of notifications, texts, and calls can add stress to your life. If you don’t have some time in your day where there is absolutely zero risk of being disturbed by a message or notification, then are you really getting time to relax and rest? For some people, it is impossible to relax properly when they know they could be messaged at any time. There is a level of low underlying stress there that they are constantly dealing with, and that can be dangerous to your health.
If you turn off your devices for a while each day, that can have a huge impact on your mental health. Try turning them off for half an hour during the day or keep them off at night. You will rest better, feel less agitated, and give your mind a chance to fully relax.
4. Talk to Someone
If you feel constantly stressed and don’t feel like you can handle your stress, you should get some help. While talking to your friends can be beneficial, you may also want to talk to a health care professional. 16% of those people polled from the survey mentioned at the top of this article said that they attempted self-harm because of their stress. That’s a very serious statistic that you need to take into account when you’re dealing with stress all the time. There may be factors causing stress that could be addressed and treatment for your stress that could help you take control. You should get help before the problem gets out of hand.
5. Spend Time Socializing
One of the best ways to deal with stress is to make sure you’re not alone all the time. Stress is often tied to depression, which becomes worse when people self-isolate. In these times when people are keeping to themselves more, for their own safety or because of the safety of others, it’s important to reach out and spend social time with other people. Socially distancing may be able to protect you from pathogens, but it is often harmful for your stress levels. Having a good time with friends can release endorphins that relieves stress and help you to feel better. By socializing, you’ll think less about your own problems and be less likely to stress out about all of them. It can be really good to have some time communicating with other people so that you don’t feel like you’re dealing with the stress all by yourself. Once you step out of your shell and start to socialize more, you may realize that you have more support and closer friends than you realized.
6. Target and Eliminate Stressors
What’s causing you to feel stressed? That’s something you need to identify, and there could be a large number of things that create stress in your life. It’s important to not just understand what those stressors are but then try to do something about them. For many people, causes of stress in their life include alcohol, cigarettes, and other drugs. For others, it’s toxic people in their workplace, family, or social life. Separating yourselves from these things and giving them up can work wonders on the amount of stress you feel.
Everyone feels stressed from time to time, but if it’s become an overwhelming problem that makes you feel like you can’t cope, you ought to do something about it. Stress is a very real problem and can’t simply be wished away. With the solutions we provided you, you may be able to start reducing the stress in your life.
