Taking a break to relax the mind

I recently attended a stress management workshop which provided me with several tips and techniques for "balancing" your life and managing stress. Here was one of my favorite tips that has worked for me..

Taking breaks throughout your busy days can actually help with relieving stress you may be experiecing! Your body can actually experience high and low work efficiency periods so in the long run, it's more effective to take short breaks throughout the day. With a short break every 90-120 minutes, you'll help rejuvenate the mind and body! Just remember to not let your break go too long or you may find your schedule backed up and more stress!

Here are those other great tips!

     1.  Prioritize: Identify the tasks that are more pressing and the initial steps you need to take to make progress towards completing them. Acknowledge the steps you have completed too!

    

     2.  Develop a Time Management Plan: Include classes, work, friends/family, study time, sleep, daily living tasks, and leisure activities in this plan!

     3.  SLEEP! Chronic stress tends to lead to fatigue, which makes it more difficult to cope well with stress. Allow your body the rest it needs. Normally when you have a lot of stuff to do, you tend to cut on sleep so make sure to get the hours of rest you need!

     4.  Moderate Caffeine Intake: Caffeine is a stimulant that actually generates a stress reaction in you body. So cutting back can help you feel less anxious and more centered. If you must have caffeine though, try not to have it past 5pm or you may be missing on the sleep step above.

     5.  Exercise Regularly: Because stress evokes the "fight or flight" mechanism in your body and you usually cannot do wither of these in stressful situations, exercise helps dissipate excess energy and stress.

     6.  Relax/Meditate: Just as you are capable of mounting and sustaining a stress reaction, you also have the ability to put your body into a deep state of relaxation which is good for both chronic and acute stress management.

     7.  Develop Realistic Expectations: If you are functioning out of unrealistic expectations for yourself or others, you will tend to be continually frustrated and dissatisfied. Identify your expectations and have a friend "reality check" them with you.

     8.  Reframe: Consider the glass half full instead of half empty. When you find yourself being negative and critical, try to shift you perspective to a more neutral, if not, positive outlook.

     9.  Develop a support system: Humans are social beings that benefit from each other's support. Build and draw on healthy relationships and avoid toxin ones!

     10.  Seek out Humor: Laughing is a great medicine! Allow yourself time and space to experience humor. This can be found either in yourself, situations, or through entertainment.

Now it takes 21 days to make things a habit, so these tips won't instantly squash out stress but will certainly start to diminish it! That's why I've found taking breaks now on then to greatly benefit me. So use a few of these and hopefully in three short weeks you'll be incredibly more stress free!