Almost all our health concerns stem from two factors: genes and our capability to deal with stress. While we all would love to wish away stress from our lives, in the actual world this is not possible. Hence, we got to learn to cope with stress so that it doesn’t cause a dent in our physical and mental well being. Archana Darshan cues you on top 10 techniques to delete stress (executive style)
1. Be proactive. The first step towards defeating stress begins with planning. You should have a general idea about what all you’ve to do during the week at work and in personal life. Procrastinating and leaving everything to the last minute will multiply stress. In fact, use ‘post-it’ notes to remind you about your daily chores and get a blackboard in the common area of the house where you instruct everyone to write their requests. The requests could range from reminders for medicine to lunch menu options, but it’s going to reduce your stress factor.
2. Take one thing at a time. Multitasking is the buzz word these days. We wish to accomplish hundred things in an hour, but all this multitasking is making our brains go haywire. When you are in midst of something important, it’s necessary to take a break from mobile phones because they disrupt your attention span and ultimately you end up spending more time on the designated task.
3. Divide and rule. This works for deleting stress too. Divide your day in an hour slots and fix a task for each hour. When you’ve a deadline by which you’ve to accomplish a job, you end up doing it faster and thereby save time for something as crucial as indulging yourself with those special ‘me moments’.
4. Sleep on it. Yes literally and metaphorically. There is no need to do everything the moment it is spoken by the family or answer each email the moment it lands in your inbox. Ignore requests if you do not find those convincing enough or until there is a persistent follow up about it. Lack of sleep causes stress. Instill sleep hygiene and go to bed and wake up at the same time every day. The eight hours that is spent on sleep allows us to use the remaining 16 hours productively. Hence, never skimp on sleep to accommodate dispensable priorities, like watching TV, partying at night etc.
5. Stay posted. Stress is too much of a burden to endure all alone. Talk to friends, colleagues and relatives about what is bothering you. May be with their help and experience you will stumble at a solution.
6. Learn to say no. Many a time, we are stressed because we are clearing up mess created by others. Be specific at work and at home about responsibility sharing. Delegate ownership of tasks to reduce your stress levels. At times you may need to put your feet firmly down for a plea, but it is necessary to maintain your sanity.
7. Delegate. Doing everything all alone tantamount to going crazy and multiplying stress levels. Hire people to work for you who are better than you in their respective departments. Indulge them, ignore their eccentricities if the need may be but hang on to them, because they will make your life simpler and provide you with peace of mind and the thing called ‘time’ for yourself.
8. Train new hires. You can’t expect people to give their best the moment they join. You got to groom them, train them and review their performance. This may sound time taking, but it’s going to free up your mind of responsibilities that can be handled by others.
9. Best practice sharing. At times we think that we’ve learned everything that is there to know on how to handle stress and still we can’t get a handle on it! Isn’t it a time for review of our strategies. By hook or by crook, you got to keep stress under control. See, what other people are doing to bust stress and you may discover new methods like running a marathon, hiring a masseur, drinking water every hour, going to vipassana camps. The choice is yours and it depends on the intensity of your stress levels.
10. Most importantly you should accept Murphy’s law. If anything has to go wrong, it will go wrong. Stop crying over the spilt milk because you can’t do anything about it and tomorrow is just another day.
Besides, these top tips you just can’t underestimate the need of wholesome nutrition, a high quality multivitamin and exercise to keep you healthy. When you are healthy, you’ve energy to take on the world.
