Are you feeling stressed during the holidays? How about just the full year? I mean, it is 2020 right? Our days are packed full and we’re always on the go. We know we need to reduce our stress, but it can be tough. My business and blog is all about helping athletes accomplish their goals and push themselves beyond what they think is possible. It’s generally on training and nutrition. But we can find some peace and practical ways of reducing stress in other ways. If you’d like some non-nutrition and exercise ways to reduce stress moving into the holidays and forward, read on.
Stress permeates every aspect of our lives. It can impact our home life, marriage, work, training, our immune system and even cause us to hold onto weight. In our membership (Team Fueled Racing), we are spending 21 days participating in a Merry and Mindful reset. Not only exercise, but nutrition + things that we speak of below. I’d love to give you a small glimpse of what we’ve been working on. Let’s focus on reducing your stress load. Here are 4 ways that we can reduce our stress levels this holiday season.
#1-Clutter
Clutter is a something you often don’t think about as causing stress. Clutter can be on your office desk, your kitchen counter, your bathroom, your laundry room. Name it, somewhere in your house or car, there’s clutter. When our life is filled with clutter (and this could be not just physical clutter, but emotional), we can have a low lying or even subconscious increase in stress. If you want to test this out, look around and pick one spot to tackle first. This week, go ahead and choose that one spot. Clear it off, put things away, or throw things away. How do you feel when it’s done? I would bet you feel not only accomplished, but a sense of ease.
#2- Emails
Emails, we all get them, many days too many. When we purchase things online, or we show we’re interested in something, we get put on a newsletter or ad list. This week, I encourage you to spend some time unsubscribing from emails. This is similar to clutter in that when we’re bombarded with clutter (aka emails), we feel extra stress. Stress to read them, stress that there are unread emails on our list. Many you don’t need, so just go ahead and unsubscribe from say 10 companies.
#3- Social Media
Social media has many pros and many cons. I think we all know how this past year has gone. With the pandemic and the election, it’s been hard. In some ways, social media ties us together. It brings together friends from around the world. Social distancing? Not on social media. On the flipside though, many of your friends and acquaintances will post things that add stress to your life. Maybe you don’t agree with them politically. Maybe it’s just that you feel you’re on social media too often. Whatever the case, I encourage you to give yourself a break from it. Spend maybe 30-60min a day online, then, put your phone down, out of reach and do something else. I think you’ll feel reduced stress immediately.
#4- Reduce your to do list
To-do lists. We all have them. Some of us do better than others with them. Some of us (like myself) are type A’s. We have a list and we work hard to check things that. That can reduce stress. But at the same time, if you have an ever growing to-do list, that adds to overwhelm. Even though this might be hard, take a good look at your list and decide what can be put off till next year. What can be done in January. There must be something that you feel is weighing you down and just take a deep breath and remove it. You can tackle that one in January. Unless it’s work related or a must do of course.
There you have it. 4 ways to reduce your stress, that aren’t tied to a typical exercise or nutrition topic. Now of course I’d love for you to do some yoga, take a hike, get some fresh air, eat your veggies, plan your meals, etc. Those are all very important and will help. But these 4 simple things are things you can do this week, that you’ll have an immediate sense of accomplishment and relief.
Let me know how you’re doing and feeling. Have a great week and happy training.
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