6 Things You Can Do That Help Manage Your Stress and Anxiety

Taking care of yourself is important.

Everybody’s stressed. There’s so much pressure from work, family, and everyday life in general. Taking care of yourself is more important as your life gets more stressful. 

You should see a therapist if your stress and anxiety are severe. But there are some things you can do on your own, for milder cases or in between your meetings with your therapist, so you can achieve better work-life balance sooner. 

1. Listen to your emotions and physical sensations

Many people are taught that feeling emotions means you’re weak. The same goes for physical sensations; any discomfort should be ignored for the sake of getting your job done. Personal well-being is always set aside because we have a million responsibilities.

We must unlearn this habit and pay more attention to how we feel. Emotions and physical sensations are merely signals that tell us how our bodies and minds are doing. We must treat them as allies and welcome the information they give us about the state of our health.

2. Take deep breaths

When any negative emotion shows up, try not to react right away. Instead, pause and take deep breaths. This is easier said than done, and takes practice. Don’t beat yourself up if you don’t get this right away. In fact, don’t beat yourself up at all.

It is good to practice this during calmer moments. According to psychologist Marsha Lucas, PhD, you can reap benefits by practicing this for a mere two minutes a day. Close your eyes and just focus on your breathing. Whenever your mind strays, gently bring it back to your breath. Don’t criticize yourself. Don’t get mad or impatient. You can do this exercise for longer once you’re more comfortable with it. This helps calm you and lessen overreactivity.

3. Challenge your negative thoughts

For a lot of people, it’s easy to give in to pessimism. Maybe we’re just being careful, and making sure we’ve got all the bases covered in any endeavor. In order for us to become mentally and emotionally healthier, though, we have to stop believing every negative thought we have.

If your mind says, “You’re going to fail at this,” “Your friends don’t care about you,” and the like, instead of accepting them as truth, take a moment to ask yourself, “Do I have definitive proof of this?” 

Go the extra mile and look for signs that the opposite, positive statements are true. You will always find proof that there is a very good chance of things turning out the way you want, or even better!

4. Speak kindly to yourself

How often do you listen, really listen, to your own thoughts? If you pay close attention to the voice in my head, take a closer look at the things you tell yourself. Are these things you would say to your friends?

“Wow, that was really stupid of you.” 

“You will never amount to anything.”

“Nobody cares about what you do.” 

If these lines sound familiar, it’s time to be more vigilant with your thoughts.

Maybe somebody told you these things when you were younger. Maybe someone says them to you now. Either way, these things have become part of your inner dialogue. The negativity may not be your fault, but now it’s your responsibility to fix it. You deserve kindness, especially from yourself. 

Start telling yourself these things instead: 

“It’s okay.” 

“Mistakes are normal. We can fix this.”

“I may not be good at some things, but I have a lot of skills and talents!”

5. Learn to say no

Yes, you can afford to turn down that extra assignment your boss gave you, especially when you’re already drowning in work and you have deadlines to beat. Remember that keeping boundaries also ensures that you produce output of good quality at work. Learning to say no benefits not only you, but also everyone else you are working with.

6. Stay away from unnecessarily critical people

This is probably the hardest thing to do, because we can’t just cut friends and loved ones out of our lives. Maybe we’re used to relatives speaking harshly to us. Maybe we’ve just accepted that this friend always complains about everything. We think things are normal and okay, until we start to realize that we resent these people.

We don’t necessarily have to KonMari people out of our lives. Enforcing our boundaries and being honest about how we feel can repair or improve relationships with those who truly love us. 

If you there are people who refuse to acknowledge that they hurt you, they are the ones from whom you need to stay away. A person who truly cares for you will listen to you. People who refuse to change how they interact with you for the better are probably wounded themselves, but their burdens are not yours to bear. You can be friends with them again once you see them taking steps to become kinder.