6 Tips for Combating Stress

Happy Monday! I hope you all had a great weekend! I had a quick little trip up to northern Virginia for a memorial wheelchair basketball tournament for my mom's best friend's son (same one I wrote about last year) and it was so nice to visit with my family and my mom's best friend/her family. We hadn't seen them since the tournament last year so we were absolutely due for a visit with them! They are just the sweetest family (extended family too!) and I love spending time with all of them. Since I have written all about the tournament before, I included the link to that post above. I wanted to share a little bit about de-stressing today, instead of a weekend wrap up!

When I got back yesterday, I had the worst emotional combination of stress and anxiety and sadness. I was sad for having to say goodbye to everyone and then stress/anxiety about a presentation I had to work on for my clinical group at the hospital today. Do you ever get so worked up about doing something (homework, actual work, anything really) that you just stress about stressing about it? That's what I was doing yesterday. I worked myself up into a tizzy during the drive back to my apartment about prepping for my presentation and then when I got back, I was too worked up to work. Weird, I know! In order to chill myself out, I did a couple of short activities to make myself focus on what I needed to accomplish for the day. I wanted to share those things today just in case I could help anyone else!

1) Make a to-do list
In this case, I had to break apart all the different sections that I had to cover for my presentation and so I could focus on just one part at a time. I love the feeling of accomplishment after I get to cross something off the list and it helps to give me motivation to keep working.

2) Have some tea
Specifically herbal tea, and not a tea with caffeine in it. For me, too much caffeine makes me too wound and feeling even more anxious. Today I went for a lemon tea, but I would also recommend chamomile!

3) Take a shower
Kind of an cheesy, but I swear showering washes away my stress. Showers really relax me and help to clear my mind so I can really focus on the task at hand and not the hundred other things that are running through my mind (Like other homework/missing my family/the blog/dinner/laundry/etc) .

4) Call/text someone...
...who will really set you straight. For instance, I texted my friend who has all the same classes/work as I do and asked her if I really needed to be stressing about the presentation as much as I was. She promptly responded that I didn't need to worry for another second and that it was ridiculous that I was stressing. Although a little harsh, it was well appreciated and snapped me back to reality!

5) Work really hard for one hour
Then re-evaluate whether you should really be stressed about what your doing. Chances are, if you really kick ass in that hour, that you'll get a lot more done than previously expected and feel less stressed about whats left to do.

Although an annoying tip, I thought I would include it anyway as the last one...

6) Plan ahead to prevent stress!
Like I said, its an annoying tip, I know! There is always good intentions to plan ahead and get everything done so that you don't have to worry about XYZ in the future, right? In this case, I actually had got a good chunk of the work done before the weekend started, since I had known that I was going to be super busy with the tournament. I think had I just done an hour or two more of work before the weekend then I would have been way less stressed yesterday evening. Even though I could have done more, I know I still helped myself a lot by getting some done beforehand. If I hadn't, this post probably wouldn't have been able to be written last night! For the most part, I am pretty good about planning and use my planner and to-do lists to help keep me in line.

I know there are so many tips out there, but these are the ones that I have found to work best for me! What are your tips for de-stressing?