Hello! Seiiti Arata. Stress is a large part of all of our lives, but it affects us all differently. Stress makes us more likely to make mistakes, and it can also have a dramatic impact on health, causing hormonal imbalances that lead to obesity and compulsive eating disorders, heart problems, bad sleep and grinding our teeth. Stress can make it difficult to control our emotions, bring out disease, affect our love lives.
Yet, some people find it easier than others to let the stress roll off their shoulders at the end of the day. How do they do that? Is it possible to design a different lifestyle with less stress so we can have a better life?
If you are interested, this video is for you, because stress is something we can all take control of. For that purpose, we will create routines for morning, day and evening.
With these three routines we can always keep ourselves in shape and manage stress better:
1. Slow and conscious early mornings
Set a morning routine for yourself that is relaxing and gives you plenty of time to get things ready for the day.
Perhaps you could use half an hour to go for a slow jog or enjoy some other fitness routine. If you’re not a runner in the morning, perhaps you’d like to read a few chapters in a good book. Maybe meditation, if that’s your thing. Or spend quality time with your family before everyone goes on his or her way in the morning.
Whatever it may be, plan a slow-moving and pleasurable morning to start your workday off right.
2. Fast and powerful sprints during work with breaks
Take care of your emotional and physical self while you’re at work. When you are focused, you can do a lot of work at high speed and also of uncanny high quality. We are on top of our performance, and this is what Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, a distinguished professor of psychology and management, calls the flow state. You know when you are at your best, and you can only achieve and maintain this in the long term if you also take care of yourself with some breaks between these fast sprints.
So take 60-second breaks when you can. Get up and stretch! You don’t need to do it for long—just a few paces around the office or your cubicle, relaxing and giving your mind a mental break.
These 60-second pauses will help you stay in control of yourself and will lead to a more productive work day. They also mean that you will work with a lower stress level because you’re taking care of yourself.
3. Late evening
Prepare a special routine at night to make sure you are in a good state of mind for the next workday.
For many, that means making a work priority list so they know what to start with the next morning. For others, it means picking out a fantastic work outfit—accessories included—the night before, so it’s all set to go in the morning.
In my case, I love cooking healthy and delicious food and sharing it with friends. Whatever it is, do all the prep you can the night before.
These are all great things to do, and you can tweak to fit your lifestyle. Let me know in the comments what other options out there work better for you. What do you do to deal with stress at work?
One last bit of advice is to remember that when you face challenges, you can do this. At the end of the day, you’ve done your best and deserve to go home and rest just like everyone else.
Leave your work life at work, so you can enjoy your quality time for what matters. In the next video we will talk more specifically about how to reduce your stress in the work environment.