Have you ever felt overwhelmed with the amount of work ahead of you? Maybe overwhelmed with your responsibility and the pressure to perform to a certain standard? It’s easy to feel stressed out in today’s hustle culture.
It seems like everyone is always running places and busy working on something, whether that’s your schoolwork, day job, side hustle, a business, etc.
Doesn’t matter what role you play in society, I’m sure many of you feel stressed out sometimes.
Today, we’ll take a look at how we can effectively calm ourselves down when feeling stressed.
Table of Contents
1. Stop what you’re doing and go wash dishes
I know this can sound weird. I mean a lot of you don’t like washing dishes, I know, but washing dishes can be so therapeutic.
It only takes a few minutes to finish washing the dishes (depending on how much you have to wash) and as you’re washing the dishes, you’d focus hard on the motion, on getting the dirty bits out, on smearing the bubble on the surface, and on rinsing the dish soap away.
Once you’re done, your sink would look so clean and you’d also feel so much more refreshed. It’d also feel like you’ve accomplished quite a bit even though it only took you a few minutes’ works.
That’s the power of washing dishes.
You can also clean up the house if you want. Clear up the desk, wipe down the desk, do some laundry, etc.
Your house would look so much cleaner and you would also feel that much better.
2. Lie down and not do anything for a while
Our brains are often too stimulated. I believe this is the reason why we’re losing so much sleep. Well, part of the many reasons.
There is a constant stream of stimuli on our phones. You’re one click away from some new video and you’re always a few seconds away from a dopamine rush. It’s endless. You’d never ever finish all the videos there are to watch on the internet.
Even when we’re resting, many of us are watching something, listening to something, and doing something in the form of scrolling social media, watching videos, playing video games, etc.
Truly resting means not doing anything.
3. Tense up your muscles and then relaxes them
Tensing up your muscles and then relaxing them can help you relax when feeling stressed because when we’re stressed our muscles become tenser without us realizing it.
Actively tensing up and then relaxing our muscles can release the tension we have in our bodies that we didn’t realize.
Here is what you have to do:
- Focus on one area of your body. It could be your face, your eyebrows, your shoulders, your arms, etc
- Tense up that area of your body as much as possible
- Hold it for a few seconds
- Relaxes that part of your body as much as possible
4. Listen to the sounds of waves
Maybe because in humans’ evolutionary history, we have evolved around bodies of water and we grew to find the sound of waves to be relaxing. Whatever the reason, you can go ahead and listen to the sound of waves on YouTube for a few minutes.
You can play it in the background as you work or play it over people talking in a busy cafe.
5. Pick up a white noise machine
I can’t recommend this to you enough if you live in a city or an apartment. You are bombarded by the sounds of cars passing by and the noise of neighbors jumping around nearby at all times in all hours of the day.
It may have become background noise for you so you don’t notice that it’s there but it may still silently impact your sanity without you realizing it.
Pick up a white noise machine like this one. And it can drown out so much of the noise happening constantly.
You can also play the white noise when you go to sleep.
Fun fact, did you know that many parents would turn the white noise machine on for their babies when sleeping?
Now go buy a white noise machine, you big baby. (I’m just kidding, it’s made for adults too).
6. Tell yourself it’s okay not to do things perfectly
Lots of stress we feel may come from our desire to do things perfectly. Nothing can be done “perfectly”. it’s all based on our perception of what’s perfect.
It’s a waste of time to be a perfectionist. By the way, if you want to find out how to stop being a perfectionist, click here.
Reminding yourself that you don’t have to do things perfectly well can help you feel less stressed out.
7. Go talk to a friend
Talking to a good friend would help so much when feeling stressed.
Sometimes I can go weeks and months without talking to any one of my friends when I’m busy with my own stuff and if no one else reached out to me (or if they reached out to me and I forgot to answer them).
It’s always nice to catch them with a friend and it’s surprising how much less stressed I become every time we end the call.
Studies have shown that the biggest source of happiness and stress we feel tend to come from our interpersonal relationships with others so make sure you only keep friends who are good for your mental health in life.
Cut out the type of people who aren’t good for you and you’d also feel quite a bit less stressed. If you want to do so, make sure you read this blog post right here. It’s called the 8 types of people to cut out to avoid drama.
Final thought
Hi friends so when I wrote this blog post, I didn’t realize that I had already written another similar one. It’s okay because it took me less time to write it than I thought.
Both articles offer unique insights and both are good to know.
If you want to find out more ways to destress when feeling lots of pressure, click here to read this article now.
