We all experience stress from time to time. This is especially the case for business owners and those who work a typical 9–5. This article discusses some smart ways to stay calm under pressure because you’ll need it.
Table of Contents
1. Change the scenery
Whenever you’re upset or stressed, you should change the scenery. It doesn’t mean that you necessarily have to take a break but a simple shift in the environment can help your brain reload and realize just how much stress it was experiencing.
If you’ve been working at the desk all day, move to the sofa (but remember to set an alarm in case you fall asleep. Done that many times). You can also change the placement of your table in the room. Changing things around can make you feel more refreshed.
The change of scenery may also mean a walk outside. This may not be possible if you reside in a cold country like me where it could be below freezing at many moments of the year. But if you can live in a country with relatively good weather, taking a walk outside when feeling stressed is a good way to destress and relax.
2. Write down how you feel
I recommend you get a journal to document how you feel. If you feel more comfortable typing down how you feel rather than writing it down, by all means, do that. Just be careful with where you write it because you don’t want to accidentally left it in a place where others can find it.
I know not everything you write down or type down at moments of pure stress is something you want just anyone to read.
When writing in your journal, here are a few writing prompts you can start from:
- I’m feeling stressed because…
- I’m worried that…
- I’m anxious about…
- I really want to finish…
- Something preventing me from reaching my goal is…
- When I’m done with my goal I want to…
- Here’s how I’m going to relax…
- Here’s what I have to do later today or later this week…
3. Vlog how you feel
I find it very calming to be able to talk to a camera and express my thought out loud on camera. It’s not necessary to keep the recordings. I usually delete things right after the source of my stress has been relaid but it’s a form of a diary that can be so effective in getting our true anxieties and feelings out.
We all want to be understood. There was this story of a woman on the plane calming down a child with autism. She works with autistic children in her day job and she was able to calm the child down because she had him draw out his feelings and thoughts on a piece of paper. He couldn’t do this with words but he could with pictures. And that was what was missing, he just needed to get his feelings out and let them known to the world.
Similarly, when we’re feeling stressed, we may not tell anyone anything about how we’re feeling, that pressure can build up inside to cause an outburst later on if we aren’t careful.
This is why I think vlogging is an amazing activity. Sometimes I’d go take a stroll in the woods near my home and just hit record on my phone. At times when I’m running low on storage space, I’d even act like I was talking to a friend on the phone instead of recording things on camera to get my feelings out.
Sometimes we may not want to bother real people with our troubles and at other times your close friends may be dealing with things of their own that make you feel uncomfortable with sharing your own issues fearing that you may be adding to their troubles. Those are the moments where vlogging can be such a good source of release.
4. Remind yourself that you don’t have to do things perfectly
I think something that gives us a lot of stress is in thinking that we have to do things perfectly well which is just redundant.
Even this article that I’m writing now. It’s not going to be perfect. There may be sentences that could’ve been worded better or things that I should’ve included but I didn’t. Guess what? It’s okay to not have the most perfect article because even if this blog post doesn’t rank on the first page of Google I have a chance to do that with other blog posts.
Thinking that you must do things perfectly is setting yourself up for mental meltdowns and failure.
Make sure to give yourself a break, take care of your mental health, and remember to just try your best (even if best means 70% instead of 120%).
5. Breathe
I’m sure this isn’t a surprising tip but the most immediate way that you can calm down is to breathe.
There’s no technique to this: just breathe in deeply and breathe out deeply. Do that a few times until you carry on with the task or you can stand up and stretch for a bit. Look at a different scenery.
6. Do the eyeball exercise
Your eyeball is highly connected to your brain. When you’re feeling stressed, simply moving your eyeballs around the room can cause a different pattern of neurons to fire in your brain that releases you from the stress you may be feeling.
When you’re stressed and anxious, the neurons in your brain fire a certain way which is why disrupting that negative loop can be good for your concentration and mental health.
Eyeball exercise
Don’t move your head, just move your eyes, start from the left and then work your way up to the ceiling, then to the right, before moving down to the floor and then to the left again. Do it counterclockwise and clockwise several times and you should feel quite a bit refreshed!
7. Pick a color and mentally identify it in your surrounding
This is a trick that not many knows and most people won’t talk about it in their articles but it can be very effective.
What you need to do is this:
- Pick a color in your head (ex. Blue)
- Now go and find that color in your surrounding
- For example, if you’re in an office, you can look at the Blue binder, the calendar with the picture of the sea on top, the blue cap of the pen, the blue dress somebody is wearing, etc
- This will make your brain more focused and give you a moment of distraction from the thing that was making you stressed
8. Introspect the true reasons behind your stress
Something that you can do is to think deeply about the true reason behind your stress. I want you to think very deeply about it. It’s okay if you have to guess.
For instance, you may think that the source of your stress is the deadline coming up on a work project, you may want to ask yourself, what’s making you work so hard on the job? Is it because you really want to be promoted? Why do you want to be promoted? Is it to satisfy the awful feeling of being belittled at your current job? Who is making you feel belittled at work? What exactly are they doing to make you feel belittled? And finally, what can you do to prevent yourself from feeling belittled? Is there a possibility that you’re overreacting? Maybe you should change jobs (by the way, click here to find the 10 signs that you should quit your job immediately), maybe you should talk to the person and express how you feel, maybe you should start a side hustle to escape your 9–5? Click here to learn how to become a content creator and make money this year.
Truly understanding the reason behind your stress can be some of the most effective methods, as it gets to the root of the issue.
Instead of trying to put tape over a gaping wound every time it starts to bleed, you can treat the wound so it never bleeds again.
9. Have a squeeze toy with you
A squeeze toy can be great to give you a moment of relief whenever the mounting pressure builds up again. If your workplace doesn’t allow stress toys by the desk, you can put them in your pocket and play with them once in a while.
10. Have a furry pet nearby
I know this won’t be possible for everyone but having a furry pet nearby can help with anxiety and stress so much.
I love touching my cats’ fur. It relaxes me and I’m sure it’ll do the same to you as well. Any small furry pet would help, it can even be a hamster. A hamster is cheaper to raise and maintain than cats or dogs so if you’re tight on budget, maybe you can get a hamster.
11. Do a simple self-care exercise
Self-care exercises don’t always have to take up a whole day. In fact, it can be done in a matter of seconds. This could be applying lotions to your hands or moisturizing your face for instance.
12. Play with slimes
I’m a huge fan of slimes. Do you like slimes too? Comment down below. Slimes were trending on social media between the years 2017 and 2018 but prior to that, it has already been in existence for the past 20 years. Slime isn’t going anywhere. Even though the hype it’s over, it’s retained many dedicated fans and even newer ones still from Tiktok. Slimes can be great stressed toys. Many people are using slime to relieve anxiety and stress.
If you don’t mind touching slimes, you can get a small 4oz container and put it in your pocket to play with whenever you’re feeling stressed.
13. Light a scented candle
Lighting a scented candle can help calm your nerves. Make sure to pick a scent that you like otherwise, it’ll add to your stress and most likely give you a headache.
You should also be careful with the candle so it doesn’t catch on flames and burn your whole house down.
14. Listen to calming music
I bet you see this one coming. Calming music can for sure calm your nerves. You should pick songs that don’t have any lyrics otherwise, you may get distracted. The best type of music to calm your nerves is classical music. There are a lot of free options on YouTube. You can play it in the background while you work or commute to work.
15. Keep hydrated
This is a big one. I know drinking more water will cause you to use the bathroom more often which may take away your precious time to work on whatever you need to work on but neglecting to drink water can cause brain fogs and for sure slow down your productivity. It’ll also cause you to be less calm because your body is working in overdrive trying to balance all the remaining fluid in places that need it.
Make sure you drink enough water.
Final thought
Learning to stay calm under pressure is a skill to master. You won’t always get it right. There might be moments of weakness where you still feel burned out anyway despite everything you know. This is why you should take it easy. Nothing should be done perfectly that includes staying as calm as you should in moments of stress and when feeling pressured.
Just do the best you can. Pick one or two things on the list to constantly remind yourself of. So at least you can have some lifehacks to implement whenever you need them. It’s much easier than trying to remember everything at once.
For me, I choose to constantly remind myself that things don’t have to be done perfectly and to do the eyeball exercise whenever I’m feeling overwhelmed with the amount of work to do every day.
