Chronic stress comes with all sorts of negative consequences, including a wide range of detrimental effects on our health, as well as issues in our interpersonal relationships, and drawbacks to our professional productivity.
Unfortunately, stress is a common experience for anyone who has a hectic schedule that needs to be carefully managed, and particularly a range of responsibilities and obligations that have to be attended to.
Here are a few tips that might prove helpful for effective stress management when you have a hectic schedule.
Practice mindfulness exercises to regularly bring your awareness into the present moment
A lot of the stress we habitually experience tends to be quite caught up in fears and concerns regarding the future, as opposed to what’s happening directly in front of us, right here and now.
Even if your schedule is highly packed, and you can’t just rearrange things in order to have plenty of free time, practising the art of returning your attention to the present moment can be very helpful with regards to stress management.
There are all sorts of different tools and services out there today which are designed to help facilitate mindfulness and a connection with the present moment. Whether you try out different meditations, breathing exercises, or savouring practices, taking some time to engage in mindfulness exercises can be a very powerful thing.
If you can periodically centre your attention in the present moment, There’s a good chance that you’ll feel a lot less stressed as a result.
Set yourself small goals so that you can feel in control by regularly experiencing small victories
Another major source of stress is a sense of helplessness and futility, caused by having all sorts of different scenarios and events to contend with, which are not under our direct control.
In order to keep yourself from feeling helpless and hopeless – and therefore a lot more stressed out – it can be a great idea to set yourself various small goals so that you always have something to focus on, and are routinely able to experience a sense of control and positivity via those small victories.
If you’re having at least some positive feedback on a regular basis that helps to give you a sense of efficacy and control, you will likely be far less stressed as a result.
Come up with daily rituals to help you destress, no matter how busy you are
At the best of times, you can never perfectly ensure that you will be able to avoid stressful situations. And if you have a normally hectic schedule, it is increasingly important to figure out ways to work around stressful situations, rather than hoping to eliminate them completely.
A great thing to do here is to come up with certain daily rituals to help you destress, no matter how busy you are.
Those rituals might include things like using a CBD rainbow vape pen and doing some meditation, or just spending a bit of time sitting in the garden in the evening.