We all feel it: the dreaded grey cloud that hangs over each and every one of us each week as assignments and exam deadlines approach. Stress. There is no way to officially escape it, but with a little practice and lots of breathing (or chocolate), you can get through the harsh side effects stress has on us.
1. Keep a planner! My planner literally never leaves my side. It has become my lifeline, I mean phone first of course, but planner second. Jotting down the little things to do helps you remember so much more than trying to remember them off the top of your head. Or if you’re someone like me, who writes notes on scraps of paper hoping to keep track of all of them, it’s way better to stick them in your planner because then they’re all in one place.
2. A personal favorite of mine is meditation. When you’ve got a million things written down in your planner, it’s too easy to get overwhelmed with the fast pace of life. Giving yourself even just five or ten minutes of sitting quietly and focusing on your breathing gives your mind a break and time to rest to start work again feeling much more refreshed.
3. Get up and get moving! Stress gets so much worse if you let it sit and simmer. Getting up to go take a walk and let some of that stress get burned off through exercise works wonders on your stress levels. I like exercise and prefer going to a gym, but even just walking to a local coffee shop or down the boardwalk at the beach work just as well.
4. Find your happy place. We’ve probably all heard this at least once in life, but we actually need to! And I’m not talking about a happy place in your head, I mean a real place you can escape to in the real world. I go to the beach whenever I get overly stressed and I have friends that go to different coffee shops across San Diego that are not your typical stressful Starbucks run.
5. Drink more water! Water is an absolute necessity when it comes to life and if we’re being honest, we all need more water in our life. Get a cute re-useable water bottle from Target or the Torero Store and set a goal to drink at least one of those a day.
6. Don’t forget to smile! :) We all forget to do this simple action, but even when we are stressed out beyond belief and can’t seem to escape the grey cloud hanging over us, we have to remember to just smile and remind ourselves that we will get through it and have a new day beginning soon!
Practicing at least one or two of these every day will seriously help improve your mood and reduce stress levels across the board. So get outside with your planners and water bottles, take a walk somewhere new, and smile at the little things in life!