The top 10 simplest ways to manage stress.

by James Porter February 20, 2020

Stop rushing. When you rush from one place to the next, the ENTIRE time you spend getting there, is going to be STRESSFUL. When you allow extra time to get places and do things that take longer than you think, you will be AMAZED at how much stress you can eliminate.
Get organized. Disorganization is a major source of stress. When you waste time looking for things, or simply work in a disorganized environment, it eats away at your peace of mind. Organize your closets, your work space and your car and watch your stress start to subside.
Take 3 deep breaths. Breathing deeply is one of the quickest and easiest ways to relieve stress. Any time you feel frazzled, hold your hand over your belly and watch your hand rise while you breathe in, and fall while you breathe out. Do this three times and you will quickly feel better and just as quickly lower your levels of stress.
Make lists. Shopping lists, to-do lists, and even a short list of what you want to talk about before you place an important phone call. This will save you time and money and the additional hassle of trying to retrace your steps when you forget to do something because it wasn’t written down.
Listen more, talk less. Research by Dr. James Lynch, formerly of the University of Maryland shows that if you listen, your blood pressure goes down. And when you talk it goes up. Listening intently to what other people say is a mindfulness skill that will bring you into the present moment and lower your levels of stress.
Practice gratefulness. Make a mental list of 3-5 things you have to be grateful for and repeat it several times silently before you go to bed at night and/or right after you wake up in the morning. There’s a fair amount of research that suggests this practice truly does lower stress.
Go to bed earlier. Going to bed early is a gift you can give yourself. Don’t trade precious sleep time in order to watch an extra hour or two (or three) of TV or get a few more chores done. Make this adjustment gradually. When you skip the late-night TV (after 9 PM), you may find that you have an extra hour in the morning (when you have more willpower and your mind is clearer) to exercise, meditate, read an inspiring book or work on an important project without being interrupted.
When you hold a grudge, it’s like taking poison everyday while hoping someone else is going to die. Forgiving others helps you let go of grudges and ultimate helps you even more than it does the person you are forgiving.
Shift your focus forward. When we encounter a stressful problem, it often hits us by surprise. Sometimes we spend hours, days, or even weeks, fixated on the existence of this new problem, while feeling sorry for ourselves at the same time. But the minute we shift our focus forward from the problem to the solution, our stress quickly starts to fade as we become more and more solution-focused and less and less problem-focused.
Consider your higher purpose and your most important values. A lot of people experience a lot of stress, simply because they don’t take the time to consider their higher purpose or most important values. Figuring out what you value more than anything else – and then making a list of your top five values - helps you construct a life (and a list of appropriate goals) that will be in harmony with those values. People who live lives that are NOT in harmony with their higher purpose (particularly when their work is out of line with their values) will experience a lot of unnecessary stress.