Life for me these days is a whirlwind. Finding ways to relax or make stress management easier are essential. I don’t claim to have the answers, but here are three things I’ve done recently that seem to help.
1) Stop Wearing a Watch: The tyranny of the unurgent is a lot easier to ignore when you don’t have a watch on your arm all the time. I don’t find myself any later, and in fact, have actually been more punctual since I took the watch off. More importantly, while I still feel crushed for time, it’s a little less omnipresent now.
2) Eat Better Food: I recently ran into Andrea Weckerle, an old buddy of mine who started her own natural food company, ITK (in the know). The premise of the company is much better, organic nutrition. She handed me two ITK bars, one chocolate, one regular and said try them out.
Sure enough, I missed lunch due to a heavy schedule and had the two ITK bars readily available. And you know, I am not advocating skipping lunch for ITK, but the energy bars really seemed to hold me off a lot better than less natural versions of these (they tasted good, too).
It got me on a bit of a nutrient kick, and since I’ve been eating better, I feel a notch better. Go figure.
3) Leave the Mobile Phone: When I go into meetings or have dinner, I am increasingly leaving my mobile phone in the car. It makes a huge difference. Less distraction, more attention, better time, less stress.
The mobile is simply an Internet access device for me. So this is again, another form of turning off the tyranny of the urgent. Really, all of this, including me and my online life, is not that important.
What are your methods for reducing stress?