Stay sharp and stay away from the unnecessary stress

Every now and then, I get into a string of days where I’m out of it and just not feeling like myself. I get up in the morning and I don’t have the energy to do what I have to do for the day.

It’s not uncommon to feel this way and I’m sure many of you may understand where I’m coming from. There are many things in life that can cause us stress and it’s tough to be performing at our best in those situations.  There’s an endless amount of reasons to be stressed but it’s about how you react in those times to make the best out of that situation.

Maybe you’re coming close to a deadline for work and you’re not sure if you’ll meet it  or maybe you’re having trouble sleeping at night at it’s starting to affect your mood everyday.

Something very minor can have an impact your mental clarity and it’s important to manage that stress so it doesn’t make things worse. Here are some tips to help you snap out of those funky days.

It’s very common for us to get in our heads. Once things start to get a little overwhelming, our minds start thinking about all of the things that we need to get done. This is something we all do and it can really cripple us from doing anything.

When our schedules get busy with stuff going on at home and things to get done at work, our mind starts to going into overdrive and takes up a lot of mental energy.

That mental chatter doesn’t really help us achieve anything at all and only adds to the stress we experience.

The ability to think clearly is limited with all that background noise in our heads and it’s very important to just identify the what is causing this stress and get a hold of the situation.

Instead of overloading yourself with all the things you think you need to do, just identify what it is you need to get done and take it one at a time. Here’s a really cool article about the mental chatter that goes on when you’re stressed out.

You guessed it, exercise! Working out when you’re stressed can bring immediate relief and just one workout can help you feeling a lot less stressed out. Physical activity increases the blood flow and our ability to use oxygen which causes the feel good sensation after a good sweat.

Most people underestimate what a little bit of physical activity can do for the brain and how taking care of our body directly leads to us being less stressed.

Focusing on the exercise or the physical activity can unintentionally act as a form of meditation. Just like clearing yourself from mental chatter, focusing on one task can lead to a sense of optimism and relief.

Many of us do not the get amount of sleep that we need and many times we think that getting 6 hours of sleep won’t be much different than getting a consistent 8 hours of sleep a night.

There are many studies that show how losing a tiny bit of sleep can affect the way we make decisions, our moods, the way we interact with people, and our general health.

Without the proper rest, our bodies aren’t able to regulate the stress levels as optimally as if we were to get a full night’s rest and more importantly on a consistent basis. Check out this article from Berkley that shows how insufficient amounts of sleep can lead to excessive worrying and stress.

Lastly, set boundaries for how much we can take on our plates at one time. It’s understandable that we want to do everything we can in the smallest amount of time possible but knowing our limits is really going to help us in the long run.

If you’re juggling between 4 projects at work, taking your kids to practice, making dinner for your wife, and that DIY home project you’ve been meaning to start, you are going to drive yourself nuts.

Slow down, take things one at a time. Not only will this improve the quality of your mental state but it’s also going to improve the quality of the things you’re setting out to do.

To make things easy, keep your work life separate once you’re away from work. Focus on your family and enjoy your time away from the things you need to do. It’s important to be able to differentiate between the things you have to do versus the things you want to do.