Do you know stress and overwhelm come together most times? How often do you feel stressed and overwhelmed? If the answer is “every day”, you’re not alone. You always find yourself in a position where you have so much to do yet you don’t know where to begin, I get that too.
Being busy is just the default of today’s living. From the moment we get up every morning, there’s always something to do, a lot of obligations and expectations, requirements, and life’s goals pulling and stretching every bit of us to our zero level of tolerance. And with the worst feeling that goes with being busy that most of us deal with every day, often without realizing it there- a feeling of time scarcity,
And then at the end of the day, you’re pressured, overwhelmed, stressed out, and begin to struggle with yourself and in some cases feel deprived of real happiness.
I know it’s often said that life is complex, stressful, and overwhelming. But the truth is that life shouldn’t drain so much of your energy because we definitely have a life span to live. In that little time, I believe you ought to strive for joy, experience calmness, be happy, and enjoy and cherish every moment on earth.
Most of the tips to overcome stress and overwhelm should always come after having a clear understanding that being busy should be feeling. It should be feeling; you can choose to feel because you’ll always have a choice of your own.
Here’s a quickie on another recommended post on stress relief you don’t want to miss, I recommended that you read all or at least two out of it;
- How To Reduce Stress By Taking It Slow
- How Coloring Can Help You Reduce Stress
- Super Easy Teas That Will Help You Relieve Stress
What is stress and where does it come from?
Stress can sneak up on you when you’ve found yourself in a demanding event that seems to happen faster than the speed of light.
Instantly, you’ll go from feeling calm to completely overwhelm at a surprising speed. While sometimes, it happens gradually and you don’t realize how much stress is building up until you suddenly feel overwhelmed.
Our body is reacting to emotional and physical tension from our environment. It occurs when a person feels that the demands made on them exceed their ability to cope.
Stress can be the main key to survival in life, but too much stress can be detrimental to our overall health.
How you can handle stress and overwhelm
Feel your emotions
Do you remember when you were down with period cramps? You can’t feel a part of your leg? You give all the attention to your body, right? OK, now, learn to respect and feel your emotions because they’re important too.
Emotions are powerful and entwined with our minds. They’re part of us, allow yourself to feel every bit of your emotions down to your soul without being judgmental or ashamed of them.
The fact is that you already have a handful of provoking things on your mind. What you need least is the addition of a suppressing and judgmental voice arguing you shouldn’t be stressed. Because the more you set your mind to ignore and fight them, the more they make you feel worse by fighting back.
Take a moment and meditate
Meditation calms the body and stills the mind. It’s being proven to be that, it can reduce anxiety, reduce stress levels, sharpen your memory, and increase your focus. So, if you’ve never meditated before, just spend a few minutes, sit in silence and be calm.
Once you’ve been able to calm down, you should be in a better position to address whatever stressful situations you’re experiencing.
Reframe your situation
The purpose of mediating is to put you in a more calm position to take a moment and mindfully reframe the situation or challenge at hand so you can get a clearer version of it and how best to approach it.
Because sometimes we intensify our experience of stressful situations or challenges by the way we look at them. Don’t forget you can do anything, but not everything.
So, prioritize and start with a simple task!
Give thought to your life’s purpose and identify the life roles that are a priority in your life and start by figuring out what’s important and what’s not.
Then, you can prioritize the most significant things, and get a few of the simplest tasks completed. This will shorten your terrifying to-do list, make your brain relaxed to feel like you’re making progress, and get you back in the flow of taking more action and getting more work done without causing tension and stress.
Cut Down And Postpone anything that doesn’t really need doing.
I know you’re feeling you have the solution to almost every problem and you’re the key to solving them all. That could be true!
But, when you’re really exhausted and at the point of breaking- you’ll need to answer some of these questions. What really needs to be done? What tasks overcomplicate the matter or don’t add value? What can you postpone for a few weeks? If you’re sincere enough, you should be able to cross out a good chunk of your to-do list and feel relieved.
Try as much as possible to cut down on things that put so much demand on you such as an exhausting work schedule or a rocky relationship.
Set realistic goals
It’s great to set goals especially when you’re on a self-discovery mission of finding yourself and knowing your limits. But, if you always aim too high when settling your to-do list for the day and inevitably fall short of completing it, you’re repeatedly left feeling like a failure.
And because you don’t want to feel like a failure, you take and put your mind in unnecessary tension and stress.
So cut the stress by mixing up your goals, roughly estimate how long each task will take to get completed, and set ambitious but realistic goals.
Quick Tip to Know- Your limitations and strength define you.
Make changes slowly
The more we live, the more we learn to change one or two things about ourselves. A lot of things might feel so right now, but definitely will be out of place for some months to come, and you’ll long to make a change. But drowning yourself in life to achieve these changes or life’s goals drains you and overwhelms your mind.
Just take it a step at a time, remember slow and steady wins the race. Just for any change, you’re about to make, find the easiest way to accomplish it. And the better approach is to slowly include them into your life one after the other.
Don’t forget the bigger picture
This has been my simple way out of some stressful situations because it seems so easy to get completely stressed out about a deadline for a job, an unfinished personal project, the laundry pile, and so many other obligations.
Remind yourself that only the best thing can come out of this to trigger you into feeling calmer, more motivated, and less stressed.
Don’t forget this is just one busy period, that’ll definitely pass. And it’s okay still if you don’t get through your to-do list in a day. There’s always tomorrow or the next.
So, just sigh with relief and smile with a grateful heart, and remember what really matters in your life- Happiness!
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