You might think that finding a way to reduce stress in your life is difficult or might require a lot of money. I am sure that a day at an expensive spa would help reducing stress but that would be both expensive and would take your full day.
Find below the 7 steps I took to achieve a less stressful life.
These steps helped me reduce stress even when I didn’t have a lot of time on hand.
Find out which one suits you and your daily activities the best.
The 7 steps I took to reduce stress
Meditation
Meditation is one of the best ways to calm your mind and reduce stress. Regular practice of meditation will help with the symptoms of stress.
Start with short sessions for beginners and try to practice it daily. You can slowly increase the time as you fill more comfortable with being still.
Try some simple and short meditation practices like tea meditation. They are perfect for beginners. The tea meditation starts with the moment when you decide to make yourself a tea and you are heading towards your kettle.
Learn more about tea meditations and what are their benefits here: Tea Meditation – All You Need To Know About It
Self-care
Taking care of your body, both inside and outside is an important factor that helps with stress reduction.
Giving yourself a hot and soothing bath or even shower can be a great way to end your day.
You can just enhance a bit your daily experience by using small tricks like:
– light up a candle to create a nice atmosphere
– make a quick spray with lavender and eucalyptus essential oils to spray in your shower and to make it smell like a little spa
– turn on some calming music in the background
– apply a face mask
There are so many small things you can do to help your body and mind relax and they really don’t take almost any extra time. Try to be creative with the things you already do every day.
Don’t forget about eating healthy and nourishing food. By doing this you will also take care of your body from inside-out.
Yoga
Regular yoga practice, especially in the morning will help your body prepare for the day ahead. You don’t have to have a lot of experience with yoga. You can find a lot of tutorials to guide you throughout the most simple and basic yoga poses.
After finishing a yoga session, you will feel more calm and relaxed. It is the combination of light stretches and being aware of every breath that takes you to a peaceful place in your mind.
Yoga makes your body feel warmed up and it stretches your muscles. After a morning yoga session, you will feel ready to face the new day. With this feeling, the day ahead looks more promising and it makes you feel good overall.
If you want to know what else I include in my morning routine, go get my Morning Routine Cheatsheet
Gratitude
Being grateful helps us attract more good things in our life. It reduces stress and it can really improve the image we have about our own person, life, and environment. It can help us see all these in much brighter colors and filled with positive vibes.
The act of being grateful reminds us how to appreciate the good in our lives. It shows us how to shape our way of thinking to welcome more good things. Sometimes we tend to spiral down the negative thoughts by focusing only on the bad things that are happening. But if we stop for a bit and we shift our focus on everything that is good in our life, we can completely change our perspective on life.
If you need a bit more inspiration and want to read more about what can you be grateful for, just start thinking about the smallest things around you. Everything that happening and that surrounds you is contributing to your wellbeing in one way or another.
Breathing techniques
Whenever I feel overwhelmed during the day, I take a few seconds to practice some breathing techniques.
You can try to practice any breathing technique for 60 seconds. Your goal would be to have no other thoughts and the only thing to focus on is your breath.
There are many breathing techniques, which will slowly bring you to the present moment and clear your mind. They are powerful and they are quite easy to apply.
Just hit the pause button on your daily tasks and start your timer for mindful breathing.
Trigger
During the day your mind will be really busy with some many things that you might even forget that you need a pause from time to time.
Finding your trigger for a moment of calm is a great trick for reducing stress. For me, this trigger is drinking tea. Whenever I go and prepare my tea I remember to have a few minutes of mindfulness.
This can be either a tea meditation or any other mindfulness activities that you can integrate into your routine. Grab my free guide which contains mindfulness activities which take less than one minute each!
Awareness
Being aware of your surroundings can always bring you back to the present moment and help your mind calm down.
Open your eyes and notice the little things around you. Learn to appreciate and to be grateful for what you can see around.
If you need a bit of inspiration you can read my list of 17 small things that make you happy
Maybe you are not sure how to notice if you are stressed. Here’s a handy article on the warning signs of stress, to help understand what your body is trying to tell you.
All these practices prove to be a great help throughout my day when I feel stressed and overwhelmed.
You don’t have to practice them all every day, just choose which ones are the best fit for you and for your daily activities.
Pick one and start practicing it today!
Love,
Mindful Tea Moments
– digital toolkit –
