Does managing stress, stress you out?
As you could’ve seen in our articles so far, there’s plenty of stress-management techniques that have been empirically proven to help fight stress and, as a result, increase wellbeing in all areas of life, from work, through leisure, to daily habits.
Go to a self-help section in any book shop and you will find at least a dozen of books discussing any problem or issue that might be stressing you out at any given moment. Do you want to lose weight and increase your energy levels by changing your diet? Now you can educate yourself on keto, paleo, vegan, Mediterranean, intermittent fasting, and a hundred of other dieting approaches, and pick one that suits you best.
However, as a world-renown psychologist and bestselling author Barry Schwartz has noted in his book The Paradox of Choice, being spoilt for choice might not always be good for us psychologically.
With too many options to choose from, we often feel too overwhelmed to make any decision at all; and even if we do manage to choose this ‘stress intervention’ or the other, we will probably deplore over what Schwartz calls ‘missed opportunities’, i.e. alternative solutions that seem better and more effective than those we have chosen.
Another problem is that wellness literature often presents us with a long list of complex changes that all of us have to make in order to feel better physically and mentally.
Sleep better, eat healthier, exercise first thing in the morning, journal, write gratitude lists, find your passion and build your career around it, and don’t forget to meditate twice a day for at least 20 minutes.
I don’t know how about you, but these endless lists of things I should do to feel less stressed, paradoxically, stress me out even more. And since more often than not having to focus on too many things at once prevents me from really improving any area of my life, I’m often left feeling like a complete failure.
In this article we’re tackling the issue heads-on by sharing three simple steps to avoid choice overload and decision paralysis that might be stopping you from effectively managing stress and improving your life quality.
1. Start with sleep.
When in doubt, always start with sleep.
As Dr Oz, America’s most-beloved health guru, emphasised in his latest On Purpose podcast interview, the single most powerful change that considerably increases one’s overall wellbeing is improving sleep quality.
As a growing body of research consistently shows, sleep deprivation causes stress both on the physical and psychological level, disturbing cell regeneration and mood regulation abilities, general cognitive capabilities, creativity, interpersonal skills, and metabolism, among other basic physiological and mental functions.
With only 38% of the UK population being classified as ‘good sleepers’, sleep problems are quite likely one of the most wide-spread ills of the modern society.
Unfortunately, improving sleep quality is not an easy task — it often requires a variety of behavioural changes applied consistently over a longer period of time to achieve any results at all.
Assuming that you’re not suffering from sleep apnea, clinical insomnia, depression or anxiety (which require more complex solutions and medical intervention), the most common tips on improving sleep quality are:
- reducing caffeine, sugar, processed food, and alcohol consumption throughout the day,
- blocking blue light and refraining from using electronic devices two hours before bedtime,
- swamping late-night vigorous exercise for relaxing movements (like yoga) or meditation,
- keeping your bedroom tidy, cooled and aired,
- and going to bed early.
Now, the list above might seem a bit daunting, so start with a few interventions that are easiest for you to implement — for instance, switching off electronic devices and cleaning up your bedroom. Once you’ve got these habits mastered, move on to other steps on the list.
The upside is that fixing sleep problems is likely to have a positive ripple effect on all other areas of life, improving concentration, mood, metabolism, and — importantly — an ability to make better behaviour and habit choices in all other aspects of life.
2. Prioritise.
Although “stress literature” often seems to suggest that in order to feel less stressed we should wipe all our life habits out all at once and start ‘from scratch’, it’s unlikely that you’ll be able to build more than a few new habits at any given moment.
Thus it’s crucial that you determine which factors are contributing to your stress levels most, and focus on fixing those to start with.
If, for instance, work is the primary source of stress in your life at the moment, devise ways of improving your experience at work (on that note, you may want to read our article on burnout ), and then move on to other areas of your life. Focusing all your energy and attention on one thing — as shown in our article on multitasking — is likely to make you much more efficient and productive than if you juggle too many balls at the same time.
3. Take baby steps.
Throughout his bestselling book, The Power of Habit, Charles Duhigg stresses that building a new habit to replace an old, unhelpful one isn’t easy — research shows it takes between 18 to 254 days (and 66 days on average) of consistent repetition. However, two powerful ways of facilitating the process are:
- implementing micro-changes rather than flipping your whole life routine upside-down,
- designing your environment to support your new desired behaviour.
Let’s assume that you’ve decided to focus on exercising more as a way of managing stress. Rather than committing to daily high-intensity fitness classes, start with one or two per week, and make a few simple changes in your daily routine to include more movement in your everyday life — take stairs instead of the elevator, go for a lunchtime walk, cycle or walk to work. Simultaneously, tweak your environment to support your new behaviour — sign up to a gym that’s close to your home or workplace, buddy up with a friend to go to the gym or play your favourite sport together, prepare your fitness bag the day before your ‘exercise day’ and place it right next to your bed, and block your exercise time in your work and private calendar.
If, in turn, you’ve decided to give meditation a go, start with 5-minute sessions instead of 20-minute ones, use a guided meditation app, and set your clock alarm earlier or use your commute time to make some space for your new habit.
As James Clear from the Habit Academy stresses, ‘building better habits is not an all-or-nothing process’, and frequency and consistency are more important than the degree to which we practice any new behaviour.
Now, we think it’s absolutely brilliant that any of us can easily access empirically-grounded tools and knowledge to better manage stress and lead healthier, more fulfilling lives; but with the over-abundance of available information on the topic, it might be hard to decide where to begin.
We believe that increasing your sleep quality, prioritising the areas of your life that most need improvement, and taking baby steps, will enable you to avoid the all-pervasive choice overload and decision paralysis, and start living a healthier and happier life.
To quote a famous Chinese proverb, “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step”.
How to deal with stress is a publication packed with tips and techniques for dealing with stress and anxiety in everyday settings — brought to you by Agnieszka (Aggie) Zbieranska & Leon Taylor.
Check out the Youtube channel & sign up for the free mental wellness newsletter.
