100% of my 2,500+ clients have this in common

Of the 2,500 or so people I’ve worked with as a coach, exactly 100% of them experience stress on a daily basis. True, it’s not always catastrophic, life-altering, hair-pulling stress, but still, it counts, and is worth having some tools handy to deal with when it comes up. Here are five of those tools folks have gotten a lot of mileage out of. Hey! There are five days in your work week, right? Why not try out one each day this week?

1. Go Slo-Mo

Most people are living life at a pretty break-neck pace. It doesn’t matter what their age, industry or title is, speed is our collective habit. “Going Slo-Mo” is a playful way to start noticing just how fast your mind and body moving and to give yourself a brief break. It’s simple, three times a day, take five minutes and do everything as if someone hit the slo-mo button on the VCR or as if you’re walking underwater. At first, you’ll feel silly. Then you’ll feel the intensity of your usual pace. Then things will start to slow down and the stress will dissipate. Magic!

2. Meet with Your Board of Directors

Most clients I work with are quite happy to schedule a half-hour one on one with a boss or state-of-the-union with their the spouse, but they wouldn’t dream of setting aside the same kind of time to have a chat with themselves. This tip has been used by CEOs and people on the assembly line to great effect. Here it is: Go to your calendar. Schedule a half hour with your Board of Directors (that’s YOU!) and keep the meeting. What to do in that time? Dealer’s choice. Nap. Breath (see #3). Listen to a meditation app. Write down everything that’s weighing you down at the moment. The point is, it’s you-time. It’s not work time. It’s not errand time. It’s you-time.

3. Big, Big Breaths

For better or worse, most clients, reflecting on our work together, will tell me that learning to breath properly was the single most impactful thing we did together. Besides being humbling for me, it’s reveals just how alienated many people are from their bodies. A body that is breathing well before stressful experiences, during stressful experiences and after stressful experiences, does not hang onto stress. When stress doesn’t accumulate, when it just passes through, we don’t experience its debilitating effects on our bodies, minds, our work or our relationships. Today, try some Breathing 101: Inhale steadily through your nose. As you’re doing so, allow the belly to expand, then the ribcage, then the chest. When your lungs are good and full, pause for one or two seconds, then exhale slowly but steadily through the nose until the lungs are empty. Consciously practice this, daily, for a month and you’ll be amazed at how much better you feel!

4. Get Tense

When we’re going through a difficult experience — at work, in our relationships, in our own mind (my favorite!) — our muscles automatically get tense. As human animals, this is our evolutionary inheritance kicking in. Tensing our muscles conserves the physical energy we might need to respond to a threat in our environment and the oldest part of our brain, which controls this stuff, doesn’t see any difference in the level of threat represented by a wooly mammoth versus an angry spouse or a crying child. Back in the day, once the “threat” was gone, the body would naturally tremble and discharge the excess energy. Nowadays, trembling in meetings or in public places looks a bit strange, so we’ve developed the habit of storing this tension in our muscles to the point where we literally cannot relax (our muscles). As a way of combatting this habit, we can practice tensing and releasing our muscles so that our bodies can re-learn what we were meant to do — let go! Here’s your instructions. Lie down on the ground. Take a couple of good breaths (see #3). Tense up your face and head — eyes, jaw, the whole kit and caboodle — for about 5 seconds. Then release it. Move down to the neck, the shoulders and arms, the torso, the sphincter (be careful!), the legs and feet, and do the same thing. Tense for five seconds, then release. Do the whole sequence two or three times then just lay there, noticing what it’s like to be more relaxed.

5. Get Grateful

Excessive stress often comes from our inability — or unwillingness — to slow down our bodies and minds (see #1) long enough to notice what’s working, what’s good, what’s satisfying. It’s like we’re living our life at 250 miles per hour and 35,000 feet above the ground. While this is an efficient way to get from New York to L.A. quickly, it’s not a very satisfying way to get to know the landscape of the country … or our (all too short) lives. To do this, we actually need to get down on the ground and notice. This isn’t easy. Our brain’s have a literal bias toward noticing what’s negative (another aspect of our evolutionary inheritance), so we have to manually shift our own brains into a positive space if we want to experience positive emotions with any kind of regularity. So, today, I implore you to Get Grateful. It’s easy. Sit. Get out pen and paper, open up a document on the computer, or queue up a voice note on your phone. Begin by listing the things you have in your life that your life is literally dependent on — food, water, shelter, mom and dad getting together. Then move onto the perks, thing that make your life easier than many, many others in the world. Then, move onto the relationships without which you would not be who you are. Keep going until you have a good long list. When you’re done. Look at each thing on the list and say, out loud, “Thank you for being in my life.” See how that feels.

Eric, Priizm Coach and post author, has over 10 years of masterly-level coaching. He received his coach training from the prestigious New Ventures West and is a PCC. He also holds an MFA in Creative Writing and Bachelors in Communication. He works with students, professionals, and leaders to identify and break free from internal and external stressors to create a life of purpose, fulfillment, and meaning. He particularly enjoys working with clients looking to learn techniques for Stress Reduction and Emotional Wellness. Create a free account at HelloPriizm.com right now to reserve a session with Eric!