How to stop, manage and prevent stress from affecting your life!

The modern lifestyle is hectic to say the least. With us all having so much to do in what seems to be so little time, the way that we look after ourselves is not as well as it should be! Our busy daily routines means the one thing which greatly reduces stress is going to disappear – the time to relax. 
You’re probably sitting there thinking that you’re immune to being stressed and if it does happen to you then you’ll just “chill out”. That is the wrong attitude to have because it can affect anyone and it can creep up and then hit you without you even noticing. The reason for this article is just for that reason. To help you notice it before it gets too bad, and then how to manage and reduce it. Let’s face it; in today’s world we’re never really going to be able to fully remove the stresses from our life!
The early signs of stress are simply not being able to switch off. Do you often find yourself sitting there at 10.00pm at night with your laptop open thinking about the work you need to get done? You may feel that you’re doing no harm but this going to very quickly sneak up and affect you for the worse. This inability to switch off puts your brain in to a constant state of work mode and you’ll find yourself missing lunch breaks at work, you’re social life will disappear and you’re very likely to find yourself drinking a can of lager or smoking a cigarette at night to try and help you relax. You’ll become more short tempered with work colleagues, anxious about not getting work completed, and you will also find yourself staring at your computer monitor thinking about getting work done but not actually doing so. You’ll concentration will be completely shot and every task you start will quickly be halted before moving on to the next one – without even finishing what you had been doing previously. Does that sound like you? If so then you’re already quite far gone and that is the reason why you’re reading this article.
When you first begin being affected by all those symptoms mentioned above, the worse thing about it is that you don’t know the reason why. Do you know that depressed feeling that you have also been feeling? Yep that is also caused by not dealing with stress in time and once the depression kicks in then that multiples the stress levels even more. It’s a vicious circle and one that can be improved and managed.
The first step to resolving it is to acknowledge you are stressed. This immediately provides you with an answer for the way you have been feeling. Accept that it is stress and you’ll immediately begin to that there is still hope and a way to resolve it! When you wake up in the morning try going for a quick 20 minute walk around the local streets, or walk/bike in to work if that is a possible option for you. This will immediately break that sleep, work, sleep, work cycle and helps remove that tight chest that you may have been feeling in the morning. Upon returning have a proper breakfast, not toast while on your way to work but maybe a bowl of cereal while relaxing at the kitchen or sitting room table. Then make yourself a lunchbox for work, include some healthy sandwiches and maybe a nice piece of fruit. When at work make sure you take your lunch break and don’t just sit at your desk while checking your personal emails and browsing the internet. Eat your lunch in a staff canteen, in your car, or maybe walk to the local shop and buy some lunch from there. Just try and split you’re day so that it’s not simply 8 hours of staring at a screen. Then at the end of the day make sure you go home, don’t stay an extra 30 minutes or hour. Just go home put your feet up and do not even open your laptop up. Spend some time cleaning your house because it’s probably a mess, or go food shopping and then cook yourself a proper dinner. Also get that xbox, playstation or Kindle switched on, or go to the gym – just do anything that you enjoy and stop thinking about work for that 5 hour period each night. Just like it crept up on you without you even realising, it will soon disappear in a similar fashion. You may even read this article again in 3 months’ time and it’ll remind you about those dark days that you’re happy to see the back off. However, please remember that stress will not go away for ever. It will simply be there in the background just waiting for you to make a little slip and it’ll jump straight back in to action!