To some degree, expecting a bit of stress and anxiety in your life can help you prepare yourself to manage it better. Unfortunately, our society has normalized extremely high levels of stress. Many people need to work more than one job to support their family. Being constantly connected to social media and the news via smartphones creates another type of stress — we’re “always on” and expected to answer messages immediately. When we’re pushed past our limits, stress and anxiety have negative effects on both our mental health and physical health. If your attitude is that life is going to be stressful no matter what you do, you may have given up on finding healthy ways to cope.

When you feel most powerless over the stressful situations life throws at you, these are the moments when stress-busting activities will make the biggest difference. Your efforts will have a cumulative effect, too — if you work on stress management when you’re not too overwhelmed, it will help reduce the impact of stress in the long term. Early intervention can prevent stress and anxiety from escalating into more serious disorders.

Try these eight tips to reduce stress and anxiety in your daily life:

• Take time for fun and deep relaxation — Do you have any time in your week when you’re not busy or running from one thing to the next? If you’re always on edge, your nervous system may need more time to get grounded and feel safe. Try to fit in some deep relaxation each week and spend some time with a hobby that’s just for fun.
• Practice mindfulness to develop self-awareness — In addition to unstructured relaxation, you can create more calm in your life by practicing more active mindfulness techniques. Activities like yoga and meditation will help you build up your “muscles” for handling discomfort and feeling grounded no matter what else is going on. As you keep practicing, you’ll be able to use these muscles in everyday situations. 
• Take on fewer commitments — Having too much on your plate is bound to make you feel stressed and anxious. Take some time to prioritize your roles, projects and commitments. See if you can cut some things out or enlist others to help with things that aren’t as important. 
• Work on your personal boundaries — If you struggle with setting boundaries, you’ll find yourself putting others first, taking on too much and sacrificing your peace of mind. Setting boundaries can feel stressful at first, but in the long run, it will save you a lot of trouble.
• Get curious about your relationship patterns — People-pleasing is a common pattern of behavior that ends up causing people stress and increasing anxiety. Being emotionally unavailable or pursuing relationships with people who are and not communicating can also contribute. It takes time to see these behaviors for what they are, and it’s not easy to change them. However, once you’ve done the work, you’ll notice a difference.
• Reflect on self-sabotaging behaviors and change them — Self-sabotage is when the subconscious creates familiar problems to keep worse things from happening. Unfortunately, tactics like procrastination, perfectionism, comparing yourself to others and giving up without trying end up creating more stress and anxiety. Do some reflection to see where you might be self-sabotaging so you can make more conscious choices.
• Adjust your expectations — One of the biggest sources of stress and anxiety is unrealistic and unmet expectations. What standards are you holding yourself to? What do you expect from others in your life? See if you can make some room for mistakes and imperfection.
• Take care of your health — When we’re not feeling well physically, it gets harder to manage negative emotions and stress. Caring for yourself by eating a balanced diet, getting enough sleep, and exercising can improve your mood and lower your stress level.

Managing stress and anxiety is about making sure your basic needs are met, learning to regulate your emotions, and addressing any underlying fears or worries. Some of these stress-reducing strategies will require both time and support from a mental health care provider. A therapist can help you see your own thoughts and feelings more clearly and understand how certain patterns affect your life. Finding a therapist and changing deep-seated patterns is a great long-term goal. However, you should have a mix of stress management activities that are effective in both the short term and the long term. Try to find some things you can do on your own to complement your supportive relationships. 

At Lightfully, we provide comprehensive mental health treatment that’s personalized for each of our clients. We treat the whole person, not just their diagnosis. Our clients work on processes in four key areas that can be major sources of stress: their thoughts, feelings, behaviors and emotions. Our Precision Care Model (PCM) ensures that they create a detailed plan to maintain mental wellness in each area long after they’ve finished treatment.

Are you feeling overwhelmed by stress and anxiety? We’re here to listen. Contact us and let’s talk about it.