8 Ways women can live a less-stressed life
/
8 Ways women can live a less-stressed life
Remember the days of being a kid? Carefree, happy-go-lucky, relaxed, and easygoing – words many of us would use describing those long-ago days of leading a mostly stress-free life. But, now that you’re an adult, suddenly reality has hit and your days are more likely to be filled with anxiety, pressure, and lots of stress.
Both men and women experience stress and have different reactions to it. But women often react to stress on a deeper level and place more internal pressure on themselves. Reducing the extra pressure of a stress-filled life is vital, not only for your mental health and well-being but also for your physical health. Many serious diseases, such as heart disease, cancer, and depression, have been linked to leading lives filled with stress.
Women often go nonstop all day and when you do, it takes a toll on your body. By learning ways to relax and rejuvenate, basically reaching a state of blissful detachment every so often, it’s like taking a much needed mental vacation. This necessary time of chilling out, helps you decrease the feelings of living a pressure-cooker lifestyle and from being overwhelmed and overworked.
Here are practical ways on how to do this:
1. Keep your work at work and your home at home
When at work, that’s when you face the daily tasks at hand. Once back home, that’s when you step away from being in work mode and instead focus on your family. It is very easy to bring work home along with the stress of it. If you find yourself worrying about deadlines, difficult colleagues, or your career trajectory away from work, you are leading a stress-filled life. Be careful you also are not allowing coworkers to use you – women tend to be natural caretakers but rather than trying to fix, solve, or soothe others’ stress, be empathetic but set boundaries on becoming too involved. You don’t need to take on others’ stress.
2. Delegate, delegate, delegate
Whether you work at or away from home, women tend to take on the brunt of chores. From housework, laundry, shopping, paying bills, caring for children, and cooking, a woman’s work often is not done. Unless you learn a basic secret - delegate. Instead of expecting others to read your mind, set up a time to divide tasks – establish routine chores for each family member. This works much better than asking for help in the moment. From your spouse to your children, everyone living in your household should have daily tasks they do to help out.
3. Lower your expectations
Of course, we should all have high expectations, but if you are comparing yourself and your life to others, this only increases your stress. No one says you have to be the perfect mom or wife, or that your home needs to look show house ready at all times. Focus on yourself instead and do the best you expect of yourself. When you let go of having to live up to others expectations, you’ll feel like a heavy weight has been lifted off your shoulders.
4. Resist soothing yourself with food
When feeling overwhelmed, a common way women soothe themselves is to eat. Emotional eating or turning to food for comfort is quite ubiquitous among women. Opening a bag of chips or fixing a bowl of ice cream may temporarily take away feelings of frustration, loneliness, anger, or boredom, but it won’t solve the real issues. Try to find non-food ways to bring down stress levels. Take a break, sip on hot tea, meditate, take a warm shower, or a long walk, can be better and much healthier ways of soothing your body.
5. Have a downtime routine each day
In the same way a bedtime routine can prepare you for sleep, having a downtime routine can help you get in the mood for relaxation and stress-relief. For example, when you arrive home from work, change your outfit into comfy clothes and put away any reminders of your job. Find some sort of means of relaxation to do for at least 10 minutes – it could be going outside to tend to a garden, go on a run, put on music to dance, or have fun playing with your kids or a pet. This type of life-changing ritual trains you to mentally transition from a stressful day to telling your body it’s time to relax.
6. Have a hobby
Keeping your hands busy settles your mind. Ask anyone who has hobbies involving their hands – knitting, gardening, playing a musical instrument, woodworking – will tell you they often love their hobby because of how it makes them feel. Even if you have a hobby that doesn’t necessarily use your hands, simply doing something you enjoy will bring you pleasure helping take your mind off stressful thoughts.
7. Be an escape artist
Sometimes your brain needs a reset button to turn off worries and concerns. The best way to do this is by being an escape artist. As in doing an activity that transports your mind to a different thought pattern. This can be done in several ways – watching a movie, go to a concert, an art exhibition, a museum, a comedy show, or sporting event. These types of events let you check out mentally, removing you from the problems in your everyday life.
8. Learn to unplug
Each day, set aside time that you are not responding to emails, looking at social media, or feeling obligated to catch up on work at home. The amount of time you block to set aside for unplugging from the internet and work is up to you. However, the important thing is to unplug at some point every day to unwind both physically and mentally.