How To Reduce Stress In Your Life
Do you feel scattered and unproductive? Does life seem to be swallowing you or overwhelming you? I have been there so many times, and God has been showing me ways to change my life in simple small steps. All the small steps are leading to a big impact that is bringing me more peace, contentment and less sress. I don’t have it all perfect or figured out, but over time I have come up with 10 ways to reduce stress in my life and I couldn’t wait to share them with you.
10 Ways To Reduce Stress In Your Life
- Unplug once a week. Take a day off of electronics, and normal weekly activities. I honestly think smart phones aren’t so smart, they are robbing us of connecting face to face, not to mention our pocket books as well. As a society we are addicted to all things electronic, so we must be intentional about taking time off of these gadgets for the sake of our relationships and kids. Cutting out cell phones and computers for one day is a beautiful thing. Trade that time for engaging with family, and rest. Go to church, take a nap, and read a good book. You will feel so refreshed to tackle the week ahead.
- Treasure your sleep. Getting proper rest at night will change your life. I have gone from being a night owl to waking up between 5:00- 6:00 AM. (nothing short of a miracle!) I now have much more energy and my days are so much more productive. Not to mention the time I have to start my day in Bible reading and prayer.
- Choose carefully the activities that matter most to you. Consider gathering the family for a meeting and deciding how many sports and extra-curricular events your family can handle at once. Trying to run too many directions not only adds stress, but costs excessive gas and eating out.
- Don’t feel compelled to respond to everyone and everything right away. Give yourself some time to say yes or no. We have become accustomed to emails and quick texting, so to delay an answer is unheard of now. I have made the mistake of saying yes too soon on requests and then having to decline and back out, where I wish I would have waited to give an answer.
- Play and create with your kids. I am not talking about just giving them a movie or toy to play with so you can do something else. But engage with them in some activity together. Spending 30 minutes to an one hour a day of intentional time with your kids will do wonders for them and you. When I spend special one-on-one time with my kids, I learn so much about them and about what makes them tick. If your kids are older find ways to connect at their level as well. Take them to their favorite restaurant or catch a movie, and work at creating fun with them as well.
- Limit yourself from time and energy robbers. This can be things like draining relationships with people, online activities like Facebook or anything that leaves us feeling stressed, less then good enough, unworthy, and worse when we leave than when we came. I call it making healthy boundaries for myself!
- Plan meals, and use the slow cooker often. By having meals planned, and written out in a list on the fridge I am not scrambling to figure out what our meal will be, and everyone is happier. The slow cooker is a great tool for stress free meals, and helps when in a busy season. I can throw in dinner, and leave it all day. It is so relaxing to know it’s taken care of. Planning meals not only relieves stress, it also saves money because we eat healthier and we avoid eating out.
- Find something you love to do and schedule the time for it! As women we are always doing for everyone else, so find a hobby or interest that you do alone. When we take timeto rejuvenate ourselves with “Mom time out” we can think more clearly and be a better mom and wife in our home and for our family.
- Date your spouse. Schedule date nights or times alone to connect with your husband. We are in a very busy world, and it is important to nurture our marriage. If money is tight, find creative ways to do at home date nights. Put the kids to bed, and watch a good movie together. Hold hands, and kiss often. When we invest in our marriage it dissolves a whole lot of stress.
- Find a place to serve. When we give of ourselves through missions and charity work, we soon forget our own troubles and stress. By focusing on the needs of others our stress will grow pale in comparison.
- And here is a bonus tip for fun…Eat Desserts! Because life is always better with desserts right?
What ways have you learned to reduce stress in your life? Please share them with us in the comments.
And now it’s also time for our weekly link up…
Life In Bloom Link Up
For those who are joining in to link up today, feel free to link up any post that celebrates your life in bloom! This can be any post from the week on faith, parenting, marriage, recipes, homemaking tips, or something you feel will be a blessing to this Life In Bloom community.
- When linking up please copy and paste in the actual url of your post not just your blog url, so we can find your post later.
- As a courtesy, please link back here, or copy and paste the code for the button provided at the bottom of this blog page, and add it to the bottom of your post so others can find the Life In Bloom community.
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Let’s bloom together!
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Planting Missionary Seeds
Homeschool Room Rain Gutter Bookshelves
A New Birth & A Free Ebook!
Life In Full Bloom {Day 6} Displaying Godly Beauty (& Link Up)
These are such valuable tips. It seems like my slow cooker is always on duty. I guess the only thing I’d add is to take time to read the Bible slowly to let it sink in deeply. And drink lots of iced tea.
You make the best lists ; )
My grandma used to tell me that stress was merely fear in disguise and fear was merely a distraction from the truth.
It’s taken me decades to see it that way. But now I heed her suggestion and avoid it at all costs. And you’re right. It’s hard…hard to say no. Hard to slow down so you can savor long the moment you’ve been gifted right now…
Your ideas are a way to do just that.
Always blessed by you, Denise!
Oh, this is so very good! Just what I needed today. I don’t usually PIn from blogs, but this one I must!
I agree in taking time to slow down and keeping margin in my life is the best way to relieve stress. I also believe knowing yourself, what you can handle, what overwhelms you, is so important. I’m just starting to do that and seeing what a difference it makes.
Great tips. Thank you Denise.
Usually reading a devotional by Nancy Leigh DeMoss or Sarah Young and then opening the Word to read the chapter in which their devotional came from is a peaceful thing for me. Also listening to instrumental music sets a peaceful time too.
May God bless your day.
great list…I never knew that stressed was dessert spelled backwards…I am might have to chew on that:) blessings~
Great tips, Denise! I struggle most with #1. The past few weeks I have been thinking that I need to make Sundays my unplug day but then I think can I *really* do that? I could possibly {smiles} manage without the mindless surfing through Facebook and Pinterest I am sure, but I often write out a couple of blog posts on Sunday evening. I really just need to organize my time better so that I can. I know my family and I would benefit from it.
Thank you, Denise. I hear Him calling me to slow down. . .right now. Bless you, friend.
i’m with you on all these great ideas! Thanks for the helpful post & for hosting the linkup, & God bless!
These are some great ideas. The picture of the bike had me relaxing just looking at it. The thing for me is not stressing over the things that are out of my control….working on it, though, and a lot of these suggestions will help.
Great list! I can’t agree more with the smart phone not being so smart! It’s way too distracting. For me it’s the one that is the hardest. It’s way too convenient to stay “connected”. Wishing I had never gone the smart phone route!
wow I never realized it spelled desserts backwards !!! cool! Great post.
I love all these ideas! My husband long ago made a one activity at a time for each child rule and it really does help cut down on all the running around although we do find ourselves needing to bend it here and there as the boys get older. I also really like #4 as well. There is nothing wrong with saying “Let me think about it” and then doing that instead of simply saying yes (a hard one for me to do though).
Valuable tips, Denise! Even for those of us in retirement who can get overbooked so easily. I love the idea of the day off from electronics — I definitely building that into my week, likely on the Sabbath.
Thanks so much for sharing your thoughts on this.
Hi Denise,
I thought your posts was wonderful, with really creative, helpful suggestions. Thank you