How to reduce stress
How to do without overloading yourself and live a healthy life
Rocío: Stress is one of the great evils of modern life. It seems that material progress goes hand in hand with being stressed. But it does not have to be like that.
Stress is a mental/emotional state in which the person has difficulty dealing with the reality he or she faces. In most cases, stress is understood as a situation in which we feel “overloaded” in terms of activities to be carried out. This excess generates an emotion of anguish for not having enough time, energy or capabilities for it.
Stress is caused by the development of capitalist society itself, where people, in their desire to make more and more money, greatly extend their working hours, sometimes doing several jobs at the same time to earn the money they consider “enough” to “live well.” However, living well means, in most cases, acquiring a higher than sufficient economic level. The result is living to work, instead of working to enjoy life and honor it.
This habit takes root in the personality, and without realizing it, the person copies and pastes the pattern, multiplying not only the working hours, but also the leisure activities to be carried out. Sometimes, a vacation becomes more tiring than regular work itself, due to the number of visits scheduled in a single day. And not only does one end up applying it to himself, but he also teaches it to his family, resulting in stressed children and young people.
- Becoming aware of the habit of “adding”, we can question, at the work level, what is really essential to have the fundamentals to live. Good quality of life is having time to enjoy. We must question our schedules, and try to enjoy both doing and not doing more.
- Another aspect is, if we work for ourselves, establish a rhythm that allows us to do everything we want or consider appropriate, without falling into stress, without entering into states of “overload” or “excesses” that we are not able to cope well. You are the one who decides. Design your life to your liking. It is your responsibility to learn to live well.
- If you work for other people, try to carry out tasks in a way that they are completed without doing them from a “distressed” or fearful mind. It is the emotion itself that generates toxicity. If we can do the same tasks without feeling in a “rush” or “run” mode, things will go better and we will learn to do like good politicians or great masters: they carry out an immense number of activities and make an endless number of decisions, but everything from calm and doing well. Getting to this state is an art. Therefore, we must be realistic with our current state, and realize our needs. By being honest with ourselves and communicating it with others, we will find the route to well-being. We must prioritize our health above all else.
- There are people who feel stressed not because of work but because of some family situation: having to raise their family, children, being alone as a mother or father, etc. The burden of responsibility feels strong. In these cases, it would be advisable to ask other people for support, so that they can help us with the tasks. If this is not possible, then we must put effort into working on ourselves, cultivating confidence both in ourselves and in others, thinking that each one of us will do our part to do our best. This will allow all members to grow in maturity, it will also allow us to let go of excessive or unnecessary fears and responsibilities.
- Another key to reducing or eliminating stress is to think that there are always people with more tasks than us, and that they are capable of handling them well. That’s why it’s not about how much we do but how we do it. If we can help 10 people without getting stressed, it is a great ability. But if we can help an entire city without becoming overwhelmed, it would be a great blessing. There are teachers who receive hundreds and thousands of people daily, and who make decisions that affect millions, and this does not cause them to become stressed or lose health, but on the contrary, they gain. Therefore, we must remember that to manage stress or reduce it we must change our attitude: do one thing at a time, with a well-focused and organized mind, and do it without haste, without fear, without resistance, without internal complaint, enjoying it to the fullest. of said activity.
However, we must be careful, it is not that we all need to work very hard, but I do like to share this example so that we also have this reference. Often, the solution is to reduce the volume of work (especially for those who do not work by vocation but only for economic reasons) or reduce the activities we carry out each day, combining it with more moments of emptiness and rest. On other occasions, what the person needs is to eliminate the emotional state of “I am important” or “what I am doing is super important” and thereby reduce the burden of ego and responsibility that these statements produce, which is what exhausts and produces stress. This does not mean that what we do is not important, or that we are not important, but we can see each situation as “if I don’t do it, the world won’t fall” or “if I do it later, life won’t stop.” Thus, there is nothing more important than our own health, our own life, which is what we must take care of above all else: adjust our state, feel good, take breaks, rest, and put our heart into whatever we decide. do, enjoying every moment from a relaxed mind.
Oh yes, and we remember: the other person is never to blame. It is in our hands to discover what is good for us and what is not good for us, in order to design our daily life, to do what we need to do, or what is needed, from enjoying each experience.
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