CHANGE #28

Drop One Stressful Thing in Your Life

SIMPLY PUT… I want you to take a good, hard look at all of the things you’re juggling/managing/stressing about in your life. Then, either drop one or find a smarter, more effective way to manage it.

Stress is tangible. You can feel it, you can see it, and you can smell and taste it. It visibly sits on you throughout every minute of every day, which should explain the tight shoulders, hunched back, and raging headaches.

Stress influences the choices you make, it affects the way you experience things, and it even impacts your relationships with others. But what’s most concerning is what it’s doing to your health. When you look at all of the horrible things we do to our bodies, stress is right up there. It’s linked to every major illness you can think of, including cancer, depression, and heart disease. And we’re all victims to it.

There is stress in my life. There is stress in your life. But there’s got to be at least one thing on your stress plate right now that really doesn’t need to be there. Maybe you’re worrying about something that’s not your problem. Are you still stewing about something that happened years ago?

If you’re not sure what it might be, just ask your friends or family what they think you worry about more than you should. Trust me—it will be the one thing that keeps coming up. The same thing that probably comes up anytime someone close to you has said, “Hey, don’t worry about it—that’s not your problem.”

Guess what? That’s the one you can probably let go.

DON’T STOP THERE…

Thanks to the Changes you’ve already introduced into your life through this book (exercising more, eating better, and managing your time more efficiently to get things done, for example), you’ve already begun reducing a great deal of the stress in your life. But if you’re still holding on to more (and we’re all guilty of it), it could be keeping you from breaking out of your rut.

I can’t tell you to completely avoid or drop everything that stresses you out because that’s unrealistic. In many ways, life is the ultimate stress test. Between work, family, friends, dating, diets, and money, it’s all around us. But while we can’t rid ourselves of it entirely, we can learn to control how we react and respond to it.

Face each stressor head–on. People ask me all the time: “How do you juggle everything—kids, job, travel, working out, training, family—and still stay sane?” First I casually mention that sanity is overrated. Then I explain I have a good working relationship with stress, and so should you. In other words: Dear Stress, Let’s break up, but can we remain friends?

The biggest mistake people make is ignoring whatever’s stressing them out in the first place. So as each new stressor plops in your lap, you pretend that it’s not there invading your personal space. Don’t ignore it—acknowledge it. Stare it down. Look at its existence and immediately start planning a way to deal with it. The sooner you take it on, the less time you’ll spend concerned about it.

Always be in the present. We’ve become a world of multitaskers. But if you’re sitting down in a work meeting and your brain is trying to figure out who is going to watch your sixteen-month-old this weekend, what you’re making for dinner tonight, how you’re going to have time to work out tomorrow, and what you’re going to say in your speech at Marcy’s wedding next October, you’ll end up drowning in your own stressful misery. (Go with a poem, by the way—they’re always showstoppers at weddings.)

Instead, one trick that works for me to minimize stress is to focus only on whatever is on my plate at that very moment—and that’s it. I surprise people when I suggest this because they assume I’m constantly doing a million things at once. It’s not that I don’t get a million things done—it’s just that I give each of those million things their due (and it’s more like three million, to be honest).

For me, that’s the only way I’ve ever been able to manage everything. If I’m sitting in a meeting, that’s the only thing that I’m focused on. If I’m at home with my daughters, telling them about a new variation on the push-up (relax, I’m just kidding), then that’s all that I’m focused on. If you forget about trying to do everything at once—and just do one thing at a time—you’ll be surprised how everything seems to work out with less stress.

Give 100 percent to that one thing in front of you. Once you’ve pinpointed whatever is causing you stress, give it all the attention it deserves. Don’t half-ass it. Deal with it completely; otherwise it remains on your stress plate, just in a different form. If you have ten bills to pay, sit down and pay them all. Don’t pay a few now and put some in your bag to do tomorrow when you get to work. Deal with it. Cross if off your list. Move on.

By not taking advantage of the time you have, you walk away with regret. You walk away saying, “Ugh! I didn’t spend enough time on that” or “I didn’t put my best foot forward.” But if you step away from a stressful situation knowing you did your best, you’ll walk away from it carrying less guilt and have more energy to tackle it the next time.

Tips and Tricks

When stress strikes, it’s good to have a few other things up your sleeve besides listening to music or meditating to melt it all away. (Both are sound options for calming yourself down though.) Now, before you reject the following as silly or ridiculous or incapable of working, give them a try.

Find a four-legged friend. Grab a dog, cat, or any other animal you’re not allergic to that won’t bite or poop on you, and spend some time petting it. Research has shown that petting an animal may not only help to lower your blood pressure, it also decreases the amount of the stress hormone cortisol and increases the release of feel-good endorphins such as serotonin and oxytocin.

Show your partner some love. Hugging, kissing, sex—even just holding your partner’s hand—has been shown to lower blood pressure, release oxytocin, and drive down cortisol.

Double up on your outdoor time. Walking 10,000 steps should be getting you outside more, but if the only times you find yourself exposed to fresh air are the brief moments between leaving your car and going into whatever building you drove it to, then get outside already. Not only does natural light increase your body’s levels of serotonin, but nature has a way of helping your brain instantly unwind.

Rotate a few stress-fighting foods into your diet. Some fruits, vegetables, and meats contain certain nutrients that have not only been shown to reduce symptoms that can occur with stress, but may even lower your stress levels altogether. The next time you’re preparing a meal or snack, try a few of the following:

• Asparagus (and broccoli): Both have high levels of folic acid, a mood-enhancing nutrient that prevents depression and stabilizes your mood.

• Avocados: Rich in potassium and monounsaturated fats—both of which help to lower your blood pressure—they’re also loaded with B vitamins, which combat stress as well.

• Fatty fish: Halibut, salmon, and tuna are all high in omega-3 fatty acids, great for boosting serotonin and reducing the level of cortisol in your system. Those fatty acids also contain DHA (docosahexaenoic acid), which nourishes your brain so it functions more efficiently—and you have an easier time managing your stress.

• Nuts and seeds: A great source of stress-fighting omega-3 fatty acids, some (like cashews and sunflower seeds) also contain the amino acid L-tryptophan, which boosts the release of serotonin.

• Oatmeal: Not only is this complex carbohydrate great for leaving you feeling fuller longer, it’s also been shown to increase serotonin production and contains magnesium, a mineral shown to regulate cortisol and create a feeling of well-being in most people.

• Spinach: The vegetable has a calming effect on many people due to providing nearly 40 percent of the recommended daily allowance of magnesium.

• Turkey: There’s a reason you feel sleepy after eating this bird. It’s teeming with tryptophan. But if your access to the bird only happens around the holidays, a glass of milk has plenty of tryptophan in it too.

• Vitamin C–rich foods: Berries, citrus fruits, tomatoes, broccoli, peppers, kale—any food that’s fortified with vitamin C helps you combat stress by lowering cortisol.

Make what’s around you smell nicer. Certain scents have been shown to relieve stress, so try a few of the tried-and-true aromas, like vanilla, lavender, rosemary, chamomile, cypress, pizza, or even baby powder. (Sorry about that. Pizza always tries to squeeze itself into the mix in my world.)

Leave work at the office—and at your hamper. The minute you get home from work or anyplace that requires you to wear something less relaxing, slip into something more comfortable (said in a sexy voice). Just the act of changing can make you feel as if you’re leaving whatever problems you had throughout the day behind.

Call the funniest friend you know. There’s a reason we all could use a good laugh. Laughter elevates the release of endorphins and lowers stress hormones such as cortisol and epinephrine. So go ahead. Call the one person who you know will crack you up. (My number is 917-48… )

Set your clock fifteen minutes fast. A great deal of stress doesn’t come from the things we have to do—it’s waiting until the last minute to do them that causes undue stress. Budgeting enough time to your tasks can strip away stress before it ever occurs.

Find a chore that’s mindless but still challenging. Take on a project that requires time and a lot of physical effort but isn’t something that requires much thought or needs to be done right away. Whether it’s yard work, cleaning out a closet, or folding laundry, don’t discount the power of letting your brain turn off and your body take over to shed stress.

The “So You Know” Science

Even if you take great pride in piling on stress to prove you can handle anything, know that stress is actually the one handling you.

Whenever you’re stressed out, your adrenal glands on top of your kidneys secrete cortisol. This fight-or-flight hormone is meant to help your body respond to stress by (among other things) raising your blood pressure and blood sugar, so you have the energy to either fight what’s in front of you or run like hell. But when you’re always stressed, that stream of cortisol never stops, which becomes detrimental to your body.

The short-term effects can range from insomnia and having a harder time concentrating to experiencing a lower libido, headaches, high blood pressure, chronic pain, fatigue, and an upset stomach. Studies have even associated cortisol with our bodies accumulating belly fat and developing cravings for fat-laden and sugary foods.

But the long-term effects are far worse. Because stress can affect nearly every function within your body, it’s a major contributor to heart disease, weight gain, depression, fertility issues, acne and eczema, ulcers, and arthritis.