This post is all about how I significantly lowered stress in my life.
Do you need to read or watch someone do something else that you’ve been craving to do but don’t have the motivation to start? Perhaps incorporating ways to de-stress your life? Lucky for you, I’ve spent all month changing and adapting to my new lifestyle and I can confidently tell you that it’s working (for me).
I decided to share my de-stressing tactics because I feel like you’d want to know my personal experience and what I am specifically doing to de-stress. I’ve definitely written a post before about what you should be doing for a healthier and more fulfilling life but I never went into detail about what I was doing with these tips.
Obviously, what I describe below isn’t exactly to a tee of how I go about my daily routine, just because there are other people in the world that could affect my life such as parents, teachers, and friends, but other than that it’s pretty darn accurate.
So this is me giving you an insight into my life and how these lifestyle changes have helped me get through my day-to-day life as a college student, blogger, and part-time worker.
This post is all about how I lowered stress in my life.
Disclaimer
I cannot guarantee that my methods of de-stressing will work for you. This post is for informational purposes only. I will not be held liable or responsible for any consequences that I arise should you decide to take my advice. You, the reader, will read at your own risk.
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Let’s begin.
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How I Significantly Lowered Stress In My Life
1. Created a Routine
The one thing that I believe played the biggest role in keeping me destressed is creating a routine. I wake up, eat breakfast, do blog stuff, exercise, eat lunch, do homework, eat dinner, do more homework, and sleep. I do the same exact thing every day.
Creating a routine has helped me de-stress my life because now I don’t have to guess or decide what I want or need to do next. It’s already set in my routine. I have been so much more productive and had so much more motivation to do anything and everything.
If you want the specifics, these are the general times that I do everything on a weekday if I don’t have an 8 am class or I’m not working at my part-time job.
6:00 am – wake up
6:30 am – breakfast
7:00 am – clean
7:30 am – blog
9:00 am – exercise
9:30 am – prepare lunch
10:00 am – eat lunch
10:30 am – clean
11:00 am – Homework / school
4:30 pm – prepare dinner
5:00 pm – eat dinner
6:00 pm – clean
6:30 pm – homework / school
8:00 pm – wash up
8:30 pm – get in bed
9:00 pm – sleep
2. Following My To-Do List
I always have a to-do list for the next day. I used to create weekly to-do lists but I realized that seeing a week’s work of tasks made me feel overwhelmed and I didn’t end up following it anyway. There would be days where I would do Wednesdays work on Monday or Tuesdays work on Friday. And pretty much what’s happening is that I’m getting behind in tasks that are more time-sensitive.
There’s a reason why I had those specific tasks on Mondays or Tuesdays. Those Mondays and Tuesdays tasks probably had deadlines on them or I knew myself enough to know that if I didn’t do them on those days, the task would just get more difficult to do later on. (Most of the time, I was right.)
3. Realizing That I Have Lots of Time
Time is money. I used to always be in a rush to get everything done. The faster I get something done, the faster I can move on to the next task.
Now that I’ve created a routine and started becoming more productive, I realized that I have all the time in the world. If anything, I feel like I have more time in my day than when I was rushing to get everything done.
No, I did not lessen my workload. In fact, I probably do more than I did before. I incorporated exercising, I’m eating three meals a day instead of two, and I’ve given myself time to have breaks in between each task.
There are days when I do feel behind but I don’t let it control me. I’ve come to realize that every week is the same week where I pretty much do almost the exact same thing. Therefore, me rushing one week won’t make the next week any better. Each week is a new and separate week.
So why rush? With this mindset, I’m able to do each task intentionally and with more satisfaction.
4. Eating Three Meals a Day
As I mentioned previously, I am now eating 3 meals a day. Before, I would only eat brunch, small snacks, and dinner. I wouldn’t start eating brunch until about 4-5 hours after I had already woken up. You can imagine how hungry I was.
But because I was so focused on rushing to get all my tasks done, I did not prioritize my meals. I was only eating 2 meals a day and some snacks, I wasn’t getting enough energy to complete those tasks either. I would get tired, lose energy, lose motivation, everything about my body felt depleted. There was too much overwhelm and not enough energy to deal with it.
Now that I’m eating 3 meals a day, I don’t starve myself to finish my tasks and I feel more awake and energized in each of my daily tasks. I can do homework for longer with better focus and I don’t get tired as quickly after meals (because of large meal portions and lots of digesting at once.)
5. Eating Healthier Options
On top of eating 3 meals a day, I’ve begun paying attention to the types of foods I put into my body. I have since increased my protein consumption. My increased protein intake includes more eggs, avocados, salmon, milk, oatmeal, and probably more but those are the main foods I can think of.
I pretty much eat all those foods every week but I assemble them differently so that it doesn’t feel like I’m eating the same thing every day. Some days I’ll have boiled eggs. Other days I’ll fry eggs to eat with avocados and rice.
Honestly, my foods will probably all sound the same to you so I won’t explain further. Just know that I changed it up enough to where I feel like I’m eating new foods. I’ve also cut back on snacking. When I was only eating 2 meals a day, I would resort to snacking to make up for my lack of food fuel.
Now that I’m eating 3 meals a day and increasing my protein consumption, I feel fuller for longer and on less food. Normally when I’m hungry, my mind tends to go towards fast and unhealthy options too. I’d go for a candy bar or ice cream etc.
Switching out snacks for protein and vegetables has made me more energized to make better decisions in both my diet and my daily life.
6. Washing the Dishes After Every Meal
This may seem strange to you and maybe even oddly specific but washing the dishes has helped de-stress my life.
Before, I wouldn’t wash the dishes as soon as I finished eating. I wouldn’t wash the dishes after 4-5 PM. It was just an inner body mindset I had. I only wanted to wash the dishes in the morning and MAYBE early afternoon. Washing the dishes just wasn’t my thing. I absolutely hated it.
Now, I wash the dishes after every meal and I’m super proud of myself because I never thought I’d get to this point. Having a clean sink is so satisfying and since I’ve already washed all the dishes, I won’t have to wash them right before I need them.
The ordeal before was to wash the dishes either in the morning or when I needed them if it was dirty. Kinda gross, I know but that’s just how my mindset was at the time I guess.
So if you need some de-stressing ideas, try washing your dishes right after you eat your meals. Then when you’re done, you can reward yourself with some downtime watching movies, playing video games, or whatever your best desires.
7. Sleeping at the Same Times Every Day
Yes. I sleep and wake up at the same time every day. Including the weekends.
My current routine and schedule (if they aren’t the same thing) are that I will sleep at 9 pm every night and wake up at 6 am every day. With this sleep schedule, I can get about 8-9 hours of sleep.
I also said 8-9 hours instead of just 9 hours because there are nights when it takes longer to fall asleep than the others.
I’m normally all washed up and in bed by 8:30 so I’ve got a good 30 minutes or so to wind down and sometimes fall asleep sooner than intended. The reason I’ve started following a sleep schedule is that I want to ensure my body is getting a sufficient amount of sleep to function at its max energy levels. I don’t even know if that makes sense but it does to me. I don’t even sleep the full 9 hours.
Sometimes I wake up after 8 hours and sometimes even 7. But I’ve noticed that the amount of sleep I naturally have is about 8.5 hours. So, being in bed from 9 pm to 6 am for 9 hours ensures I get the amount of sleep my body needs.
I’ve also set the schedule for 6 am because most of my daily activities start at either 7 or 8 am. Activities meaning work or school. Therefore, 6 in the morning seemed like the sweet spot.
For the days that I sometimes wake up early, that just means I have more time to be productive and/ or have some me-time.
8. Exercising 15 Minutes a Day ( + Loving it!)
To be honest, I started my exercising journey back in 2017 and have been failing miserably, until now. Since the new year, I have been consistently exercising every day for at least 15 minutes a day.
There were days when I didn’t exercise only because I wasn’t in my normal area of where I would exercise and didn’t have the right equipment or attire to do so.
But in the next few days when I had all my stuff back, I made sure to get back into exercising.
Before, I would always stress myself out by saying “wow, I’m eating all this junk food and not exercising to burn it off” or “I am out of shape”. But I would say these things to myself without acting on them.
Now that I’ve been consistent for about a month now, it’s weird for me to say that my day doesn’t feel right if I don’t exercise. People may say it’s bad for you to work out every day and not have rest days but I only work out 15 minutes a day and it’s not super intense.
My ultimate goal is to get my heart pumping and to maintain my body strength. As we get older, we all get weaker. (I think.) I would love to go harder and get stronger to build more muscle, but since I’m still a beginner, I’m trying to ease myself into exercising in general and ensure that my body can incrementally handle going a little harder.
Exercising not only got rid of one of my daily mentalities and stressors of not being healthy but also gives me more energy and confidence in my day-to-day life. I feel healthier, I feel happier, and overall more productive.
Ending Note
Thank you for reading this far into the post and thank you for having an interest in my day-to-day life.
Hopefully, you took away something from this post to help you become a de-stressed, better, and healthier version of yourself too.
I hope you have a great day and great year(s) from here on out.
This post was all about how I lowered stress in my life significantly.
doubledacres says
Don’t forget “me” time. It helps me a lot.
Lily-Anne says
You’re totally right! How could I have forgotten “me” time. Thank you for reading and producing input!
Lily-Anne says
Providing* darn those autocorrects
doubledacres says
Thanks for your excellent post. I loved it