If you’ve been feeling overwhelmed, stressed, or anxious, you have every right to feel this way. These emotions are natural and bring about many negative experiences and reactions for us and those around us.
Since you’ve clicked on this article, I assume you are feeling stuck or worried and want to get out of your rut. I want to make a quick disclaimer here that, while I am writing this blog post to offer solutions on how to step away from emotions holding you back, I am no expert. I am not a licensed professional or even a well-versed person on this subject.
However, I am a human being and as such, I understand the negative impacts too much stress and anxiety can have on a person. Therefore, I’m writing this article to help others to overcome whatever is stressing them or causing them to become anxious.
Disclaimer: All of the views and opinions in this post are solely my own and are not sponsored. This post may include affiliate links, meaning I earn a commission through links at no cost to you.
Why we feel stress and anxiety
Stress and anxiety can be both motivators and destructors depending on the level of severity they play in our lives. Stress indicates when it’s time for a break or how much a person cares about a given topic. Alternatively, anxiety reflects a person’s boundaries, aspirations, and deep desires.
We feel stress and anxiety as both a warning and a signal that we are moving in the right direction.
If you haven’t already, I think you should read Emotional Agility by Dr. Susan David. She is an expert in emotional psychology and urges her readers to view emotions as both good and bad. Stress and anxiety are a few such emotions and knowing how to acknowledge and understand them can help us grow into our future.
If you feel stressed or anxious, know that these emotions are entirely normal. Of course, there are times where these two emotions become over-present in our lives and cause us to “slack off,” become depressed, or enter a burnout.
Watch my video on overcoming burnout here.
How to identify stressors
Once you’re aware that you are being controlled by these strong emotions, it’s time to identify triggers. As I write this article, I am also in the middle of curating an article about foods that reduce stress. However, you can’t combat your emotions with food alone. And while I do think that a healthy diet plays into mental health more than people know, we can’t resolve all of our issues with just diet and exercise.
But this raises a more interesting consideration, if diet an exercise alone cannot eradicate stress and anxiety, then that also means that resolving relationship conflict, journaling, or even meditation can’t solve all of our problems. And in part, this is true.
In order to eliminate stress and anxiety from your life, you need to take a step back and discover what’s really holding you back.
There are several different stressors, but I’ve found that they tend to exist in one or more of the following areas of our life:
- Career
- Family & friend relationships
- Romantic relationships
- Finances
- Personal Growth
- Spirituality
- Fun & Recreation
- Giving & contribution
- Home environment
- Health & fitness
These areas of life are taken from the Level 10 life model created by Hal Elrod. I spoke in my YouTube video, the level 10 life challenge, on how analyzing these areas of life can benefit you in your growth journey and future.
I highly encourage you to ask yourself where you stand in these places in life. Rate them on a scale of 1-10, 10 being “this portion of my life is perfect right now,” to decipher which areas are bringing you stress and anxiety.
Once you know which area is bringing stress or anxiety, ask yourself what you can do to resolve it.
Will changing your diet be the answer? It may work for health and fitness categories, but can it resolve other areas on its own?
Will switching jobs help you find motivation again? What about changing your appearance? Moving to a new home? Cutting out toxic friendships?
There is a lot to be examined when we take a step back and analyze life through this lens. Stress and anxiety often don’t derive from just one set of problems. Since we are multi-faceted, we should expect our emotions to be multifaceted as well.
Ways to calm down
Aside from changing up your home or diet, here are a few other ways you can reduce stress and anxiety:
- meditate for 20 mins a day for a week
- Journal for 20 mins a day for a week
- Go outside and soak up some vitamin D (or talk to your doctor about Vitamin D supplements)
- Exercise for 30 mins a day
- Drink more water! (It’s crazy how connected our happiness is with water).
- Take a social media break or a completely tech-free day.
- Explore a new environment.
- Practice a hobby or take up an art project.
- Take a break from work or school.
- Redecorate your home (or simply move some furniture around).
- Play some music and dance.
- Dress up for no reason (there are some interesting statistics regarding our attire and mindset. When we “dress” for the occasion, we tend to be happier and more fulfilled, and focused).
What you need to know about these methods
It’s important to note that these methods are avoidance-based. While they can provide quick relief and satisfaction, they don’t target stress and anxiety at their root.
Discovering the reason behind your emotions allows you to implement change. Journaling and meditation are great tools for discovering the root cause of your emotions and finding solutions to reduce negative feelings in the future.
However, it’s also important to understand that change only happens if you let it. You have to be willing to face your problems head-on and implement strategies to better yourself in the future.
If you like this post, check out some similar posts of mine below!
Feel free to leave a comment below and let me know how you reduce stress!
You can also email me with questions or concerns you may have at info.amelia.wilson@gmail.com
My new book, Witch in the Water, is available on Amazon!
Also, check out my poetry book, The Lights are on but Nobody’s Home, available now on amazon for $6.99 in paperback form!
Disclaimer: All of the views and opinions in this post are solely my own and are not sponsored. This post includes affiliate links, meaning I earn a commission through links at no cost to you.
Thanks again