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How to: not be needlessly nervous/stressed
Aldo
Hippo HoorayRegistered User regular
Hippo HoorayRegistered User regular
I have the feeling the subject of nervousness is something that hasn't really been talked aboutmuch. I wish for this topic to change that a little.
I am a very stressful person, I might come off as relaxed to those around me, but a lot of the time I am feeling nervous and stressed. This has led to quite a few health problems: headaches, sore muscles, painful ears, sore jaws, problems concentrating and feeling wheezy. It also had some social problems: my freaking out has costed me more than a few friends and love interests.
So I talked to the GP about all this and she ran some tests to make sure there weren't other things causing some of these problems. She found nothing and tried to help me a little with being more relaxed. I've also took some steps to reduce my stress personally. I'm going to share the things that have worked for me with y'all.
1- breathing. When you are stressed you take shorter breaths, this means you spend more energy breathing and you breath less efficiently. Basically: the slower and deeper you breath the better it is. My GP told me to try and breath like this: breath in 1 mississipi, 2 mississipi, breath out 3 mississipi, 4 mississipi, 5 mississipi, 6 mississipi. Repeat.
Try to breath by your expanding your belly, this is something I got out of yoga and it really worked for me. When you breath in try expand your belly. I get the feeling I take in a lot more air than I would do otherwise.
2- posture. I'm a tall guy and I've haven't sat up up properly for two decades. I am trying to change that now, because it puts less of a strain on my back, it makes it easier for me to take deep breaths and it is easier to relax muscles (see 3). You should sit up straight with your legs in an almost 90° hook right under you. There's countless of examples on the internet, so I'll just skip over this with a dorky picture I copy/pasted from arc.org.uk.
3- relax your muscles. This is how I notice I am stressed, my shoulders are hunched, my hands clenched in fists and there's a frown in my forehead. There is absolutely no reason for my muscles to behave in this way while I'm sitting behind my desk. This is my body thinking I'm trying to run from a mammoth or just about to fight a raptor. I focus on my muscles and force myself to relax them. This in turn makes me feel more relaxed.
4- Think happy thoughts. When I am stressed I start to think of all the things I did wrong in my life, even going so far back as kindergarten (One time I didn't pay attention and my leg got stuck between the bike of my mum and I almost broke my leg. I think I can forgive myself that mistake by now...). I also think about what would happen if a good friend or family member would die all of a sudden. Even though that's a real possibility, thinking about what you would do, who you would call first etcetera is bloody useless and you can better waste your time planning how to take away the sources of your stress.
5- Talk about it. There are usually pretty sensible reasons to be stressed, maybe you got a big test coming up, your girlfriend left you, you have a lot of work to do and you start to feel sick or whatever. If you are in the privileged position of having people you can talk to about your life. Don't feel afraid, just do that. They can put things in perspective for you, they might be able to help you or they might just give you a hug and cheer you right up.
6- Decide to take an hour or two or three off. My biggest source of stress is thinking I have absolutely no time off. This is usually because I work extremely inefficiently and I'm procrastinating on PA writing a big H/A post or something. In cases like that I found it helps to just do nothing work related for a while and spend time on a hobby (in my case photography, drawing or videogames).
7- Work out. When you're stressed you have a lot of adrenaline streaming through your body, a great way to get rid of some of that and to take your mind off things (see 6) is to work out. I found that stamina enhancing exercises (cycling and running mostly) work great for this. Just don't think about anything and go cycle for an hour. It works and that lost hour you can make up for once you are less stressed and be able to perform way more efficient again.
8- Write shit down. The amount of time you can recite in your head what you have to do can be better spent writing it down. This serves two purposes: (1) You don't have to keep remembering it (2) when you finish it you can put a big V in front of it and proclaim "ACHIEVEMENT ACCOMPLISHED! You have earned the title: Aldo, Booker of Ticket." Also, I love lists *twitch twitch*.
Despite all these things I try to do I still feel stressed more than I consider healthy. That is why I ask H/A to give more tips. The more practical the better, but don't feel shy to give more general advice. I'm very interested to hear what works for you.
I am a very stressful person, I might come off as relaxed to those around me, but a lot of the time I am feeling nervous and stressed. This has led to quite a few health problems: headaches, sore muscles, painful ears, sore jaws, problems concentrating and feeling wheezy. It also had some social problems: my freaking out has costed me more than a few friends and love interests.
So I talked to the GP about all this and she ran some tests to make sure there weren't other things causing some of these problems. She found nothing and tried to help me a little with being more relaxed. I've also took some steps to reduce my stress personally. I'm going to share the things that have worked for me with y'all.
1- breathing. When you are stressed you take shorter breaths, this means you spend more energy breathing and you breath less efficiently. Basically: the slower and deeper you breath the better it is. My GP told me to try and breath like this: breath in 1 mississipi, 2 mississipi, breath out 3 mississipi, 4 mississipi, 5 mississipi, 6 mississipi. Repeat.
Try to breath by your expanding your belly, this is something I got out of yoga and it really worked for me. When you breath in try expand your belly. I get the feeling I take in a lot more air than I would do otherwise.
2- posture. I'm a tall guy and I've haven't sat up up properly for two decades. I am trying to change that now, because it puts less of a strain on my back, it makes it easier for me to take deep breaths and it is easier to relax muscles (see 3). You should sit up straight with your legs in an almost 90° hook right under you. There's countless of examples on the internet, so I'll just skip over this with a dorky picture I copy/pasted from arc.org.uk.
3- relax your muscles. This is how I notice I am stressed, my shoulders are hunched, my hands clenched in fists and there's a frown in my forehead. There is absolutely no reason for my muscles to behave in this way while I'm sitting behind my desk. This is my body thinking I'm trying to run from a mammoth or just about to fight a raptor. I focus on my muscles and force myself to relax them. This in turn makes me feel more relaxed.
4- Think happy thoughts. When I am stressed I start to think of all the things I did wrong in my life, even going so far back as kindergarten (One time I didn't pay attention and my leg got stuck between the bike of my mum and I almost broke my leg. I think I can forgive myself that mistake by now...). I also think about what would happen if a good friend or family member would die all of a sudden. Even though that's a real possibility, thinking about what you would do, who you would call first etcetera is bloody useless and you can better waste your time planning how to take away the sources of your stress.
5- Talk about it. There are usually pretty sensible reasons to be stressed, maybe you got a big test coming up, your girlfriend left you, you have a lot of work to do and you start to feel sick or whatever. If you are in the privileged position of having people you can talk to about your life. Don't feel afraid, just do that. They can put things in perspective for you, they might be able to help you or they might just give you a hug and cheer you right up.
6- Decide to take an hour or two or three off. My biggest source of stress is thinking I have absolutely no time off. This is usually because I work extremely inefficiently and I'm procrastinating on PA writing a big H/A post or something. In cases like that I found it helps to just do nothing work related for a while and spend time on a hobby (in my case photography, drawing or videogames).
7- Work out. When you're stressed you have a lot of adrenaline streaming through your body, a great way to get rid of some of that and to take your mind off things (see 6) is to work out. I found that stamina enhancing exercises (cycling and running mostly) work great for this. Just don't think about anything and go cycle for an hour. It works and that lost hour you can make up for once you are less stressed and be able to perform way more efficient again.
8- Write shit down. The amount of time you can recite in your head what you have to do can be better spent writing it down. This serves two purposes: (1) You don't have to keep remembering it (2) when you finish it you can put a big V in front of it and proclaim "ACHIEVEMENT ACCOMPLISHED! You have earned the title: Aldo, Booker of Ticket." Also, I love lists *twitch twitch*.
Despite all these things I try to do I still feel stressed more than I consider healthy. That is why I ask H/A to give more tips. The more practical the better, but don't feel shy to give more general advice. I'm very interested to hear what works for you.
Aldo on
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If none of the above work for you, get on an anti-anxiety med. Pill dependencies suck, but it's better than being nervous all the time.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JzIK5FaC38w
for me its a mindset, I dont stress the little things and I just roll with the big things. Last week I had a situation with a server at a client's datacenter, our guys had to get ahold of the vendor to get a part ready for us to pickup so we could do the repair. we get the part, I proceed with the repair, its around 10:30pm (I already worked my 8 hours so this was over and beyond, oh and I was suppose to be at a christmas party to celebrate my GF being done another unit for med school.)
I swap out the mainboard and then as I am putting the RAM back in I noticed... the RAM doesnt fit... I look at the old board, there is more slots and they are of a different configuration, the vendor sent us the wrong mainboard. I swore ... alot facepalmed and said "looks like its going to be a long night" and proceeded to engage the vendor over the phone to get another part ready.
while I was pissed off that they got us the wrong part I know that stressing about it isnt going to change anything. Finished the night at 1:30am and went home to sleep.
Some people (like my GF) have a hard time stepping back and not worrying about things that are already said and done, it can be hard especially once you start worrying and the thoughts get stuck in your head and letting it run away with itself.
Take a step back and think about it,
Can my actions now make this better?
Can my inaction make this worse?
if both are no then dont worry about it as it is out of your hands.
Of course then people start seeing things in macro terms instead of micro, butterfly effect to the 10th degree. Aahhh if I take my car to work I am KILLING THE WORLD.. or something like that.
To that effect just do what you can, the whole world doesnt balance on your shoulders, oh and always remember you are not alone.
Oh and lastly, "You always have a choice" you just have to be able to live with the consequences of your choice. This applies to everything, sometimes it may not seem like there is a choice but there is, you just dont like the consequences but the choice is still there.
A good resource on not stressing and time management etc is Franklin Covey's Focus Acheiveing Your Highest Priorities.
The gist is to prioritize your life, focus on the big things first, the BIG, Critical, "oh shit someone will kill me if this doesnt happen" things and first, and then to move on to the next stuff, big important things take priority and then you move on to things with less priority.
It tells you how to identify things in your life and to classify them and work at building a schedule and deadlines for you to complete things.
Of course its an expensive course.... so if you can find the basics online somewhere and see if you can build upon it.
The one thing that stressed me out most in my life was failing my driver's test 5 times at 200€ a pop. I was costing my parents a lot of money (they paid 50%) my whole income was going to extra lessons (at 40€ an hour) and every time I had to take another test I was just more stressed out than the time before. It had become impossible for me to just snap out of it, so I stopped trying and now I'm 22 and still without a license. All that stress and frustration did lead to me losing nearly all friends I had made so far in college, failing a course I aced the next year and I freaked my parents out by trying to punch holes in walls.
I like to think I've grown over that and I can manage my stress easier, but every now and again I feel like I'm falling back. Which is why I made this thread. I know some people just aren't moved by anything in general, I wish to be like them, which is why I made this thread. It's not like I'm hampered in my day-to-day life by my stressfulness, but it's an area I want to improve in.
*e: so thanks for all the advice so far. Relaxing music does help. That eye thing sounds pretty complex, I'll have to try that if I'm really at my wits end some time.
Your future self is never going to appreciate what you sacrificed to get it to where it then is.
I'm 31 and I dont drive, I live downtown, and work downtown (and I like walking) this may or may not work for some people, if I had a dire need to get my license I would but I dont so I dont bother.
The money thing.. yea that sucks. I was pretty bummed out years ago when I owned 5 grand to the government for taxes, but after the initial .. I OWE HOW MUCH???? I paid it off over the year. It sucked but what was done was done.
I used to think reality was more complex than I thought it was, but now I think it's simpler than I think. That's if your focus is on the present and you work towards goals in your near future. Got a driver's test coming up? What can you do? Study the book. Practice driving. Get a good night's sleep the night before. At a high level, you've checked off the obvious bullet points to preparing for this test. That's all you can ask of yourself. Walk into the test knowing you've prepared the best you can, and perform the test. You can't control whether you pass or fail, only in the preparation. So good luck!
That nervousness you feel before and during the drivers test, that's a lot of energy coursing through your body. Use that energy! That's an energy within your body that you can direct. So use that energy to motivate you to prepare and keep you focused on the task at hand. Maybe you open the book and read a paragraph and then want to put it off, and read the forums. Steel yourself and continue reading, even if the next paragraph is the hardest paragraph to read. It can take between 5 and 30 minutes until you accept the activity you're doing and focus on it.
Or if you're actually performing the driver's test, just focus on the task at hand. Don't worry if you think you screwed up earlier in the test, since a) that's in the past, you should focus on the present b) you can't control the instructor or the mark he'll give you c) you only control what you're doing now, so listen to the instructor and perform!
working out is awesome, but it requires me to work harder on #6, because I never think I have time to do it
fortunately, I've found that it does wonders for my posture
cocoa is a wonderful de-stresser
I'll admit that my go-to stress relief is the container of semi-sweet chocolate chips I keep next to my bed. Not exactly healthy, but it does the trick.
Also yea warm drinks and the likes are nice, if only because you need to be patient for a moment for it to cool down.
A third thing brought to me is a good night's rest, go to bed on time, relax before you tuck yourself in and in the morning things might just clear up.
That is fine line of thinking, but I want to expand it little bit. While you can't control other people, you have ability to respond. You can decide how to react those things around. For example, I have calmed down angry people just by being friendly. Really, instead of getting pissed, I have talked them in calm and friendly way. It is more than enough to disarm most cases. Instead of thinking why guy X hates me, I think how I can deal with him, and still get what I want.