The Busy Person’s Guide to Reducing Stress

By Leo Babauta Stress is one of the biggest causes of health problems in many peoples’ lives: it can cause heart disease, depression, anxiety attacks, sleep problems, auto-immune diseases, weight problems and more. But we’re busy — how do we drop the stress levels down while still getting our jobs done, taking care of ourselves and our families? The busy person might have no time for weeklong meditation retreats, mini-vacations, or weekly counseling sessions. So what can be done? I’m going to be brief about this: there are five small things you can do. A few shifts in mindset, a couple actions that take only a couple minutes. These won’t solve the most severe stress problems, but they’ll help most of us. Be completely in one task. Instead of being in the stressful task-switching mode, take your next task, let everything else go, and just be in the moment with this one task. Let yourself be immersed in this one task, letting go of the feeling that you need to quickly rush through it, that you need to get on to the next task. There will always be a next task — the nature of task lists is that they’re neverending. So let those other tasks come later. Just be in this one task, like it’s your entire universe. See your ideals, & let go of control. Fear is causing you to be stressed, not external factors like your job or family problems. Those external things are just a part of life, but they become stressful when you f...
Source: Zen Habits - Category: Life Coaches Authors: Tags: Happiness Health & Fitness Source Type: blogs