5 ways to Reduce Stress and Boredom

5 Ways to Reduce Stress

Stress
Living in our frantic society produces stress. But now we have a new stressor in our lives — The Coronavirus and the boredom caused by enforced isolation. Stress is our body’s way of dealing with demanding situations states WEB-MD. It can cause your heart to beat faster, make you breathe rapidly, sweat, or tense up. These are the normal responses to a fight-or-flight situation when our safety is at stake. This can also be a case of positive stress or a brief-term response to a dangerous situation. The car in front of you slams on their brakes. Sort bursts of stress are a good thing.
Negative stress arises when you are worried, scared, or uncertain about the future, etc. This kind of stress can have a negative effect on your mind and body because it is always there. This results in wear and tear on our body and can create top levels of anxiety, a reaction to the stress. You may experience many feelings as a result of this prolonged stress. You may experience anxiety, fear, anger, short-tempered, and frustration.

Boredom
Boredom is another symptom that can cause stress. Researchers at York University in Toronto defined boredom as an inability to focus, causing a negative emotional state that is stressful. A simpler way of putting it is that boredom messes with your mind in much the same way as stress. If you have nothing to focus your attention on the limbic brain to nags you about worries, negative thoughts which result in you becoming stressed or anxious.

Stress and boredom Relievers
How do we tame stress and boredom? Here are five ways to help remove the stress and boredom from your life.

1. Get Active: any form of physical activity can act as a stress reliever. If you aren’t an athlete, you can at least go out for a walk. If your body objects to starting with lengthy walks as mine does. Start a mini habit of walking for 1 minute a day. Then once it becomes a habit, you find that you can take long walks. Another way to start this is to set a mini habit of 100 steps per day. Then when it becomes a habit, you can build up to the 10,000 steps a day recommended by many people.
2. Meditate: Everyone tells us to meditate these days. It is a proven method for learning to focus and control your thoughts, and a means to help you relax. Since lack of focus leads to stress, anything that helps us focus will reduce our stress. Meditation can be as simple as sitting comfortably, closing your eyes and breathing in and out slowly.
3. Connect with others: this is especially true during this coronavirus outbreak. One of the major benefits of going to work is socialization. You see people. You can talk to them. You could shake hands or hug them. Now, it is a little tougher; it requires you to call them or speak with them on zoom or FaceTime. But it will reward you for taking the time.
4. Try Yoga: yoga is a series of postures and controlled breathing exercises. It is a popular stress reliever and one that you can do easily at home. There are books, cd’s and tv programs that can help you get started. Hatha Yoga is a good stress reliever because of its slower pace and easier movements. Start there and move on to more challenging forms when you are ready.
5. Keep a journal: I am the last person in the world to suggest this, but there are many studies to support the benefits of keeping a journal. Whether you do it on paper (preferred) or on your computer screen, it will help. There are many ways to do this from free form-where you are just writing whatever comes into your mind or very structured methods- keeping a bullet journal. Keep it simple to start- a mini habit of 1 minute a day writing free-form is a good starting place. Once you have a habit, you will find you want to write more and another journaler is born.

Please send me questions, comments, or ideas for topics to bob@enlightenedproductiveyou.com and share this with your friends.