Reducing Stress in your Personal Life

By Cassandra Tidwell

Almost everybody in the world has experienced some kind of stress in their personal life.  Be it from not meeting important deadlines, or from the everyday demands of family, friends, co-workers, etc.  We’ve all been to the breaking point, where all we wanna do is scream, pull our hair out, and just have a good old fashioned mental breakdown, but little did we all know, there are a lot of ways to reduce stress.  As cliche as it may be, the first step to reducing stress is to stop blaming everyone and everything. 

How many times have you said, “There just isn’t enough time to get this done”, or “If it weren’t for all these distractions, I would be able to focus more!”.  Believe it or not, these are not genuine excuses.  Why waste time complaining about things you cannot control?  The days will never get longer, people will never stop needing your help, and there will always be something that needs to get done.  Not everything has to put you on edge; all you have to do is a little reflecting.  Think back on your day.  What was stressful about it, and why was it stressful?  Did you react negatively as a result of this?  These are all questions you need to ask yourself when getting down to the nitty gritty of your stress problems.  If your problem is saying “yes” way too often, just simply change your response to “no” every now and then. 

Believe me, it can be quite satisfying to not have so much piled on your shoulders.  Of course you will have the occasional person who becomes offended by your lack of desire to put your life on hold to satisfy their needs or wants, but you have to realize that you can not please everybody.  Sometimes all you can do is focus on your life and let everybody else focus on theirs.  Bills, bills, bills.  Who doesn’t hate bills?  With the economy these days, who can really afford to pay their bills off on time anymore?  Well, as a matter of fact, you can.  Did you really need to buy that adorable spaghetti strap dress, or those gorgeous, yet pricey boots?  Probably not.  Find a way to track your spending.  Keeping a journal is a great way to do this.  Set a budget for yourself, write down everything you’ve bought, how much it cost, and why you needed it.  If you cannot justify a legit reason for why you needed the item, then you did not need it.  You would not believe how much you could save just by refusing to buy these unneeded items.  Reducing stress starts with you.  You just need to take a little more control on your life and you’ll have less stress in no time.