Day: November 19, 2013

Beat Stress with a “To-Relax” List

Today, I’m trying a new way to beat stress.

In the past, I’ve tried a simple to-do list to help me gain control of stress. However, to-do lists seem to exacerbate the stress.  Seeing a long list of stuff to do just doesn’t help me.

As an alternative, instead of keeping a to-do list, I’m now keeping a “to-relax” list. The “to-relax” list is a list of outcomes that will relax me.  For example, if I’m stressed out about doing a specific task, I will write that down.  Next, I will write down the best case scenario to remove the stress and allow me to relax.

I tried this today and it worked great as a stress reducer.  The main reason why is because once I wrote down the best case scenario, it became obvious on what I needed to do to trigger this scenario. Once I did that, I relaxed.

What do you think? What do you do to reduce stress?