How To Cut Down Stress From Your Daily Life Today

By Peter Stiller

There are various ways to reduce stress in your life. I will share several ways you can do so today in this article.

1:Break down Source of Stress into Specific Stress Triggers:

This really looks like a chain of events. Take each source of stress back to its source. This means, finding the exact moment where you switched from being not stressed to being stressed.

For example, when you think back on your Sunday, maybe you think back that all was fine, until you got a phone call from your manager or a family member.

2:Simplify the chain so that you have a Stress Trigger, He Said, She Said

You don't want to get bogged down into the details of each stress trigger, but you do want to identify how you reacted to the trigger, and how the other person reacted to your reaction, or vice versa.

Breaking down the chain of events into trigger my reaction, which leads to their reaction or trigger, which leads to my reaction. This may help you identify what's under your control, and what isn't.

For example, maybe your Sunday call actually went fine, until you were asked "How's work?" (the trigger), and then you react by saying: "Why do you always have to ask about my work?" (your reaction), which leads to: "Why are you getting so defensive?" (their reaction).

Another way towards enjoying a more stress-free life is to identify which stress sources are in your control and which are not. This way you can be more active and less reactivate in dealing with both external and internal sources of stress.

You can't control someone else attitudes, thoughts, behaviors, or reactions. You can only control your own. You want to identify what's your control and what's outside your control so that you can focus on your part of the equation.

For example, maybe both your manager and you get angry easily. You can't control how your manager acts, but you can control how you react. Sometimes, recognizing what we can and can't change, makes things easier to accept and deal with. In this case, being able to say: "This is how he is, it will pass, I need to count to 10..." will not make the manager's outburst any nicer but it may prevent you from reacting, and amplifying an already stressful situation. - 31520

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