Feeling Stressed – Do This First

There are so many causes of stress these days. It can often creep up on us without noticing or it can be a major bout due to perhaps an unpleasant event.

Whatever does cause us stress, it is important that we try to get on top of it and take action to reduce it. There are all sort of ways and methods aimed at managing and reducing stress that alone can make your head spin – but what to do first?

Here’s the first action to take when you do feel stressed for any reason – simply take a moment to think about it and identify exactly what is bothering you. Be as specific as you can.

Write down your thoughts on a piece of paper, your mobile device, your laptop or anywhere you like. What is causing the stress, why is it making you feel stressed, what can you do about it.

Just taking that step alone is you starting to manage and seek to reduce your stress levels.

Break it down in to chunks and tackle one at a time starting with what you think is the easiest.

As you do start then to put in to action the steps you have written down to help get a grip on your stress, add that to your notes too. This will build in to a valuable visual tool you can refer back to again and again so you can see what you are doing and how effective it is being.

You will be surprised how much simply writing things down helps to get the weight off your mind. Especially at bed time if stress is keeping you awake.

As you cross off the small things you can move on to anything which is causing you higher levels of stress. Again, turn to your notes and add to them breaking everything down in to actionable steps.

As you take continual action as per your notes you should start to regain control, feel better and reduce and manage your stress.

The simple steps in many aspects of our lives are often the most effective. Identifying the root of the issue and what you can do about it being step number one. Stress reduction and management is no different.

Start now. There must be something which you feel stressed about to some degree. Grab that pen and paper, iPad, laptop and get writing.

There is no right or wrong order – just get in on record. What is bothering you, why and what are you going to do about it.

This is just one technique to manage stress. There are many others.