Tip #1 Say it to Tame it (Stress Management Series)

Hi! Welcome back to this series on stress management, I’m Stephanie McCannon. I have another quick tip you can use throughout your day to help control and manage stressful situations.

Often times when we are starting to feel anxious or stress we’re not very clear on why we’re acting that way. So that’s the first thing I want to go over with you. I say name it to tame it. We have to be clear in identifying what is causing your stress. I’ll give you a little example. I like to walk into my kid’s room and have them look tidy. They don’t have to be clean but they should be tidy. I don’t like to see a lot of stuff on the floor and I was able to identify what really makes me have a feeling of calm versus a feeling of anxiety or stress when I enter their room. I was able to identify if their beds were made, I would feel much better about their rooms. I initially started by trying to insist that they make their beds before they left for school but what that did was actually create more stress and more anxiety, not just for me but for my children as well which I didn’t identify at that time.

So one particular morning when my children had all gone and the morning didn’t go very well and I was feeling very stressed. I sat down and I decided that if I wanted their beds made, perhaps I can take a few minutes to make the beds for them. Maybe that would give me that sense of calm and peace I’m looking for every time I walk into their room or saw as I was walking down the hallway. So I did that. I made their beds and that did a couple of things. One, I did feel good and calm every time I walk by their rooms or I went to their rooms to put their laundry up. I felt peaceful just by seeing that their beds are made.

Something I didn’t really anticipate and I’m glad that it happened, is my kids came home to their beds made and felt appreciated and cared for. You know, often as we’re struggling throughout the days to do the tasks and to do the things that we need to take care of. It’s easy to forget the stressful situations of other’s lives. Like I forget sometimes how stressful it is to be a teenager or a kid in school. Now I have provided not only a sense of calm for me, but I’m able to extend that to my children just by making their beds. It was something so simple but for years it was very unclear to me.

That’s why I say we have to name it, to tame it. Take a moment, get clear. Be specific about what’s causing the stress and see if there’s something you can do or another person can do to alleviate that stress and produce more calm. For me it was as simple as making their beds and it only takes a couple of minutes of my morning to do that and we all get the benefits of that very simple task. I have another great tip for you in the next post so stick around for that, there’s more to come.