There was a point in my life where I had every hour available on my calendar filled in with something. Even if it was going to the gym, I scheduled for it. My calendar was filled with blocks of activities and I found myself going from one activity to the next. I also found myself feeling pretty stressed out, anxious, “too busy” and overwhelmed. I knew this couldn’t continue and needed to find tips for stress relief.

As a culture, we are reinforced to constantly not only be in motion but to juggle multiple things simultaneously. We often tell ourselves that this particular task needs to get done and we might feel like we are wasting time if we aren’t moving or getting things done.

With little time to pause or slow down for ourselves and we wonder why we feel so stressed out and anxious all the time?

And to get technical, it is our prefrontal cortex (PFC) that gets all this work done. The PFC is responsible for logical thinking, making decisions, using willpower to override impulses, problem solving, considering the future, organizing thoughts, planning, and focusing your attention.

That’s a lot going on for our PFC- it definitely needs a break here and there. Not to mention, when we are placing a lot of stress on ourselves by moving from one activity to the next, our nervous system is activated. Cortisol is running through our bodies and if we prolonged this activated stress response of our nervous system, our bodies feel the impact and may be burned out and overloaded with too much stress.

Giving yourself breaks actually helps with stress relief

According to the American Psychological Association (APA), there is a lot of research that shows “powering through” your day can do more harm than good. Take a look at the benefits of taking a break:

Strategies to create pause in your life for stress relief

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1) Leave plenty of buffer time between activities

Intentionally create pauses (or breaks) in your day before moving on to the next thing.

2) Do an activity that uses a different part of the brain

Allow that PFC to rest! For example, if you find yourself reading/evaluating information/making decisions/problem-solving, take a moment to switch gears and engage in some movement (take a walk, dance, stretch). Or take out some coloring pencils and doodle!

3) Practice saying no

You don’t have to do everything you’ve listed on your ”to-do list” nor do you have to say yes to more things to add to that if you are already feeling overloaded. Give yourself permission to choose which activities or tasks for the day you genuinely and actually want to do. This helps to create pause by actually being intentional about your day and not just pushing through.

4) Practice asking for help

Like I said, you don’t need to do everything. We can also practice asking for help from others in order to create more pause in our lives. I know it can be sometimes challenging to ask for help. I know accepting help from others is hard because it can be a very vulnerable thing to do. Especially for those of us who are usually the responsible one, the caretaker, or the giver. Well, you don’t have to. There is no rule in life saying that you have to keep living this way. Especially if it is at a cost to your wellbeing. Try it out and ask for help.

5) Spending time in (or viewing scenes of) nature for natural stress relief

Take a moment to look through some nature scenes on the web. If you have the opportunity, go outside and access some of our beautiful natural spaces. Research shows that us just being in and looking at nature helps to reduce stress!

6) Limit social media

Or limiting anything that distracts you on a daily basis. If you really want to introduce more slowing down and pause in your life, just get off your phone for a while. Take your mind off the endless scrolling and mind-numbing apps – sometimes we do it and we aren’t even aware of it! Yet this doesn’t help with reducing stress and might even do more harm than good. You can plan to only look at social media at lunch time or in the evening. You can also be sure to unfollow pages or people that you don’t really want to look at.

7) Create a “Pause ritual” for stress relief

In other words, create a routine or practice for yourself where the intention is slowing down. This could be a number of things. You can try integrating mindfulness into your day (Click here for quick strategies to start this today).

Perhaps some mediation or prayer done at the beginning of your day or writing in a journal is a great way to slow down and reflect. Or perhaps carving out some time to really enjoy and sip on your coffee in the morning, listen to some music in the middle of your day, or doing some stretches right before bed are some ideas to create a ”Pause routine” for yourself.

It’s okay to slow down & take a break