Nine Low-Lift Ways to Short-Circuit Stress
In 2021, Tyler Swartz was overwhelmed by his job in venture capital. Between meetings and emails, he often felt like he couldn’t focus, and the stress was following him home, where he felt could not be totally present in his relationships. One morning, he picked up a pen to try and gather his thoughts. He hasn’t put it down since.
“I didn’t realize how much stress was impacting me until I started my journaling habit,” he tells GQ. “Other things helped, like meditating, reading, stretching, walking—but journaling made me feel clear-headed and capable again.”
Swartz found that reflecting on the things that made him happy—specifically, starting a written gratitude practice—dramatically impacted his mental health for the better. Now, he preaches the benefits of starting every single day with some time for reflection to whoever will listen.
Swartz isn’t alone in his struggles with stress. According to the American Psychological Association (APA), most adults quantify their average stress level at a five out of 10 (on a scale of 1–10, where 1 is “little to no stress” and 10 is a “great deal of stress”). However, roughly a quarter of adults rated their average stress between eight and 10, up from 19% in 2019—before the pandemic. That stress can negatively impact not only your mental health, but your appearance and every system in the body, from respiratory and reproductive to cardiovascular, increasing risk for hypertension, heart attack, or stroke.
“There’s more pressure in so many different parts of life these days,” says Dr. Eran Magen, Ph.D. a suicide prevention expert who offers parenting education and support via ParentingForHumans.com and DivorcingDads.org. “As a result of stress, people have a harder time connecting to the things that make them feel good. They go to the emptier calories of feeling good, which often entails reaching for the cell phone. People get worn down.”
If you’re constantly battling stress yourself, there’s hope. Here are nine tips for managing stress.
Get more sleep. For maximum sleep benefits, aim for the CDC’s recommended sleep amount of seven to nine hours per night.
“When people don’t get enough sleep, the world feels much worse and people act much less thoughtfully toward it,” says Dr. Magen, who adds that even a small sleep deficit can contribute to greater irritability, an inability to think sharply, poor immune function, and subpar recovery. A guaranteed way to sleep better? Have a consistent sleep schedule every day. When we set deadlines for shutting down for the night, the brain understands when you’re supposed to be tired, and in turn that’s when melatonin—the hormone that your brain produces in response to darkness and helps with the timing of your circadian rhythms—secretes.
Move your body. Run a flight of stairs. Do a plank. And if you’re not able to do even that, something as simple as tapping your foot can make a difference, says Dr. Natalie Dattilo, a clinical psychologist at Brigham & Women’s Hospital and Instructor of Psychology at Harvard Medical School.
“Even that small movement can help circulate the hormones that are now flooding your body in a stressed state—cortisol and adrenaline—that prime our body to move.”
When it doubt, walk it out. Walking is the key to being more productive, and it’s also a great opportunity to slow down and be present with your surroundings.
Put the phone down. A lot of time is wasted on the phone, which can add to your stress levels because the experience itself doesn’t often have much of a pay-off, says Dr. Magen. “A lot of people don’t know what to do when they don’t have their phone in their hand, making it harder for us to hear our own thoughts,” he says. “The device is giving us mental white noise.”
Instead of reaching for the phone before bed or when you need a work break, think about what other habits could benefit you. Maybe it’s crafts, reading, cooking, hanging out with friends, making music, or playing a team sport.
Reorient your thinking. When something pops up, creating stress, ask yourself this question: “Is this thing I’m facing a threat to my psychological or emotional safety—or is it simply an obstacle to overcome?” Implementing what Dr. Dattilo refers to as the “Threat-to-Challenge Mindset Shift,” can be a game-changer.
By taking the time to pause, you may realize a mundane task that previously made you feel anxious isn’t something to fret about, but rather, just something to be taken care of. “Changing the word that you’re using or the way you’re talking to yourself in that situation takes the intensity of it down a little bit,” she says. “There’s a lot of power at play when you realize that you have the ability to regulate your emotions.”
Embrace “boredom.”Some respond to the feeling bored by turning on college football or playing Call of Duty. Others worry, maybe about spending time with themselves, or not being productive.
Dr. Magen asks, what happens when you’re not so worried about being bored? And what would it mean to experiment with that?
“Being bored is a lot like the concept of being lost,” he says. “There’s no particular place that you’re at when you’re lost. Instead, being lost is simply not being at the place you should be. But others call that exploring or traveling. What’s different is there’s no particular sense of the need to be somewhere else at that moment. Try this: Remove that sense of ‘should,’ then it doesn’t exactly fit the definition of ‘bored’ anymore. Then, you’ve found the opportunity.”
Eat well. Stress may amplify pain, bloating, nausea, and other stomach discomforts and impact appetite, according to the APA. While it’s always helpful to eat intuitively, it’s especially helpful to exercise this method when you’re stressed. Paying attention to how your body feels after we eat certain things can help us make better choices, says Dr. Magen.
He advises setting yourself up for success by thinking about what you’ll consume ahead of time. Be conscious of what you’re bringing home, and keep things accessible that contribute to an overall sense of satisfaction—both during consumption and afterward.
Exhale. By incorporating breathwork into your day, you’ll be able to operate more from the parasympathetic nervous system—the automatic systems that govern relaxation and recovery. You’ll then be more centered and less reactive to the environment around you.
Adopting a breathwork practice doesn’t need to be an elaborate process. Dr. Dattilo recommends a simple audible exhale for beginners. Simply inhale, then exhale with a deep, rich, sigh. “When you do this, two things happen,” she says. “A recoil, so you’ll inhale pretty deeply, take a much bigger breath than you normally would, and that kicks the breathing into a more paced place. And secondly, you hear the audible sigh, which triggers some biofeedback that you’re in this place of reset.”
Put down the alcohol. We’ve all been there: It’s the end of a rough day, and the first sentence out of your mouth is “I can’t wait to have a drink.” Alcohol consumption can not only make you look older, it’s also one of the things you shouldn’t do when you’re stressed. “Alcohol will interfere with your ability to get good quality sleep, which will likely make you feel worse,” says Dr. Dattilo. “It also can cause inflammation in the body which will feel like pain, and impact the ability to make cortisol.”
Stop “Shoulding” yourself. Dr. Dattilo says that for many, stress isn’t actually the problem—it’s stressing about stress. When we’re stressed about an obligation or a project, we’re often in a “should” mindset, putting pressure on ourselves to do things a certain way. “We don't feel like we’re doing it good enough or fast enough,” she says. “But what happens when you take the ‘should’ out of it? The reframe is your opportunity, and is something that can be learned.”
Originally Appeared on GQ
