What are some effective ways to manage stress and optimize learning?

Start with deliberate rest. Plan breaks on purpose. Refresh and renew yourself, your body, your mind, your spirit. Short breaks rejuvenate focus! “Almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes, including you.” — Anne Lamott. Take digital breaks to recharge your mental batteries. Mix up your learning methods to keep things engaging and effective. Use visuals, mind maps, and diagrams for effective learning retention. Explore diverse resources—books, podcasts, online courses—to enrich your understanding and manage content intensity.

Effectively managing stress and cultivating optimism involves developing practical habits. Practice mindfulness to stay present, break tasks into smaller steps for a sense of accomplishment, and engage in activities you enjoy. Foster an optimistic mindset by reframing challenges as opportunities and surrounding yourself with positive influences. Learning to balance priorities, seeking support when needed, and maintaining a healthy lifestyle contribute to long-term stress management and a more optimistic outlook.

It’s important to become more stress resilient because our levels of stress can’t always be managed. To do this one needs to cultivate the behaviours that increase stress resilience, which do include some of these actions.

As a lawyer, I've realised that my 'output is only as good as the input.' Stress often came from not having clear instructions or goals. I started to ask more questions at the start of each project to get a clearer picture. This small step made a big difference. It reduced my stress and improved my work quality because I knew exactly what was needed from me. In the world of output, clarity and direction are just as important as effort.

Self-reflection is crucial for successful learning. Most people who want to develop skills and abilities don't know exactly what they should focus on. Most of them have a lack of appropriate vocabulary to express criteria of personality. Using a model of personality - for example the Big Five personality traits - can help to gain access to knowledge. Once you are able to describe behavior in detail you have a key to identify stress factors.

In my daily routine, I've discovered the power of deep breathing exercises to manage stress. Whenever I feel overwhelmed, I take a few minutes to focus solely on my breath. This simple practice of deep, controlled breathing helps to centre my thoughts and calm my mind. A bit like like hitting a reset button in the middle of a hectic day. This technique not only lowers my stress levels but also refreshes my focus, allowing me to approach my work with renewed clarity and attention. Using these breathing sessions has been a small change but with a big impact on both my well-being and my ability to learn and perform effectively.

It can take some time to find a relaxation technique that works for you. So experiment until you find something that feels right. But give different techniques a decent go before you move onto something else. Building a practice in a technique takes time and often some false starts to turn it into a habit or ritual. And it's when we can do this that we're likely to feel the real benefits. Think of it like brushing your teeth, daily maintenance. As opposed to only doing relaxation techniques as a bandaid when you feel stressed.

A menos que você tenha uma crise de pânico, as técnicas de relaxamento podem e devem ser praticadas para fim de controle emocional antes de dormir, para gerar um sono melhor e receber o dia com melhor humor.

In my experience, running has been great not just for my health, but for clearing my mind too. There's something about being in motion that helps sort out my thoughts. When I'm running, I can think through problems more clearly and come up with solutions that seemed out of reach before. It's like each step shakes loose new ideas or perspectives. The mental clarity I get during my runs has been invaluable in improving my focus and decision-making.

Movement is a powerful regulator of the nervous system and has multiple other benefits. As with any of these cornerstones of a healthy lifestyle, however, unless they're personalised to your unique values, needs, context and more, they won't become habits that last.

My non-negotiables: • 7-8 hours sleep • healthy food, no alcohol • Heavy lifting, cardio and mental workouts • Work on business on my terms • No working in the evening = family and me time❤️ • 3 hours of unbroken work • 10k+ steps in nature What're your non-negotiables? Healthy leaders, healthy business.

For me, developing a growth mindset has been crucial in managing stress and boosting my learning. I used to see challenges as obstacles, but with a growth mindset, I've started to view them as opportunities to improve. This shift in perspective makes stressful situations less intimidating and more like puzzles to solve. By focusing on learning from each experience, whether it's a success or a setback, I've become more resilient and adaptable. Embracing this mindset has also made me more open to feedback, which has been invaluable for personal and professional development. It's a powerful tool that turns stress into a motivator for growth and learning. It's working for me.

So important: your mental and physical health. And a growth mindset is key, work on it. Read good books, ask for help (also from experts and professionals), know your Gremlins (these little bastards thoughts in your head ;-)) and make them small.

I agree that a growth mindset fundamentally helps with learning: setting goals, determining progress, having confidence in the ability of learning. Perception of self-efficacy is pivotal. You achieve it by action, reflection and gain of success. Little learning steps and realistic milestones support the process. Without a growth mindset you need extern help, for example coaching. Because it usually takes a change of perspective to find new approaches to learning. You can hardly get any further with own efforts.

I find that applying dual coding to my learning, is incredibly effective in managing stress and improving retention of information. Dual coding combines verbal and visual information, like pairing explanations with diagrams or charts. This method has made complex topics more understandable and memorable for me. It’s like giving my brain two ways to grasp and recall information, making studying less overwhelming. I’ve noticed that when I use both text and visuals, I grasp concepts faster and retain them longer. It's also made learning more engaging and less stressful, as it caters to different learning styles and breaks monotony. For me, dual coding has been great in making my learning process more efficient and less of a chore.

Having some kind of reflective practice can be great for embedding learning. Simple activities like asking questions like 'what did I learn from this?' or 'How would I want to do things differently next time based on my experience with this?' Think about learning not just as adding more information in, but using the knowledge and information you already have more effectively. Particularly if it relates to self-awareness.

I strongly recommend external input and feedback. These impulses are very helpful for coping with stress. It depends on the specific case which approach to chose. A trainer can instruct and practice certain techniques like breathing exercises. A coach can help to improve self-awareness. A therapist can deal with deeper psychological issues. I must emphasize it: "Don't be alone in your stress!"

In my experience, having a mentor has been really helpful for managing stress and learning more effectively. Talking to someone who's been there and done that gives me a different perspective, especially when I'm stuck or stressed out. My mentor's advice often leads to solutions I wouldn't have thought of on my own. It's not just about getting answers; it's about learning how to approach problems in a calmer, more confident way. Having this kind of support has made a big difference in how I handle challenges at work and in my learning journey.

Many of my clients who work with me as a coach, also have a psychologist/therapist. The combination can work really well together, with coaching tending to be a bit faster paced in terms of action taking and forward focus. And therapy taking time to explore the deeper things and looking back into your past to help you shift things. (Of course this isn't always how both work, but if we're generalising). Also remember therapy takes time. You're might have some break throughs quickly, but building a relationship with your therapist and getting ti some of the deeper stuff doesn't happen overnight, or even in a few sessions.

Lessons learned early in life lead most of us to equate our talents and accomplishments with how “good” we are — a measure of our personal value. This gets reinforced over time with every compliment and critique. It also leads to wanting, even needing the approval of others, and for them to see us in a positive light. We try to make sure we don’t fail because we don’t want to lose respect. And this places an out of proportion pressure on our need to succeed. All of this generates stress which impacts not only us, but those around us. We can free ourselves from this cycle by disconnecting our personal value from our performance. Doing so allows us to be the high-functioning team members we’re capable of being.

A growth mindset is indeed a powerful approach for stress management and learning. What I've discovered is that it's helpfull to ask yourself, "What can I do differently?" instead of getting stuck on what isn't working. Focus on fine-tuning rather than on mistakes. This approach often opens the door to creative solutions and new possibilities. It's not always about more and better, but it is about embracing change and viewing challenges as opportunities for growth.

Consider where you might be adding unnecessary stress into your nervous system. Maybe it's time to stop watching that horrific zombie drama, or switch off the news, or create boundaries with that toxic person who's always negative and critical.