How to better handle stress. The Ultimate sleep killer!

"Be the change that you wish to see in the world." – Mahatma Gandhi

Going over the last newsletters there are many action points that have come up. But, we also have to recognize there are many things in our life that we can’t control.

Be it who our family is, any genetic issues we have, or the mood that our boss might be in today. A common issue I had and I suspect I am not alone in this is I was focusing on problems that were out of my control. 

I’m not going to lie to you. There is no magic bullet for this. But being able to split your problems into things that you have an impact on and ones that you don’t is the best first action to take.

I have to add a slight bit of nuance here that even things that seem out of our control, let’s say the mood of our boss, that we still have some impact on. But the key message here is we prioritize the issues that we have the most control over. 

Below is an example of a client who was having a lot of stress issues.

Stressed due to:

• Overworked and too many projects
• Relationship issues
• People pleasing at work
• Poor sleep and poor sleep habits
• Poor work environment

Now the key here is can we split these into things we can change and things we can manage. 

When looked at in detail, there were few options for the client to reduce their workload. So we put this into the things we can manage column. Relationship, there was work to be done here, so we added to things to change. 

To be managed:

• Workload

To be changed:

• Relationship - Referred to a great book called ‘Attached’
• People pleasing at work- Blocked in 2 hours a day where no one could bother him
• Poor sleep and sleep habits- Made some small tweaks to add more exercise to his day
• Poor work environment- Made a request to the office manager for changes to his office, more plants and nicer colors

So great, we have some action points. But we have no solution to the workload yet.

We can’t remove the work in this case, but we can better manage it. 

Some examples that can help to better manage stress

• Journaling and meditation
• Gratitude
• Improving diet
• Improve daily exercise
• Breathe work
• Protected time

Ps, sometimes listening to white/brown/pink noise can help. I host these noises on my YouTube channel.

3 weeks later the client was still overworked. However, he was better managing the problem and had made progress in other areas that were causing him stress. 

As before, we are not looking for perfection, we are looking for improvement. 

Anyone promising easy ways to handle stress, I would be wary of. But taking this structured approach I promise will make stress more manageable.

The next question is, are we stressing about the right things? But this will be for the next episode.

I made a quiz that is designed to help people understand the main reasons for their poor sleep. You can check it out here.

'Be Better, Not Bitter'