5 Strategies to Calm the Chaos of Everyday Stress and Take Back Your Power

Are you struggling with getting stuff done?  Is overwhelm paralyzing you from taking action?

So often I see folks just winging it every day. Hop out of bed frantically rushing around to start the day with no real plan for the family, no advance planning of typical daily activities, etc. leaving them depleted, mentally drained, frustrated and disappointed that things are so chaotic and not getting things done as hoped.

This leads to stress, overwhelm, and poor self-care leaving you feeling powerless and lacking confidence.

You must have systems to get organized, manage time and manage yourself to feel more empowered with more clarity and confidence.

I’m sharing 5 strategies that I use in my life to calm the chaos, have more clarity throughout the day and feeling in control with more confidence to take action. Implementing these 5 strategies will absolutely help you take back your power:

1. Use a Life calendar                                                   

Use one calendar that encompasses personal, family, community and work commitments. Get one that is digital; not the paper calendar you hang on the wall or the desk blotter that is doodled on either.

Using this system ‘no important task gets left behind’. Having a calendar that encompasses all aspects of our blended lives is critical to calming the chaos and managing your time effectively.

Sync with your smartphone, tablet and computer. Google calendar is the best and most universal I have discovered. You can even set a time reminder that pops up so you remember where and when to show up or complete a task. With Google calendar you can color code each category, and even give everyone in the family their own color. It can even be shared so everyone is responsible for adding their own stuff – wow, surrender the title logistics manager.

Take back your power with one less job!

2. Use a To-Do list

Creating a To-do list provides clarity of what needs to get done. No more papers floating around to get lost.

Using your To-do list with your calendar will really boost your organization and clarity. Open your calendar/planner and To-do list. Take items from your To-do list and add to your calendar by blocking off the time you estimate needed to complete that task. These items should include the 5 most important things you need to get done today.

If nothing else gets done, you will feel accomplished knowing that the most important tasks did.

3. Establish a Routine for Beginning and End of Day

Routine and structure will help calm the chaos and reduce stress. Our brain loves routine and structure. By establishing a routine, your brain learns this rhythm and helps you stay in the flow which turns into an effortless habit over time.

The beginning and end of the day are crucial times to prepare and control your day. A good morning routine will set you up with a positive mindset, energy and organization for less chaos.

At the end of the day wind down with a routine with daily reflection and planning for the next day. Making your plan the night before, your subconscious mind will work on your list while you sleep, and you’ll be better prepared to take on your day.

4. Just Say No!

One thing that steals your power and causes high level stress is your inability to say no. This can often lead to frustration, anxiety and resentment both towards ourselves and others. Most of us spend our days getting pushed and pulled by other people’s desires and demands.

Essentially, YESing all day to someone else and something else. You look at your schedule and start to feel the anxiety setting in because you know YOU are getting crowded out.

No is beautiful word.

Just say NO to three things for more control and calm throughout your day:

One is interruptions.

Two is multitasking.

Three is people, places and things that will not support and move you closer to your personal, family and professional goals.

5. Take Clarity Breaks

Clarity will only happen by calming the mind (and body for that matter). Lack of clarity can occur from being in a constant state of stress; it’s a brain thing. The sense of overwhelm that comes from lack of clarity can also be from lack of direction and not having a defined purpose.

You need more clarity to let those creative juices flow. You need to lessen your distractions to make better, more thoughtful decisions without that constant sense of urgency.

Take a few clarity breaks throughout the day. It’s a great way to transition from one project to another. Whether it is from work to home, running errands to cooking dinner, or client meeting to picking up kids from school. It also works great when you get stuck or frustrated on a task (or with a person).

Taking a clarity break will help you regroup, be more present and engaged.

Here is a simple and quick Clarity Break exercise:

Sit in a comfortable position. It is best if your back is straight to have your chest open so your breath can flow easily. Set a timer for 3-5 minutes (turn off all electronic notifications to minimize distractions). Close your eyes and let your mind and body just be for a minute or two. Your mind will probably wander with distracting thoughts, as you notice this happen just focus on your breath.

Have your mind’s eye focus on it flowing in and out of your body.

Now as your thoughts enter again as you breathe out from your mouth, imagine blowing out all those distracting and worrisome words and thoughts. And then, as you breathe in through your nose, imagine everything that is good in your life and all that you desire coming into your body.

Breath in all the good you received already today; breathe out the worry, frustration and negative.

Ahhhhh…feel better?

Would you like the expanded version with the how-to’s and more strategy? You can have it free http://bit.ly/5-radical-to-crush-overwhelm

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Sources:

http://www.fastcompany.com/3013188/unplug/why-you-need-to-unplug-every-90-minutes

http://blog.healthychoicenaturals.com/discover-your-brains-best-time-to-learn/

https://www.youngliving.com/blog/the-snooze-routine-tips-for-a-better-nights-sleep/

Plan Ahead and Increase Productivity

5 Strategies to Calm the Chaos of Everyday Stress and Take Back Your Power

R is back and life is calm except I am that overeating

‘My problem – an consuming ­disorder of kinds – is old. As a teenager I invested years in a cycle of bingeing and ­throwing up.’

It truly is difficult to admit to R that I’ve been eating all day. Normally, this would recommend that I would been at a celebration, or great restaurant or industry. But I have been at house with the children. “I come to feel truly embarrassed telling you this, but I just can’t lay off the biscuits,” I say.

“Properly, you know what to do. Just have to tell yourself to consume healthily. Do some exercising if you want,” he says, hugging me. “You will not feel like you’ve place on any bodyweight.”

It’s clear that he doesn’t really get it, the truth that I am going through a phase of massively over-consuming. I can’t blame him because the way in which I told him sounded a bit like a thin woman’s lament about the thunderousness of her not-very-large thighs.

This is what is occurring. R is performing brilliantly effectively at staying sober. It is been weeks, and I am no longer counting, but his behaviour and dedication to every little thing is so obvious. I keep noticing the issues that have modified: his reliability, his honesty and his capability to say when he is feeling off kilter. All of this is quite new.

But my dilemma – an eating disorder of sorts – is outdated. As a teenager I invested years in a cycle of bingeing and throwing up. Fortunately, I will not do the vomiting bit now, but the bingeing – though really infrequent – is something I struggle with and I do not know how to deal with it.

I’ve been hanging around the deal with cupboard in the kitchen for the past handful of days as if it have been the entrance to a crack den, also frightened to open it up and search within because I know that there is so significantly within to devour. Most factors are for the children’s packed lunches and even however I am not hungry I know that after the door is open, I’ll have a compulsion to eat every thing inside, as swiftly as feasible.

Consuming and smoking – items that have the likely to harm – are not quite awesome when they grow to be die-challenging routines. But view any old Hollywood movie and there is always a male or female lead puffing away on a cigarette or loosening up on liquor.

You’d be hard-pushed to locate a character in a single of these movies, even so, who spends a scene stuffing their face with rounds of bread and butter sandwiches for starters, half a cake for main program and a couple of packets of biscuits for pudding. Overeating isn’t even a health care problem like bulimia or anorexia. It is just plain old overeating and it is never ever fulfilling.

When I confessed to a nutritionist buddy that I had a dodgy connection with food. I advised her that for the duration of stressful instances, I overate. Sharing this was a revelation, because she aided me realise that emotional consuming is incredibly widespread. It just isn’t talked about much.

So I get the shame bit. When you’re performing one thing you would not do in public, it truly is tough to talk about with other individuals, due to the fact secret habits by their extremely nature can make you come to feel ashamed, abnormal. And although I really like consuming excellent food in business, and have often been a competent cook, it is when I’m alone that the thought of becoming close to plenty of food can make me unpleasant.

As element of almost everything – addressing the difficulties that existed ahead of I met R – I have to consider to realize why I am overeating at the second. Right here are some feasible reasons: a) I am the only grownup in the property for most of the time. I can truly feel bored, anxious with obligation and overwhelmed by the quantity of domestic drudgery concerned, b) A couple of months in the past I misplaced excess weight since I was stressed and somebody said, “You look excellent, and really thin!” which did horrible things to my head simply because I started to presume that I looked better “quite thin” than I did “standard”, c) I am anxious about telling everyone that R is moving back in. When I’m frightened, I resist doing it: I eat with the abruptness of fear, practically like consuming to distract.

Strangely, life is relatively calm. There is a surprising lack of drama in our lives now R isn’t consuming the young children seem content, enjoying the day-to-day rhythm of normality that barely existed till lately. So what is there to feel poor about? It is crazy, but the peace is so disarming at occasions that I grieve for the drama – at least it stored items moving, diverted my focus away from the uneventful days that will often exist and shed light on my flaws.

What I require to find out is how to remain sane through the smooth instances, the uninteresting stretches, to sit with the quiet that enables me to feel straight. It is straightforward to see how R could in no way just end after a couple of drinks. To carry on with something, prolonged soon after it loses its pleasure, is some thing I comprehend.

R is back and life is calm except I am that overeating

How I stay calm, by people with really nerve-racking jobs

The football manager: Chris Wilder, at Northampton Town FC, currently bottom of League Two

When you’re watching your team out on the pitch, your heart might be racing, yet you’ve got to appear in control. You have to remain calm to make good decisions.

As manager, the whole responsibility for the club is on your shoulders. You’ve got the chairman and directors to think about, as well as the supporters. You have to deal with injuries, loss of form by key players, their mental state, and things happening in their lives that affect their performance. You have to accept that certain things are out of your control, and know what those are. So I can’t control those who officiate the game, I’m not in control of the opposition, I’m not in control of what kind of football my players are going to produce.

The main strategy I have for staying calm is that I’m careful about who I listen to and what I read. When I started out in football (as a trainee at Southampton), there was the odd phone-in show and a few letters to the sports desk of the local paper. Now there are 24-hour sports channels, Twitter, Facebook, forums and, in my region, a phone-in every night. Everybody has an opinion. In the past, I have taken things personally, so I won’t go on social media or message boards. Nor will I read comments posted beneath online newspaper articles. You have to stay focused and believe in what you’re doing, but you can’t be too shut off, either. Drink helps, too; I have been known to find the answer in the bottom of a pint pot.

There was a stage a couple of years ago (as manager of Oxford United) when everything seemed to be going against me. I was bringing it all home. Last year, I made a decision that I would discuss only really massive things with my family and try to leave everything else at the front door. That can be hard when you come home after a heavy defeat, but it’s the best way I can handle it.

The headteacher: Jan Shadick, at Lambeth Academy, an inner London comprehensive

Photograph: Getty Images

Education transformed my life. I wasn’t academic, I was a plodder. But I had the most fantastic teachers. In a way, that’s where the stress and worry of this job comes from, the knowledge that a school can make a huge difference to the lives of young people. I feel a personal responsibility if I see something going wrong. Children are here for only a fixed period; any time that is lost, they’ll never get back. Some of our students have traditionally not achieved well or have faced challenges in their lives, so we need to make sure they’re as supported as possible.

There are 1,100 people in the building and I need to make sure that every single one of them is doing what they need to be doing. Our cleaners are as valuable as our teaching staff; so are our caretakers and our ICT staff. When I took over, Ofsted ranked us as “requiring improvement”; last year we were awarded “good” and now I’m aiming for “outstanding”.

Nothing can prepare you for being responsible for it all, no matter how long you work as a deputy. However, most stressful situations that arise, be it with antisocial behaviour or angry parents turning up, we have systems to deal with them. When I arrived in 2012, I introduced a policy for both adults and children of always remaining calm and non-confrontational. The minute you shout, people don’t listen to you; they just focus on the noise you’re creating rather than what you’re saying. The other thing that helps me remain calm is being highly visible, so that everyone – parents and those in school – can talk to me as soon as something is niggling them. It’s when things fester that they create most stress. So I’m at the school gate at the start and end of every day.

I’m an organised person; I won’t leave my office without getting everything ready for the next morning. One rule I try to stick to is that I do my work at work; I’ll stay late to get it finished but I won’t take it home. I also arrive early for work to make sure I’m prepared. I try to make sure I have at least five minutes a day to pause for reflection. And I run. I’m training for the London Marathon at the moment, so I run eight miles, three nights a week. If there’s something I need to deal with, I can usually find a solution on my run, and by the time I get home I’m relaxed.

The conciliator: Peter Harwood, at Acas

Photograph: Getty Images

I deal with all the big national disputes, things like the tube strikes, the fuel tanker driver disputes, when the country thought it was going to run out of petrol [in 2012], or if baggage handlers propose a strike before a bank holiday.

Some conciliators don’t like to get both parties together at the start because they think there’s a risk it might increase the emotion. Personally, I like to get a feel for what the level of emotion is. You’re looking for how people are reacting. They’re giving you clues as to what the key issues might be.

I explain that I’m not there to judge who’s right or wrong, I’m there to conciliate, which is basically to help them reach a resolution. They’ll then usually move into separate rooms and I’ll go between them. People training to be a conciliator often say they want to learn how to avoid conflict. But you’re not actually avoiding conflict – occasionally you’re creating it and then managing it. When I report back to the other room, I don’t say, “Oh, they’re saying there’s no way in the world they’ll accept what you want, it’s a ridiculous demand.” I’ll say, “Look, they want to try to get a solution but it’s going to be difficult.”

The most stressful thing is the external pressure, such as when the Federation of Small Businesses was reporting that the two-day tube strike cost the London economy £600m. I’ve been in Acas for 28 years. The key to remaining calm is to remember that if there’s anger in the room, it’s not about me. It’s not personal. Stress is created when people aren’t in control. The point is that I am in control. It helps to remind yourself of that when you’re in the thick of it.

A colleague’s wife used to say to him: “How come you’re so conciliatory at work, and you’re never like that at home?” Personally, I’m not like that. I find calm by gardening. It’s like meditation for me.

Photograph: Getty Images/fStop

What I do is install underwater gas and oil wells. The whole job involves stress, from getting in a helicopter to fly out to a ship 300km north of Shetland, to getting on the dive ship itself. There’s the pre-saturation medical, and then I go into a 2.5m x 7m chamber for a month. I’ll be in there with 11 other divers, working in teams of three. You go up and down to the sea bed in a submersible decompression chamber, basically a diving bell, that’s lowered to 20m above the sea bed. Then two of you get out of a little hole in the bell and you’re “locked out”, as we call it, for six hours in the pitch black and off to do your work with all sorts of marine life. I’ve been doing this for 20 years. Usually I work one month and then have two months off.

There’s no room for arguments in this environment. You need to be very tolerant of other people because you’re living in such close proximity. You also need to accept the fact that if it goes wrong, you’re probably not going to get out alive. You need to go in with your eyes open. There are deaths. We lost a 32-year-old diver a couple of years ago who had a three-week-old daughter. It happens, so you need to be aware of the risks.

You have to create your own space in the chamber. I find escape in watching box sets such as Game Of Thrones and Breaking Bad, and reading a lot. But I’m most chilled out when I’m down there in the sea; I find it a very calming environment, despite the dangers. Being knackered also helps restore calm.

When I’m not at work, I make a big effort to enjoy every day. Even when I’m off duty, I find the sea the most calming thing. Swimming and surfing are my favourite ways to unwind.

The TV guest booker: Tom Fenner, at BBC1′s The One Show

Photograph: Getty Images/fStop

I have to come up with a well-known face on the couch every evening for a live interview five nights a week, all the weeks of the year.

Things can go wrong. There’s the dreaded situation of the guest dropping out. Guests need to arrive at the studio by 6.15pm at the latest. My worst-case scenario happened when at 5pm, the publicist phoned up to say, “Sorry, your guest is throwing up into a bucket, they’re not coming.” We managed to find a replacement.

The best route to calm is to be organised, and also to treat it like a game, at least that’s what I’ve found, and I’ve been working on the show since 2007. I have a plan A, a plan B and a plan C. Some things are beyond your control. Five minutes before the show, I’ve had the publicist for a Hollywood A-lister tell me, “I’ve never seen them in such a bad way, I don’t think they can go on.” When that happened, I had to find out what the problem was and then reassure and coax them into the studio. Which I managed to do. People have their own demons, which have a habit of appearing when they’re faced with going on live TV. Sometimes guests turn up the worse for wear, and you immediately have to make that judgment: is this suitable, do we put that person on or not? We’ve never come to grief with anything like that. Experience teaches you that taking a philosophical approach is best. I always bear in mind that there’s another show tomorrow, and the day after that – there’s no point in getting too precious about stuff.

The A&E consultant: Dr Simon Eccles, at Guy’s and St Thomas’ hospitals, London

Photograph: Getty Images

There are two types of stressful situation that arise in my job. The first is where you’ve got someone who’s seriously unwell and they’re not responding to treatment. The other is during the peak hours of A&E. On weekends, we’re seeing twice as many patients and it can be awful, really tense. The worst is when someone dies under difficult circumstances. In many cases people die in emergency departments under conditions that are not enormously stressful for the doctors because you know you’ve done absolutely everything you could. Then there are the other instances which are horrid for everyone.

One of the worst I’ve dealt with was a car accident about four or five years ago involving a family returning from a concert. In the interests of speed, we had the mother and the youngest child sent to us, and the father and oldest child were at a different hospital. I ended up trying to explain to the remaining relatives that the child had died and thatthe mother was critically unwell.

There’s a moment as you walk in the room when everybody looks up and all you can see is hope. They want you to tell them it’s going to be all right and your job, sadly, is to explain to them that it isn’t. It doesn’t matter how often you do it, it doesn’t get any easier. You go home and you hug your family that bit harder.

One of the best antidotes to that situation is to have people around you with whom you can share the stresses of the day. I can’t tell you how much it helps to have that means of letting off steam. I try to remember what I love about the job rather than the stress. I’m having conversations with people that they will probably never have with any other human being, and that’s a great privilege.

In order to create more calm in my life, I made a somewhat drastic decision. I changed hospital, so now my commute is a 12-minute walk from home. It compensates enormously for the stress and the long hours. It also means I can play with my three-year-old son at both ends of the day.

I think at its most chaotic, the stress in A&E is about me not having control. So I think it’s important to have a hobby where you do have complete control, and mine is restoring classic cars. I have spent a ridiculous amount of time fixing up a 1967 and a 1969 Rover. I rent a garage for a sum of money that makes my eyeballs bleed. The other thing that helps restore calm is going to the pub after a shift and chatting and laughing about some of the daft things that have happened during the day. They probably seem weird to people on the outside, but it helps to reorganise the brain.

How I stay calm, by people with really nerve-racking jobs