Daily Habits to Reduce Stress and Anxiety

I don’t know about you but for me 2020  has been a bit of a stressful year   so i thought i’d share with you some of the things  that i do every day to manage stress and anxiety   but in this video i’m also going to explain a way  of thinking about stress that can transform stress  
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from something that is you know just something bad  that happens to you into something that you can   channel to be more productive and also help you  feel calmer so in this video you’re going to learn   10 daily habits to reduce stress and anxiety and  don’t worry i’m not going to tell you to meditate  
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this video is sponsored by better help where  you can get a professional licensed counselor   who can personally coach you through anxiety and  stress for around 65 dollars a week so check out   the link in the description for 10 off your  first month so i’ve been reading the little  
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house on the prairie books to my daughter and in  book three we’re reading a story about almanzo   and his farming family in the 1800s  and they survived off of what they grew   and in one of the stories right before the fourth  of july they’ve got their corn starting to sprout  
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in this in the fields and the weather starts  to get weird so it seems like it’s going to   freeze so before they go to bed the parents  start to worry a little bit about the crops   and they they don’t go to sleep they stay up and  they watch the temperature and sure enough it does  
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start to freeze so they get all the kids out of  bed in the middle of the night and the only way to   save the corn is to pour water on each of these  tiny little stocks before the sun comes up and   if they don’t their corn is going to freeze and  they’ll have no harvest that year so every member  
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of the family anxiously runs through the night  hand watering each little corn sprout in their   acres and acres of fields and by the time the sun  rose they’d managed to save most of their crop   they were exhausted but they were also content  and after they did the rest of their morning  
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chores they were able to sit back and relax  and appreciate the hard work that they’ve done   so the stress response is your body’s activating  response when you sense a threat in almanzo’s case   this was their livelihood about to be destroyed  your body turns on this sympathetic response it  
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sends out some adrenaline to spur you into action  it heightens your breathing and your heart rate   to prep you for performance and almanzo and his  family they use their stress response to spur   them on the worry helps them to be vigilant to not  sleep to take this you know impressive physical  
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action and this stress response potentially saved  them from complete crop failure so anxiety isn’t   just something bad that happens to you it serves a  function but our modern language confuses anxiety   with anxiety disorder and it’s given this  negative connotation to the word anxiety  
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but anxiety isn’t out to get you it’s your body  and mind’s performance mode so the stress or   the anxiety response can help you have more energy  and get more done and then it’ll naturally resolve   if you know how to channel it so i’m going  to teach you some daily habits you can use to  
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naturally resolve your anxiety when you think of  anxiety as a motivating energy to resolve problems   anxiety can become a powerful tool instead of just  something bad that happens to you that you want to   avoid and even if you do have an anxiety disorder  these tools will help you reduce your stress  
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levels and get healthier so let’s talk about a  modern problem that we all have one of the reasons   that so many people struggle with stress and  anxiety is that we face a few modern problems that   make it a lot harder for us to deal with stress  than almanzo and his family back in the 1800s  
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because our anciently evolved brain isn’t so good  at dealing with modern stressors we all need to   take an intentional approach to managing anxiety  so the first problem that many of us face is that   so many of our modern stressors are connected  to problems that we can’t solve physically  
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so in almanzo’s case when they were worried  they got that jolt of adrenaline and cortisol   and they were able to use that physical energy to  solve a physical problem they didn’t feel stressed   afterwards because they burned off the adrenaline  and cortisol when they were running around solving  
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the problem so for many of us our modern stressors  are things like deadlines and assignments   traffic noise and our crops are sitting  at a computer instead of planning corn   so if i’m stressed about a problem at work i may  not sleep and i might even solve that problem  
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but the adrenaline and the cortisol stay in my  system until i physically burn them off so this   is where exercise becomes clutch daily exercise  is an essential part of reducing pent-up anxiety   five minutes of exercise has been shown  to reduce cortisol and adrenaline levels  
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exercise can decrease overall levels of  tension it can elevate your mood it can   improve your sleep and it can improve your  self-esteem so aerobic exercise you know where   you’re breathing really hard that tends to be  the most effective type of exercise at reducing  
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stress but really any kind of movement is helpful  so going for a walk or a bike ride or even just   doing like wall sits or stretching for a minute  in your office those can all be helpful so the   first thing i’m going to encourage you to do is  just find a way to add some movement to your day  
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now let’s talk about your morning routine how  you start your day is going to set the tone for   your entire day so if you’re like many people the  first thing you do makes your anxiety worse so um   this is what it looks like for a lot of  people you’re tired because you went to  
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bed a little bit late and the first thing you do  is start scrolling through your phone you look   at social media or the news and then you drink  some caffeine now caffeine is the most widely   used psychoactive drug in the world it crosses  the blood-brain barrier in seconds and it makes  
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you feel more alert by reducing adenosine but  adenosine is a relaxation chemical in your brain   caffeine can also increase adrenaline and it can  make you feel more irritable more anxious and   more agitated now you can develop a tolerance  to the alerting effects of caffeine meaning  
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you’re going to need more coffee the next time to  feel alert but you don’t develop a tolerance to   the anxiety effects of caffeine so caffeine  use can impact your sleep and your anxiety   for up to 48 hours and caffeine has been shown  to contribute to anxiety and depressive disorders  
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so if you’re serious about decreasing your anxiety  try getting caffeine out of your system for at   least three days and see how how that impacts  you i personally don’t use caffeine because   of the impact it has on on my anxiety levels  if you feel tired one thing you could try is  
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getting more sleep sleep helps your brain  function better which makes it so you can   better solve problems and resolve situations  that bring you anxiety so if the idea of   making these changes seems overwhelming um i’m  just going to encourage you to start slowly just  
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make one little change every month there there is  no quick and easy fix for anxiety like if you’re   looking for some magical cure you’ll have to  check some other channel because that’s not what   i’m selling but you can drastically reduce your  anxiety by making small and sustainable changes  
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okay so now let’s talk about your  media consumption so our ancient   evolved brain is much better adapted to the world  of little house on the prairie than it is to our   modern media almanzo and lara may have gotten a  newspaper once a week or heard the news from town  
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occasionally but that news was often about  local events the news was brief and infrequent   and actionable so stress about the news could  be resolved by taking action so for example   if a couple in town got married they could make  them a present or if a barn burned down in town  
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they could go help their neighbors build a new  one this is the opposite of what we have today   so these 24 7 streams of disaster around the  world these trigger our stress response as if   as if we’re in physical danger but they they  don’t give us any place to act to create safety  
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so if you wake up in the morning and you just  start scrolling through your feeds or you start   watching the news you’re basically giving other  people the power over your adrenaline glands   i do not recommend starting the day off with the  news instead sit back for a second and think what  
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do you want the tone of your day to be for me i  want it to be upbeat calm self-assured peaceful   and powerful now what kind of media does that for  you for me it’s prayer and scripture study first   thing in the morning for you it may be meditation  journaling uplifting music but the important thing  
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is that the first thing you do is something you  choose so i don’t i don’t just bury my head in   the sand when it comes to the news i choose to to  check a couple of of straightforward news stations   um once or twice a day but i don’t do it first  thing in the morning i also i also choose to focus  
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more of my time on areas that i can take action  on instead of on areas that are out of my control   the stress response is supposed to help you  it’s about performance and taking action but   it’s also supposed to be the short-term reaction  so it’s healthy for bursts of speed but it becomes  
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unhealthy when it’s chronic and when that stress  remains unresolved so if you take the little house   of the prairie story they worried they didn’t  sleep they took action they did what they could   to save the corn and some plants lived and some  plants died but then they relaxed our body has a  
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natural balancing reaction to the stress response  this is called the parasympathetic response but   most of us don’t know how to turn it on so you can  choose to turn on this parasympathetic response   through grounding exercises or breathing exercises  which i’m going to talk about later but the most  
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natural way to resolve the stress response is  to simply complete a task so if you feel worried   about an assignment and then you turn it in ah you  feel that stress go away and this is one of the   reasons why coping skills can only go so far in  helping anxiety because anxiety is best resolved  
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by doing one of two things either taking  action to resolve the problem or threat or   whatever it is or practicing active acceptance  so letting go of things that you can’t change   but in our virtual world even when we do complete  a task or we resolve a problem it can be hard to  
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see the results so my next tip is that you find  a way to acknowledge when you can set down a task   you you make it concrete so for me i really like  checklists um i’ll even like if i complete a task   and it wasn’t on my checklist i’ll write it on  my checklist and then i’ll check it off so that  
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i can um feel that sense of completion now there  are lots of ways to do this but find some way to   mark off or to acknowledge when you’ve completed  a task mike boyd just made a really interesting   machine that does this or simone yertz gertz i  wish i know how to say her name right um they also  
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have some interesting ways to kind of mark off  when they’ve completed something so i encourage   you to find some way to give yourself some  physical tangible way to celebrate your success   now this can be really hard to do with  long-running stress or long-term projects  
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but you can learn skills and practice them to  turn off the stress one skill that i learned from   michael barrett who was the director of the center  for change this is an eating disorder treatment   program is to every day when i leave work to make  a conscious practice of setting that work aside  
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so for me i just say a little prayer about my  clients i say lord i’ve done the best i can   i’m leaving them in your hands now there is a  lot of different ways to do this but the basic   idea is choosing when to carry something mentally  heavy and when to set it down so this could be as  
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simple as turning off notifications on your phone  or setting boundaries at work about when they can   and when they can’t contact you when your job  is mostly mental or mostly emotional or virtual   i also really find it helpful to choose something  manual to complete it can be really nice and  
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relieving to see physical progress on a task so  this could look like cleaning something mowing   the lawn fixing something physical there’s just  something about physical tasks and completion   that seem to click that like ah switch in the  brain it triggers that parasympathetic response in  
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our brain that says okay you’re all right you’re  safe now and it turns off that stress response   now managing anxiety is about being intentional  and in control instead of reactionary so i have   this picture in my head of me as a little kid  coming home from playing at a friend’s house um  
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you know it’s evening it’s starting to get dark  and i i grew up in a super safe town but when it   started to get dark and i was walking home um you  know how it feels like there’s like that tingle   in the back of your neck and maybe you wonder  if there’s something behind you in the dark  
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um now of course in every single situation there  was nothing back there but if you start running   then you get more scared and you get you  get more and more scared the faster you run   and then you get through the door and you slam the  door whatever you look out the window and there  
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was nothing behind you now that is how i visualize  daily low level stress and anxiety it’s like you   start to feel that tingle in the back of your neck  and your impulse is to run so if you’re at work   and you start to feel a little bit stressed you  try to work harder you try to work faster and you  
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try to get more things done but that doesn’t  make you more effective i have the tendency   to try to fill every waking moment with busyness  you know checking your email or just keeping busy   all the time by always staring at your phone so  just like me as a little kid we perpetuate anxiety  
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when we run from it when we run from ghosts  so instead of running like stop slow down   turn around and look around you and  you’ll see that there’s nothing there   so what does this look like in my day-to-day  routine this looks like taking the time to breathe  
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taking the time to slow down to do something  calming or to do something grounding   this is this is how you regulate your nervous  system throughout the day you may feel like you’re   getting more done by just going faster but you’ll  be a lot more effective and less stressed out  
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if you take a minute every hour or so to  just clarify and to breathe and to slow down   our brain is not very good at multitasking that  can trigger that sympathetic that fight flight   freeze response so another way to help strengthen  your parasympathetic response is to monetise so  
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our brain gets super overwhelmed by multitasking  basically interprets too much stimulation as   being unresolved threats so close those tabs do  one thing at a time and then just you know one   of the things that i do throughout the day that  helps me calm down is to just notice where you are  
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so just notice right now that you are watching  this video now i promised that i wouldn’t tell   you to meditate but mindfulness is different it’s  just slowing down and noticing the present moment   noticing that you are doing what you are doing and  then you can move on and get back to you know your  
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work or whatever so another essential skill to  manage anxiety for your daily routine is to do   what i call big picture small picture so stress  is not the problem chronic unresolved stress is   the problem this is the problem of the brain not  knowing how to sort and manage all the stimulation  
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and all the triggers and all the threats that come  at it and when we feel too many things coming at   us our brain interprets that as if we’re being  attacked as if we’re in danger if if you’ve got   so many things that feel urgent but you can’t  do them all your brain can go into shutdown mode  
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so what do we do with this right no one no one has  the time to do everything they want or need to do   so so how do i manage this i personally take  the time to intentionally sort out and choose   what i’m going to work on what are my priorities  and and what i can let go of and this i really  
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believe can help clear up that chronic unresolved  stress so for me i don’t know whether it’s anxiety   or whether it’s add but i am i constantly  feel like my brain is overflowing with ideas   and tasks and to-do lists and then on top of  that there’s the screaming children so the way  
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that i i manage this is i’m constantly throughout  the day writing down my to-do lists so i’ll write   down a list of everything on my mind and then  i’ll just choose one or two things clarify   what is most important what are my priorities  and then i just get to work on a couple of them  
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and that helps me manage my stress and anxiety so  for some people clarifying looks like journaling   and this can really help with anxiety because it  helps your brain sort through the confusing mess   and and to get clarity and then to get going  again um another thing you can do like i do is  
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these priority or to-do lists but then just make  sure to highlight only the few that you’re going   to work on or journal the journaling skill of  a brain dump or journaling about your locus of   control each of these things can help you you know  clarify and manage your stress throughout the day  
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now i’m going to jump ahead here to sleep you  know you think going to sleep would be my last   daily routine but sleep is really  important so to be able to sort through   all these tasks you really need the executive  functioning part of your brain to be working  
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and for that part of your brain to  work well you need to get enough sleep   so when your mind is rested it can  better manage all that excess stimulation   and it can resolve anxiety when it comes up but i  know it can be hard to sleep when you’re anxious  
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i have a hard time sleeping sometimes so if  you’re not getting enough sleep or you’re having   a hard time sleeping i would say just choose  one small step you can take to sleep better   now in order to manage anxiety another skill  that i’ve had to learn was to get a little bit  
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better at saying no so resolving anxiety is about  regaining self-control so if you want to resolve   anxiety you may have to say no to the occasional  party so that you get enough sleep so that you   don’t need coffee in the morning so that you’re  not stressed out and anxious throughout the day  
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choosing a sustainable path instead of a frantic  one requires like a careful sorting of priorities   in your life so when we consciously choose  to not overload our brain it can handle these   tasks with more composure so this is something  i have to work on all the time is just saying  
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no to a lot of things that i want to do but  i know are not going to be helpful for me   now next one i want to talk about is getting time  in nature i’m not going to spend a lot of time on   this but there is a bunch of research that nature  is really good for anxiety and i personally love  
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it so i’m going to encourage you to try to get  some nature into your day-to-day life i am blessed   to live in an area where i can get out in nature  every day but you can get a dose of nature even if   you’re trapped in the city so go for a walk look  at the sky water a plant keep a fish visit a park  
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or even just watching a documentary or looking  at pictures of nature can be really soothing   for your brain so i’m gonna encourage you to make  nature a part of your daily routine the last part   of my daily habits that i use to reduce stress and  anxiety is i make sure that my day is not too full  
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i make sure that i turn off at some point during  the day so take time to wind down in the evening   so that you have time to get ready to go  to sleep and and get a good night’s rest   and and wake up ready to take care of yourself so  for me my wind down routine looks like turning off  
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my phone taking a hot bath reading some random  book and even though i’m super busy with three   little kids and a job and a business i make it a  priority to get a few minutes of peace most nights   so comment below what are you going to do for  your wind down routine what helps you manage your  
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day-to-day stress levels when you take the time to  resolve problems and to work with your brilliant   ancient brain you really can learn to reduce  anxiety and to get a lot of things done okay   that’s it i hope you find this helpful  thank you for watching and take care