Stress affects all of us at one time or another, so here are some daily stress management tips.
Summary: This post offers 28 stress management tips, including tips to help your body, your heart, your mind, support learning, encourage being in nature, creativity, and self-development. Each tip is designed to promote mental well-being and help you manage stress in bite-sized steps.
I discovered the VIA Calendar of Stress Management Tips this morning, and was inspired to create my own version — then naturally the next step was to share it here, in case it could be useful to anyone of you fine people. (Hopefully it is!)
Each tip is designed to be a prompt for that day, but this could also act as a shopping list to pick from as you like. You do you.
Stress Management Tips
Body
- Do 10 minutes of stretches
- Take a bath, spa or go for a swim
- Eat only healthy food today
- Drink 2 litres of water today
Heart
- Call, text or email a friend you haven’t seen for a while
- Tell someone you love them
- Send a postcard
- Listen to a song that makes you feel nostalgic
Mind
- Meditate
- Play a word game like Wordle, brain teaser like Sudoku, or do a crossword
- Read a few pages of a book (or listen to an audiobook)
- Do a puzzle, or play a board game
Learn
- Listen to a podcast about health or self-improvement
- Try Duolingo (or another language learning app)
- Watch a TED talk
- “Interview” a knowledgeable friend on a topic
Nature
- Spend 5 minutes examining a plant or flower
- Connect with the earth by laying down, or standing barefoot
- Go for a walk, ideally at sunrise or sunset
- Sit in your garden or a park and watch for birds
Creative
- Look at some art
- Make something
- Write a short story, or a haiku
- Draw something
Self
- Do the VIA strengths survey to learn your strengths
- Figure out what your personal values are
- Set some life goals with a napkin plan
- Start a gratitude journal
Your turn!
There are two versions here: the prefilled option (PDF), or a blank template for you to either copy the Google Doc (to adapt for yourself), or download the PDF (to write on directly). Enjoy!
