Do nothing

I know how it feels to live a stressful life. I understand how life can feel overwhelming, mindless, and scattered—living with high levels of stress is not favorable for your health, happiness, and life satisfaction.

To reduce stress, you can begin with simple steps that are easy and effective. It does not have to be complicated or stressful. But first, you must commit to prioritizing your happiness, health, and your overall wellbeing.

Deciding to take control of your stress must be backed up with a genuine and consistent intention that you bring to all your actions and daily priorities. It also involves consistency and paying attention to your inactions.

Actions are about what you choose to do, and the inactions are equally important because there are things that you will need to stop doing to reduce your stress.

Here a list of proven inactions that you can begin to consider to reduce your daily stress.

Do nothing about harmless imperfections

Every day we spent a lot of time looking to perfect things. A lot of the times, it involves waisting time in trivial things that don’t contribute to our well being and increase our stress. Forget about things, always having to be the way you want them. Think about your daily routine; things like your cooking, hair, outfits, cleanliness, or planing things following a strict schedule. Let go on all the non-sense stress of nitpicking and relax about your perfectionist.

Spend time doing nothing

Take a one hour or less if an hour seems too long to start with and do nothing. Sit on a chair and look at the window or got to the park and look at nature. Don’t read, don’t look at your phone or computer, don’t call a friend, don’t listen to an audiobook or music. Spend time letting your mind go wild and enjoy doing nothing.

Put yourself first and do nothing

A lot of the time, we struggle to prioritize our needs. We do things that we know that we don’t have time for or don’t want to do, or we feel like they are a waste of our time. Even though we don’t want to say yes, we still say yes. It could be guilt or pride. Maybe you want to impress someone and feel if you say no, it will be a sign of weakness. Perhaps you could be so used to stress that you think that being busy is right for you.

Next time someone asks you to do something before you respond, say instead:” I’m going to think about it, and I’ll let you know. “or “I’ll come back to you on that one.” It is critical to remove yourself from the situation and then decide if you want to say yes or no. Think about your happiness and wellbeing first and see if agreeing will help you and your commitment to reducing stress in your life. If the answer is “No,” say, “No.”

One quote

We must say “no” to treating ourselves, our health, our needs as not as important as someone else’s. We must say, “no.”

-Suzette R. Hinton

One question

Which inaction are you willing to start practicing today?