Blowing Off Steam

Morning all,

Sometimes stress and anxiety can really get to you. Whether you're already living the finance dream, or you're on your way in this year or the next (hopefully), we're all busy, motivated people and the stress builds and builds. And then it exits in one of two ways, at least in my experience: you get irritated and rage at something/someone when it doesn't make sense at all to do that, or you find a healthy avenue for getting rid of that built-up stress.

Raging and being irritable usually isn't what you want to be doing. It's not an MO that I'd like to follow, in any case.

Here's a list of things I've done in the past to get over those stressful bumps in the road:

1. Exercising

No doubt about this one -- exercising has been proven time and time again to be extremely effective in managing stress and any sort of ailments that are associated with stress (anxiety, depression, etc). I'll be the first to admit that I don't exercise regularly. Sometimes I will exercise daily for six months straight, but then I'll stop for a while and it can be tough to get back into the groove.

Once you're back in the groove though, working out is really something that has absolutely no drawbacks (well, almost), and significantly affects one's energy levels and general outlook on a lot of different things.

2. Meditation

People on WSO have mentioned meditation before as something that's in general a healthy thing to do, but many have mentioned that they tried it for a week or two, didn't notice any sort of changes, and then quit.

This is something I've been doing for about a year and a half now, and I have to say that the real impacts of meditation become noticeable after roughly 3 or 4 months of daily practice. Obviously the entire point of meditating is to get rid of the expectation that "something" is next (i.e. if you are waiting for meditation to do something amazing, you're kind of missing the boat), but at the end of the day, it still does do something after you meditate for a couple of months, even though it's tough to put your finger on exactly what that something is. I recommend it to anyone who is looking to gain more focus in the things they do.

3. Make a list

This might sound stupid, but when I have a lot of things to do and I'm stressing because getting everything done will be tough, I make a list. Even if it's a list of 3-4 items, for whatever reason, itemizing things helps me to put everything into perspective and figure out the best plan for tackling the issue or issues.

Also, there's something extremely satisfying about crossing something off the list and knowing that it's done, and it's a good way to again visualize all of your tasks and know you're making progress.

Lists!!!

4. Sauna

I was introduced to the sauna last year, and man is it awesome. There's something extremely relaxing about sitting in a room that's over 140 degrees hot, and some of it is scientific and biological (which of course all makes zero sense to me).

Sauna is another thing I would 100% recommend to someone who might be working a lot and under a lot of stress. It really only takes about 15-20 minutes to feel totally refreshed, and couple it with cardio training beforehand for 20-30 minutes to really make you feel like a million bucks.

What do you guys do to deal with built-up stress? I feel like WSO may be an outlet for a lot of people... But seriously, I think I've gone over the basics, but I'd be interested in hearing what other folks have to say.

Thanks for reading.