From Overwhelmed to In Control

A busy day doesn’t have to be a bad day. In fact, many of my busiest days are packed full of activities that I find meaningful and satisfying.

But occasionally, I slip into a season when the busyness catches up to me, and I feel the growing effects of the pace on my body and in my soul.

There is one school of thought that would suggest the solution is always to simplify your life and pare down your schedule. After all, living life in the slow lane is pretty solid advice. There is broad wisdom in slowing down and being grateful for the life you have.

But maybe you’re like me, and that doesn’t feel like the right advice for this chapter of your life. Maybe you’d love to slow down, but you can’t right now. Or maybe you’re in an intentional season of doing hard things—pushing yourself for the sake of personal growth or serving others.

The truth is, we have all sorts of reasons for inviting busyness into our lives, and it’s not always the wrong choice to make.

Whatever your reason, if you hope to sustain a busier pace for a period of time, you’ll need a plan to keep stress levels low and energy high—or else your efforts may prove to be in vain.

Interplay Between Stress, Health, and Your Mind

Many of us have had first-hand experience with how stress affects our sleep, our digestion, and our immune system’s ability to fight off sickness. But those short-term effects may be the least of our concerns.

In 2017, a literature review in the Journal of Experimental and Clinical Sciences found stress to be the origin of many disorders and a strong influence in many diseases— particularly when the stress was severe and prolonged.

But what is stress exactly? Is it the outside pressure that is exerted upon us by life and circumstances? Or is it our perception of those events?

Further research is needed in this area, but a 2010 study in the journal, Child Psychiatry & Human Development, found that various psychological factors may mediate the relationship between stress and health. For example, having a strong internal locus of control in the midst of pressure seems to protect us against some of the biological effects of stress on our bodies.

In other words, simply believing that there is something you can do in the face of stress is a powerful buffer against the negative effects of strain and pressure.

In the rest of this article, I’ll share a few tips that have helped me to manage stress and prevent burnout during busy seasons. The important takeaway is to find what works for you personally—whatever helps you to maintain a tranquil but motivated mindset for the day.

7 Stress-Reducing Tips for Busy Days

Start your day right. Making real progress on an important project or anxiety-producing task is one of my favorite ways to start the morning. My personal rule is that I don’t do anything else (read, check my phone, answer emails, etc.) until I’ve spent two uninterrupted hours on high-value work. This puts me at ease since I know that no matter what the day throws at me, I’ve made forward momentum.

Have things that you look forward to. Although I’m an advocate of doing hard things that push you out of your comfort zone, I recognize that we aren’t robots. Having innocent pleasures that you anticipate throughout the day can be a real source of comfort and motivation in busy seasons of life. Even something as simple as a hot shower, a favorite snack, or a good TV show can be a satisfying reward after a long day. Even better are richer experiences such as connecting with a friend, laughing out loud, or having spontaneous fun.

Leave margin between tasks. On its own, being busy doesn’t make me stressed, but when one activity runs right into the next, I begin to feel like I can’t catch my breath. This sensation of being caught in a constant whirl of activity is one to guard against. For me, leaving even 10 to 15 minutes of calm between activities can be the difference between a full day and one that feels out of control.

Exercise, eat well, and prioritize sleep. If you’re going to ask more of yourself physically and mentally, don’t also try to cut corners on your personal care routines. You should be leaning on them even harder. Unfortunately, it’s during the busy seasons of life that we’re most likely to let these practices slip into the background. If your busy period is only a few days, sure, you can gain some extra productivity at the margins by pushing through, but this isn’t a recipe for sustained effort.

Don’t spread yourself too thin. One mistake I’ve made is trying to squeeze too many small activities into one day. This ends up making me feel like I’m a servant to my task list and barely making progress in any one area—just jumping from one task to the next.

Instead, what I try to do is dedicate certain days of the week to certain types of work. Saturday morning is for cleaning. Another evening for blogging, and another for freelance work. I don’t have to open each “box” every day and can trust that I’ll have time to work on each thing when its day arrives.

Notice your breathing. Like many people, I have a tendency for my breathing to become rapid and shallow when I’m in a rush and working hard. When I catch myself and finally take in a long, slow breath of air, I realize how little my lungs were expanding and how it was reinforcing a stressed feeling throughout my body.

Research published in Frontiers in Psychology in 2017 supports this idea by showing that the patterns of our breathing correlate with varying levels of cortisol levels in our body. You might try using an app on your phone to remind you to breathe slowly at different points in your day.

Focus on today, not all the work that needs to be done. When we’re living in the present moment, engaged with the work in front of us, we rarely experience stress. It’s only when we start living in the future—thinking about everything that needs to get done today or this week—that we begin to feel the constricting pressure of stress closing in.

One of my most helpful stress management rituals is to mentally “wipe the slate clean” every time I start a new task. Once I’ve decided to do something, I try not to think about anything else until I’m done. Not only does this relieve stress, it will help you to make the most of the time you do have.

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Mike (and his wife, Mollie) blog at This Evergreen Home where they share their experience with living simply, intentionally, and relationally in this modern world. You can follow along by subscribing to their twice-weekly newsletter.