Lower your stress: Mitigate
Dishes, laundry, screaming kids and bills.
As mothers, we take on much more than we can fill our brains with each day. It's time to mitigate our stress levels. Mitigate means to make less severe or painful. There are several ways to lower stress... We see blogs and YouTube videos depicting these options every day.
Practice self-care, see a therapist, or get a babysitter and take a road trip. Whatever you choose to lower stress needs to catered to your wants and need. Deciding to do something that someone has suggested may help or it may hinder your mood. Let's elaborate, shall we?
Last year, I read a book called 'How to Keep House While Drowning' by K.C Davis. This book was amazing, and give me so much insight on options to relieve stress and anxiety. Suggestions like giving yourself a 10 minute time limit to do a chore:
- Set a timer for 10 minutes and start a chore.
- Once the timer goes off, allow yourself to stop if you feel overwhelmed, or continue the task until it is completed. If you feel up to it, that is.
This suggestion was one of my favorites and I currently use it when things need to be done. Moreso when I am unable to gain the ambition to begin. With that being said, there was another portion of the book that I struggled a bit with. The chapter 21, Good Enough is Perfect, this chapter is only a paragraph long and advises you to do as little as you can or do things with shortcuts if you must...
Although I understand the reasoning for this chapter, I struggle with it because I am, what some people would call, a perfectionist. Leaving things unfinished gives me a deep pit feeling inside my stomach that I can never seem to shake. This suggestion didn't work for me, but it worked for so many others.
There's the kicker! The sentence that makes this blog worth while. If it doesn't work for you, does not mean it will not work for someone else! Mitigating stress is needed for thousands of people around the globe. Their tasks to get there may differ a bit. It's a wonderful thing that we tend to not consider. We forget that other people exist in our little bubble because when we are anxious or stressed, our wants and needs are all that matters. Think about it. Have you ever caught yourself reading a self-help blog or book and thought to yourself; "Well, that's stupid. How is that supposed to help me relieve stress?" - The key point in that sentence is ME. We don't worry about if it will assist someone else. We only care about what will assist us.
This is not a bad thing. Although, some may be sitting here reading this feeling down at the thought. We are human. Everyone has and will do this. The sooner we accept that the sooner we can get over it.
The moral to this passage is: allow yourself to mitigate your stress, in whatever way works for you. If you read or view something that is supposed to assist you in this process and it does not work for you, don't get discouraged - it may work for someone else. With that thought, you can avoid irritations. Move on to another chapter or site.