Being stressed out sucks. It’s as simple as that – we all know that feeling of being totally overwhelmed and out of control. You feel frustrated, anxious and everything seems to be amplified in the worst way possible. Unfortunately, stressful moments tend to be inevitable for everyone (which is always helpful to remember!) and while we can’t always prevent ourselves from being stressed or finding ourselves in stressful situations, we can deal with things in the right way.

Five little ways to stress less:

1. Identify your “musts”: When we feel overwhelmed it’s really easy to let everything pile up to the point where you don’t even know where to begin. Your to do list can easily end up a mile long but you have to recognize the realities of time – take a look through that list and identify what your absolute musts are; the things that simply cannot be done at any other time or by anyone else. This should shrink your list considerably and provide guidance for where you should truly focus first.
2. Take a break: I’m all about cranking things out and getting in the zone but sometimes, you just need to give yourself a break in order to clear your mind & prevent yourself from getting totally fried. Go for a walk. Read a few non-work related articles. Grab a coffee. Giving yourself a break will only make you more efficient and less stressed in the long run (even if you feel like you are way too busy for breaks)
3. Sweat it out: By now we all know that working out is good for us, but it’s also a kickass stress reliever. Getting your heart rate up and partaking in your exercise of choice will help eliminate some of your tension, frustration or help you clear your mind. It will allow you to step away from your laptop, smartphone or mile long to do list AND counteract your “too busy” excuse for skipping your workout plans. Even a quick 10 minute run helps!
4. Focus on one thing at a time: After you’ve identified the true “musts” on your to do list, pick one thing to get done and set a mini-deadline for yourself to block a chunk of time to specifically work on that one thing. After you’ve tackled that, move on to the next item on your list. You’ll feel less overwhelmed and stressed if you have as ingle focus and you’ll likely finish in less time than you would if you were multi-tasking and working on multiple things at the same time.
5. Eliminate distractions: This is always a tough one since we live in a world of being always on, always connected, always multi-tasking. Eliminating distractions, whether it be your email inbox, background noise or office chatter, or your cell phone, will help keep you on track and prevent you from wasting any precious time on  anything other than what you’re trying to truly focus on or accomplish. Don’t feel bad explaining to a coworker or friend that you really need to focus on something for a bit or guilty about not responding to an email RIGHT AWAY. The world will go on. Things can wait.

What do you do to keep yourself from getting too stressed out? How do you manage when you’re overly stressed?