How To Stay Calm When Life is Stressing You Out
Practical Tips To Stay Calm When Life Feels Overwhelming
Let’s talk about how to stay calm when life is stressing you out. And I feel as if I need to clarify something before we dive in.
This is not at all about me just telling you to simply calm down or relax. No way.
In most situations, telling someone to calm down can do just the opposite. (Just ask my husband.)
Life is A LOT. There’s no way around that. No tip or piece of advice out there is going to make life easy or challenge free.
The goal is to have some practical ideas to turn to when life is really life-ing. Things that actually feel doable when you’re already stressed or overwhelmed.
Because so often, we’re looking for something that packs a big punch. Where’s that piece of advice that’s going to turn it all around? What’s the thing that’s going to fix everything?
But I’ve found that the real power is usually in the small things we do consistently. The choices that build up over time and have sort of a snowball effect.
If something needs to change, I would much rather think about small, realistic changes than some massive overnight overhaul.
These are things we can do day to day that can hopefully make life feel a little more manageable over time.
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Here Are 12 Tips All About How To Stay Calm When Life is Stressing You Out
1) Let it Out
When’s the last time you did a good old brain dump?
I don’t know about you, but I often feel like my brain has hit its capacity for open tabs. Sometimes emptying your noggin out can relieve the pressure of life a little.
It can also help you to close some of those tabs that are simple things that just got lost in the mix of everything.
There’s just something about being able to see things on paper that can make everything feel more manageable.
Grab a notebook and go to town.
2) Put Your Phone Down
Let me be a bit more specific with this.
Take a break from social media.
Too much time looking at other people’s lives can be really damaging. You start comparing everything you have or every choice you make to tiny snippets of other people’s lives.
It can also be extremely overwhelming.
There’s such an abundance of tips and advice on pretty much every subject matter imaginable. That’s not to say there isn’t valuable information on the internet or social media. There absolutely is.
But even the helpful stuff can get lost in the mix when we’re mindlessly scrolling and taking in a constant stream of information.
And let’s not forget all the clickbait fighting for our attention.
With social media specifically, I think it can be extremely helpful to curate the heck out of your feed.
Sometimes scaling back on what we’re taking in is exactly what our brains need.
Maximum absorption is not the only way to navigate the online universe.
3) Ask Where You Can Simplify Things
Is there any area of your life where you can scale things back?
This might sound impossible but hear me out.
For me, this is often in the kitchen. Feeding my family every day is one of those things that can feel overwhelming at times. Some days the “what’s for dinner?” question can send me over the edge.
You know what? This week it is different types of sandwiches for dinner. Or breakfast foods. Or mainly things from the freezer.
You could also assign different tasks to different days. Certain days you do laundry, clean the bathrooms, or handle whatever other recurring tasks tend to take up space in your brain.
Take a look at how full your plate is and see if there is anything you can clear off.
Sometimes we need to strip things down and see what happens when we give a little less effort in certain areas.
My kids’ lives are not being negatively impacted when their mom has the bandwidth for board games after dinner because dinner was frozen waffles, fruit, and yogurt.
My family is also not nearly as bothered by a messy bathroom as they are by a grumpy and burnt-out me.
Some things are allowed to rank lower in importance so we have more energy for the things that actually matter to us.
4) Move Your Body
Go for a walk. Dance around your living room. After-dinner bike rides are a personal favorite of mine.
This isn’t just about fitting in exercise no matter what or trying to break a sweat doing something you hate.
I like to reframe it as just moving my body in some way.
It doesn’t have to be complicated. Sometimes getting up, moving around, and getting out of my own head for a little while is enough.
5) Do Something for Yourself
This might seem laughable, especially depending on the season of life you’re in.
We all have our own unique circumstances. We’re working with different schedules, responsibilities, and support systems.
Not every piece of advice you read will apply to you or your life. That’s ok.
This is really about figuring out what relaxes you. What helps you put your shoulders down and take a deep breath?
Do you have a hobby? Do you have time you could dedicate to it?
When we moved to Tennessee and didn’t know anyone, a lot of advice out there didn’t feel as if it applied to me. Instead of just accepting my situation at face value, I had to get creative and find things I could actually make happen.
Getting a massage or my nails done regularly wasn’t going to happen. But I could take a bath with candles and a good book. (This bathtub tray adds a nice touch.)
I could wake up 10 minutes earlier and sip my coffee in peace and quiet. (With a funny coffee mug, of course.)
It can feel like it has to be all or nothing. If we can’t have exactly what we want or need, sometimes we just throw in the towel.
And listen, sometimes I want to enjoy my own little pity party. I just can’t get stuck there for too long.
6) Take Care of Yourself
Let’s talk about the basics.
Drink more water. (This water bottle can help with that.)
Include foods that make your body feel good and give you energy.
Get enough sleep. (If you’re able to.)
None of this means that staying hydrated is suddenly going to make it a breeze to keep your house tidy or handle whatever chaos comes your way. No matter how much water I drink, my kids having the stomach flu will always be ROUGH.
But the way we feel affects how we take on the day and handle everything being thrown at us.
And let’s not forget about spending time with good people and making time for joy. Those might not seem like they belong under the label of “basics,” but I think they matter just as much.
Oh, one more thing.
Putting yourself on the back burner day after day isn’t going to earn you a badge of honor or prestigious award. It’s probably just going to make you feel pretty crappy.
7) Make Some Cuts
Sometimes you have to let things go. You are not a machine whose main goal is productivity.
I know it can feel that way, especially in a world that glamorizes doing it all.
You are not more worthy of love, joy or happiness when your kitchen is spotless. Or when all the laundry is put away. Or when you volunteer for every single thing at your kids’ school.
It’s easy to fall into this mindset that we have to earn relaxation or down time. That is pure rubbish.
This also brings up the idea of delegating. Sometimes the way I simplify something for myself is simply handing the task off to my husband.
We’ve also done 15-20 minute family cleanup sessions on nights when the house is particularly in shambles. Everyone pitches in, we get some things done, and then we move on with our lives.
Not everything has to be your job.
8) Set Some Boundaries
It’s okay to say no. Sometimes I consider getting this tattooed on my body for a constant reminder.
Our to-do lists can feel never-ending, and one thing I know for sure is that no one person can do it all. Also, no one person should have to.
It’s oh-so-easy to feel this internal pressure to say yes to everything. To take on more than what feels right or good. Notice I didn’t say take on more than you can handle.
That’s because a lot of the time, we do handle it. But there can be a consequence to constantly handling too much.
As someone who has spent a whole lot of time people pleasing, I know how difficult this can be. It’s no easy feat to push back against years and years of behaving a certain way.
I highly recommend this amazing book. The author also has an Instagram page that’s worth checking out. (She definitely made the cut when I curated my socials.)
The way she breaks boundaries down feels relatable and actually doable.
Learning about boundaries on a deeper level is something I think so many of us can benefit from.
9) Look for Easy Wins
I used to think I could clear my to-do list completely if I just put my head down and powered through. I have finally accepted that something else will always pop up.
It’s like getting all the laundry done. There’s a very small amount of time when the baskets are actually empty.
So instead of setting myself up for failure by expecting to finish everything, I like to look for some easy wins.
In order for my home to be clean a majority of the time, I would have to clean almost constantly. No thank you.
Loading the dishwasher and throwing in a load of laundry might be enough for one morning.
There are, of course, plenty of other things I could do. There always will be.
I’m slowly but surely becoming more at peace with getting a few things done and moving on.
10) Throw Some Stuff Away
I am a big fan of decluttering. Too much physical stuff is instantly overwhelming for me.
Before setting in Tennessee in 2023, my family had moved 3 times in 3 years. After the second move, I realized we had too much stuff.
So I dove head first into a decluttering wonderland and never looked back.
You don’t have to go all in like I did. Clearing out even just a drawer or closet can make a difference.
Having – and acquiring – less physical stuff has made a huge difference in the overall functionality of not only my home but my brain as well.
And this may seem obvious, but it’s still worth mentioning: less stuff makes it remarkably easier to tidy up.
11) Practice Gratitude
This one might feel like a stretch, especially when life is really giving you a run for your money. But this small habit doesn’t take much time and can slowly shift your perspective.
You can get yourself a gratitude journal and set an alarm on your phone to jot something good down every day.
Or this can be as simple as writing down something funny your kid said today. Put a stack of Post-it notes on the counter so anyone in your family can write down something good.
Keep them in a jar or drawer and read them every once in a while.
It’s a good reminder that sweet moments can still be happening even during seasons when life feels like a lot.
12) Give Meditation a Try
For the longest time, I paid no attention when someone mentioned meditation. I definitely had an idea in my head of what it entailed.
Sitting in silence for extremely long periods of time. And I’m not sure why, but I always pictured making a strange humming sound.
Turns out I had it all wrong in the meditation department.
There are so many short and sweet options out there. (I use a free app called Insight Timer.)
If you’re completely new to meditation, there may be some trial and error to figure out what you like.
My mind likes to be quite the busybody, so I look forward to those few minutes when I can be present, put my shoulders down, and take some deep breaths.
Hey, maybe one day I will find myself sitting and humming. You never know.
Final Thoughts…
I think we reach a certain age and assume most things in life should be clear by now. Things should have fallen into place.
We shouldn’t still be questioning things or trying to figure stuff out.
But that’s just not how life works.
We keep growing and learning. We change. Our circumstances change. The dynamics of our lives change.
And when something does need to change, I’ve found that I’m much better off starting small than deciding I’m going to overhaul my entire life by tomorrow.
Take what works for you from this list and leave the rest.
Sometimes making life feel a little less overwhelming really does start with one small thing.
What would you add to this list of tips on how to stay calm when life is stressing you out?
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