How often do you use the word “busy” in your daily conversations?
Living a hectic schedule and a busy career is often demonized as it may lead to a failed social life, broken relationships, a poor state of your health or sometimes emotional breakdown.
Though stress is also correlated to an imbalance of the hormone cortisol, there are effective and natural ways to face such a modern stress or burnout with a positive approach and beat them to the finish.
According to research from the University of Chicago, people who live busy lives are generally more grateful and happy compared to those who live an idle life. The reason behind this is human beings are wired to crave for purpose. A packed schedule makes us feel more useful and needed than living a live without much commitment.
There is no need to feel bad about yourself if you are stressed out. You just need to manage the situation well and try your best to keep a healthy life. So if you are a real estate broker working in Chicago, a business partner at a waste management company or a trader on the CBOT, chill out. Stress is healthy.
Unchecked stress can lead to burnout, so there is a need for you to quickly manage your busy lifestyle more effectively. Below are stress and burnout preventing hacks that every busy-bee should incorporate into their lives for more enjoyment of your days.
Change The Way You Speak
If you find yourself constantly telling your friends and family how busy your days have been and that you can’t make plans or even cook dinner, you might consider changing the language you use. Research suggests that the words you utter to other people can literally affect your brain pathways and how you understand any given situation.
Neuroscientists Mark Waldman and Andrew Newberg both stated that the fear center of the brain can be stimulated by the mere use of a single negative word. When this happens, your brain could send stress hormones in large quantities. But eliminating the use of negative language helps you reframe your mind set and positively change the way you see your life.
Forget About Time And Focus On Your Energy
Paula Davis-Laack, a resilience and stress expert states that the key to prevent and avoid burnout is to change the way you manage your day. Instead of focusing on time, pay more attention to what kind of energy you bring about on your tasks.
According to Davis-Laack, a day will always be comprised of 24 hours and therefore it is a fixed commodity. She explains that people who allocate their tasks based on time can get a feeling of anxiety. This leads to a rushed work that often doesn’t produce a quality output. On the other hand focusing on the kind of energy you deploy helps you better address the important tasks of that day.
This goes the same for busy professionals who try to keep a healthy and active lifestyle. Often times, they give up on eating healthy or exercising daily because they think that it is too time consuming. But if you have a positive outlook and focus on the positive aspects, you are more likely to stick to a healthy and active lifestyle even if it takes a while to see the kind of results you so desire.
Plan Out A Recovery Ritual
Living a busy career requires you to sustain your energy all throughout the day. Most people will feel most productive when they feel good about themselves. This exudes positive energy which also helps the people around you perform at their best.
Simple recovery rituals such as taking short and constant breaks will help you breathe better. A simple 10 to 15 minutes break after every 2 to 3 hours of work is perfect. With regularity, this process will help reset your mind when too much stress is building up. It will help refresh your mind and encourage you to work more pleasantly later on.
Another recovery ritual you can use is making sure your health is at its top. Stress can sometimes lead to weight gain, poor eating habits, high blood pressure, high cholesterol and even coronary diseases.
By simply choosing healthier meal options, you can help your body physically recover from the toll brought about by too much stress. The goal here is to prevent burnout, and you can’t fight that unless you start from within your body.
Set A Reward System
According to Davis-Laack, consistent pressure to stay busy for the sake of being busy rather than intentionally working with a purpose will drive some people crazy. This eventually leads to burnout.
Instead you can set monthly goals and associated rewards to build a framework. A reward system is essentially helpful to most employees including yourself, as it should drive them to provide better quality output. This eliminates the need for you and the rest of your employees to work extra hours.
Free Your Mind Of Clutter
According to Davis-Laack, mental clutter will tether you to the thought of being extremely busy.
Usually individuals with pessimistic thoughts struggle most when dealing with stressful situations. What it does is fill up your head of the “what ifs” and ultimately prevents you from seeing the big picture of your goals. Reframing negative thoughts will help alleviate stress and exude positivity towards your outlook in your work and in life.