15 Ways to Feel Happier and Less Stressed Out Every Day

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7. Try Progressive Muscle Relaxation Exercises

Research shows that when people do progressive muscle relaxation exercises, even just once a week, that it will significantly reduce blood pressure, pulse, and feelings of anxiety. So sit back, close your eyes, and tighten up your feet. Then relax them. Tighten up your calf muscles. Then release them. Continue until you reach your forehead. If you can add some relaxing music, so much the better.

8. Don’t Overschedule

Constant multi-tasking and overscheduling are perhaps the most common reasons people today feel stressed out all the time. When you always have a jam packed schedule, you find yourself rushing everywhere and doing everything as fast as possible so you can move on to the next task. This causes you to scream at the most minor of traffic jams, become frustrated at long lines, and literally go berserk when something causes you to be delayed.

Avoid stressful situations to begin with by cutting yourself some slack. Say no to things you simply cannot do or that will only add to your already overwhelming schedule. Look at your to-do list and see if there are some things that you can delegate to your kids, your spouse, or hire someone to do for you. Always plan on delays and schedule them into your calendar. If it takes you 30 minutes to get to work, plan on 45. Better to get to the office with time to spare than to be late and stressed out.

9. Stop the Should’s

Unfortunately, we are our own worst enemies when it comes to self-talk. How many times have you come home, exhausted, and thought “I should mop the floors, cook dinner from scratch and spend an hour with the kids then an hour at the gym” or find you have yet another invitation to a wedding and think “I should go if they were kind enough to invite me. I’m going to 5 weddings this month, why not 6?” Don’t let those should’s make you feel anxious about making the decisions that you make. Don’t feel guilty for not being able to do more than you can. Television and magazines (not to mention internet pages) tell us that we should have the perfect, high paying job, a spotlessly clean huge house in a great neighborhood, with clean, happy children who have everything they want and go to every activity possible, cook from scratch, have the perfect body, hair, makeup, vegetable garden, flower garden, and still have sex every single night. Keep in mind that fantasy lives like that are for Hollywood movies and that they aren’t real life. Don’t should yourself to death.

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