When your mind is busy and you can't focus, stress can build and build and become dangerous for your health. Here's a simple technique to slow things down, prioritise what will reduce your stress and take immediate action to start feeling calmer and more in control.
1. Remove yourself from the environment where you are feeling stressed.
2. Write down everything that is causing you to feel stressed but only allow yourself a maximum of 5 minutes to do this.
3. Put the list of items stressing you in order of importance, starting with what you'd like to see fixed first.
4. Take a clean sheet of paper and write out 3 actions that will begin dealing with your top priority stress causer
5. Write down when you can take the first action. This should be within the next hour.
Return to what you were doing knowing that you are now in control of your life and everything in it rather than circumstances controlling you. Make sure you carry out your one hour action and continue to tackle what's stressing you from this point onwards. No more panic, no more procrastination.
Photo by cromacom (Flickr)
