Less stress/going with the flow tips

I commented on the 100 days of exercise pre Xmas thread that I struggled last week as had a very stressful time at work so didn’t have the energy to exercise (in fact it was worse from a health perspective as also spent weekend drinking more and eating rubbish!).

But it has also made me again think about the stress and pressure I am under. Some of this I have no choice with (kids going through early adulthood and ill parents) and some limited choice (my job is stressful and a relatively senior role – I suppose there is always an option to find something else but that would be time consuming and difficult. Also any job that pays similar (which I need for kids at Uni!) is likely to have similar stress levels).

It has got me thinking about the stress and pressure I place on myself, even in my own leisure time. I seem to have got caught up in the world of having to set myself targets to achieve things (to an extent even the 100 days challenge may be an example of this).

I’ve had a kind of compulsion to try and ‘improve’ myself/life and have now read God knows how many self help books and listen to a lot of podcasts on health and wellbeing etc. Result is I seem to be continually setting myself targets for exercise amounts or trying to build habits or routines which end up being impossible to stick to (can anyone fit in healthy eating, meditation, cold water treatment, yoga, breathing techniques, journaling, getting up at 5 am etc etc into their lives alongside a busy job and family life??).

I’m now beginning to think that all these attempts to improve myself are actually the opposite of what I need to be doing. I still want to be fit and healthy (and that seems to be much harder in my 50’s) but surely the answer should be about being more relaxed rather than regimented and actually finding the time to just enjoy life. In my head I’d like to be a laid-back surfer dude but in reality I’m a stressed out, angry old man!

Given my blood pressure is high and likely to have to start taking medication, I really need to change things.

Any chilled out STWs able to offer some pearls of wisdom

(and before it’s said…coke and hookers may provide temporary release, but the resultant divorce is likely to send me over the edge!)

Getting old(er) helps, at least that’s what I found! My 40s were full on, got hospitalised with high BP, that was 2014, now 10 years on, still on the meds with various pressures–the usual, work, domestic, financial, etc etc–but learned what to prioritise (not try and do everything), and what to let go. Say ‘no’ at work. Take stock, talk.

Beat of luck. I never sorted it all out and now it’s way too late.

1) Work out whats important and concentrate on that

2) Unless you can control it, dont worry about it

3) Stop setting goals, instead do things for enjoyment

The “targets” thing is a bit of dual-edged sword. I need something to help motivate me but try to keep that low key enough that I don’t beat myself up (too much) if I don’t always meet them.

One way I found of removing stress was to watch/consume less news/current affairs and try to stay away from things that might rile me but that I had no power to change. This might just be part of getting older.

FWIW I’ve been suprised by how positive an hour’s walk in the woods or hills 1 or 2x a week has been. Great thinking time that I don’t get even when riding.

I’ve had a kind of compulsion to try and ‘improve’ myself/life and have now read God knows how many self help books and listen to a lot of podcasts on health and wellbeing etc.

There’s great stuff in those places but consuming it isn’t the answer, the more you consume the more it seems no different to any other SM or online time-suck? Can be a good nudge influence though if you find one or 2 channels and leave it at that. Or, take a few of the main themes and go with them, leave the rest.

(can anyone fit in healthy eating, meditation, cold water treatment, yoga, breathing techniques, journaling, getting up at 5 am etc etc into their lives alongside a busy job and family life??).

Only on LinkedIn it seems : )

Targets and goals can also be about the good things you can’t measure. Aim for experiences or the reward of emotions, try to get back to a more child-like mindset at times. Bikes are incredibly good (and easy) for this. Constantly working towards goals or targets takes you our of the present and the cumulative effect of that might not be great, it just needs balancing out. Time to work towards things balanced with time to take in where you are – which is hopefully close to where you were working towards 5, 10 years ago?

I’m 50’s, rewarding but at times very stressful job, 2 kids.

Hows your daily schedule look like? Id recommend if you’re going to exercise do it, or something i  the morning,  or lunchtime to lift that stress.

Can you reduce commuting? Possible to work  a day a week at home?

I’ve found that running really helps. I had stress symptoms  but these have all but gone since I started running.

It’s a stress free activity – a pair of running shoes and half an hr is all you need.

From your Op, this may not be possible, but I’ve recently dropped my hrs and now have every other Friday off work. This and the running has worked wonders.

I have my performance management meeting on Wednesday…I’ll let you know after that how my **** it attitude to all the extra shit they expect me to do has gone!!!

Sorry about the FB link but you don’t have to sign in to see it.

Bad language alert so don’t play in earshot of kids etc… Made me laugh.

https://www.facebook.com/share/r/qd1VtU3CL5PVAtQV/?mibextid=UalRPS

As above, I find walking or running does wonders. Biking is great also obvs. But it’s much much easier to fit a walk or a run into any (and every) day

I have my performance management meeting on Wednesday…I’ll let you know after that how my **** it attitude to all the extra shit they expect me to do has gone!!!

Be carefull with that – can you afford to quit and the time to find another job?

I ate some humble pie for a few years until I finally thought – sod it, why am I doing this to myself?.. so I mentally checked out of my day job and just treaded water and jumped through the hoops like a good boy whilst I planned my next move…then I just resigned…and eveyone at work was all …

Quiting a shitty job is one of the best things you can do for your mental health, but do have an exit plan..leave on your terms and have a backup plan..

Don’t quit in anger/frustration, play the game if you can, at a time that is right for you.

Don’t over think or over target the exercise. If you can do 30m or more cardio stuff 4 or 5 days a week you are doing more than the vast majority of the population. Doing more? Great, but don’t worry if it isn’t every week.

In my early 60s I try and do a short bike ride, a swim, or a jog 5 or 6 days a week. I’ll never win any races but for health and reducing stress it seems to work.

“healthy eating, meditation, cold water treatment, yoga, breathing techniques, journaling,”

I would say exercise and healthy eating is all you need.

@rockbus I totally understand and feel very similar to you I think.

Currently sat waiting for the oldest to come in, middle one is awake, youngest asleep.

Today has been stressful on the work and estranged family front.

Hate the feeling of being trapped within the stress cycle and not being able to break it.

Running and biking are my go to exercises but if I do it in the evening when it fits the family I sleep awfully and it fuels my stress levels.

Really hard trying to manage things – sat and cried earlier! Having my 6 year old on my knee cuddling helped me.

Oh and I hate night time, feel so weird and alone even when the house is full! Think this stems from earlier life when it felt like people died in the night ?

**** hate stress and worry

Write a list of the five things you enjoy doing most. The things that you would choose to do if you had a spare hour. The things that make you happy.

Work your life around doing those things more. Remove what barriers you can. Talk to the people that care about you. They want you to be happy and will work with you to support you.

Make the time for yourself to do those things you love. The pressures of life won’t go away. Some weeks you’ll have more time, some weeks less but you’ll retain that focus on you and the things that make you happy.

Check out #476 A Monk’s Guide To Finding Happiness, Cultivating Inner Peace & Slowing Down In A Fast-Paced World: Haemin Sunim from Feel Better, Live More with Dr Rangan Chatterjee on Amazon Music.
https://music.amazon.co.uk/podcasts/1d1b0aec-e3b5-433f-b50f-ad6fe8011168/episodes/ed0c2878-4ee8-458c-afb2-7b8fb5184770/feel-better-live-more-with-dr-rangan-chatterjee-476-a-monk’s-guide-to-finding-happiness-cultivating-inner-peace-slowing-down-in-a-fast-paced-world-haemin-sunim?ref=dm_sh_j8t4IdWkP0cSxkMhqceG8A3pE

If you can get over the annoying interviewer I found some of the things said here resonated. The principle of trying to see beauty and find happiness in the everyday makes a lot of sense.

Totally get the night time exercise thing. I think it’s the adrenaline that’s takes ages to leave my body but not sure. I found getting up earlier and doing something before everyone gets up is better….easier in the summer though!

Most important thing I can add is you are never alone, loads of us struggle like this.

@gdm4 if that was in response to me, thank you (appreciate it)

I’ve had a kind of compulsion to try and ‘improve’ myself/life and have now read God knows how many self help books and listen to a lot of podcasts on health and wellbeing etc. Result is I seem to be continually setting myself targets for exercise amounts or trying to build habits or routines which end up being impossible to stick to (can anyone fit in healthy eating, meditation, cold water treatment, yoga, breathing techniques, journaling, getting up at 5 am etc etc into their lives alongside a busy job and family life??).

I’m now beginning to think that all these attempts to improve myself are actually the opposite of what I need to be doing.

Hello, I’m well known around these parts for being a classic overthinker and wound a bit too tight 🙂

I too did all of the above and have quite a self help library.  I deliberately took on a stressful job recently at 52.

The self help books didn’t calm me down, and I too couldn’t understand why.  It was only when I stopped reading / buying them out of frustration and had a break for a while that it became clear; reading them with the expectation that things would change at the end of the book was incorrect, but owning a collection of reference hints and tips I can dip in and out of is invaluable – I often now remember something, dip into a paragraph, find a good idea and use it without expectation.    The collection and reading of them was just an initial awareness.

That and realising that you can’t control everything in life so why bother worry / argue / opinionate outside  of your needs for work, just relax and have a break for yourself – create a space, time or whatever just for you.   Watch a movie alone with a beer, sit in the park and have your lunch for an hour – whatever changes the pace for you.

I know that it’s very fashionable with the middle class mumsies at present- but open water swimming.  (OW is far more enjoyable than a chorine-dosed municipal pool, and more space so no **** getting in the way doing 3 minutes a length in the fast lane doing head up breastfeeding whilst not letting people past at the end).

If you can do it somewhere safely (solo in December in a flooded river ain’t a good idea) it’s wonderful.

I’m fortunate that New Bath Hotel at Matlock Bath has an outdoor spring fed unheated 40 yard pool. Never drops below 14C even when snowing. No chemicals. Perfect. All the benefit, not risky, clean, and lifeguarded.   Exercise AND mental improvement at the same time. Anyone I know always says they feel better for it, no matter how stressed out or hassled they were before getting in.

Like many others, I’m not successful at this at all. Equally, I also find regular exercise away from people helps bring my mood up.

On the work front, I’m trying to disengage to reduce my stress. I’ve always been the type of person who really “goes for it” at work. Not in a self promoting way, more of a trying to do everything to the absolute best of my ability. That has led to my emotions being far too tied to whether I perform well at work. After some pretty sobering feedback from the head of the company I work for (that isn’t really shared by anyone else I work with, but that ultimately doesn’t matter to my self image), I’m trying to cut that chord and not care as much about work.

It is a double edged sword, as then I feel that I’m not “worth it” and get really down on myself.

Overall, the whole worry about the stuff you can do something about is really good advice. It just takes a lot Iof mental effort to keep working that out minute by minute.

Tie that with you (well, me) naturally having less energy and more health worries as we all get older, and I wish I’d tried this a long time ago.

Very simply what I’m trying to do:

1. Care less about people and situations who don’t care about me.

2. Be more gentle but more frequent with exercise so that I can get fitter at a slower pace.

3. Try to eat even healthier (hardly drink, super low cholesterol, dislike sugar, and love veggies, but still fat).

4. Care more about the people that matter to me and try to get them know that I do.

5. Find something to be joyful about as often as possible.

Don’t know if it’s going to work, but got to try. Notice no targets above? ?

My other thing that helps with stress ? My Labrador.

My other thing that helps with stress ? My Labrador.

This so much… I owe my life to my mountain bike and my dog… they have both seen me though some terrible times on different occasions. I’m not even any good at mountain biking, but it doesn’t matter.

Also any job that pays similar (which I need for kids at Uni!) is

Are you sure about this? I was amazed a few months back, when there was a straw poll on STW, how few people seemed to actually pay that much to their kids at uni.

Do you really need to be paying it?

Sorry to hear what you’re going through @bikerevivesheffield

in comparison, I’m probably just a moaning idiot. My woes are nothing compared to many and really should take that into account.

Hope you have people to talk and share with as sure that’ll help.
Timely reminder for us all to think about what really matters.

Makes a note to contribute to this tomorrow with a clear head. Life shouldn’t be this difficult as an adult. Even had a dream about suicide last night – that’s disturbing.

Go for a walk in the woods, pick blackberries, make crumble.

I’ve had a kind of compulsion to try and ‘improve’ myself/life

Welcome to western culture and the Protestant work ethic. Perhaps my philosophy is bit simplistic but there you go.

Oliver Burkeman may be a useful read. Pretty much any of his books but especially 4 thousand weeks. You can start with a few of his blog posts to see if you like his thinking.

@rockbus it’s not a competition and if you are feeling shite you are feeling shite. I applaud you for actually writing it down and bringing it out your head onto here.

I’ve read a pile of books and done lots of work with professionals etc

2 biggest things that helped me were journaling every day to get things out

and I have a timer going every 90 mins where I do 3 big nasal breath in and a slow release, it works wonders for your nervous system and you can tell because by the 3rd one you normally yawn which is a sign you switched from sympathetic to para sympathetic

Andrew Huberman did a great podcast about breathing where he recommends the breathing for 5 mins a day but I get more mileage doing it my way

Mindfulness is generally good for reframing the way you see the world. I get on well with the Headspace app, but other apps / books / classes are available. It’s a lot about being able to take a step back and look at things with curiosity and being in the moment. Instead of just being furious, you can acknowledge that something makes you cross/angry/anxious or whatever and look at it more dispassionately.

Which is all very easy to say or write, but takes time and regular meditation. I know the word ‘meditation’ tends to put some people off, but ir an be as simple as just going for a ten-minute ‘mindful walk’ and just focussing on, say, the feel of your feet moving over/on the ground or the smells around you, or the sounds.

 in reality I’m a stressed out, angry old man!

When I get frustrated with other people, I try to remember that they have challenges in their lives and I don’t know what they are. It doesn’t mean that I don’t get hacked off when someone, say, rams a supermarket trolley into my leg, but I try – these days – to be compassionate. They may have mental health challenges, or a partner who’s doing their head in, or be under huge time pressure. Of course they may not be any of those, they may just be stupid and impatient, but I can’t control that. I can control how I react though, well, sometimes.

No-one’s perfect and you need to give yourself some slack too. If you find yourself beating yourself up, maybe ask how you’d treat a good friend in the same situation,

But basically, mindfulness, in some form is good ime. It’ll maybe help you ask yourself why you’re reacting in certain ways, in certain situations and give you some help changing that.

And don’t write off some form of counselling – if you can identify what your ‘triggers’ are and find ways of dealing with them, that has the potential to make things less stressful. The trouble with reading lots of books, I guess, is that you just get a torrential flood of different solutions, which may or may not work specifically for you. With a counsellor you get on with, it all becomes a lot more targeted and focussed.

This has been a thread that has really helped and hit home.  Thank you to the OP and those that have contributed.

Stop target setting, there are usually enough of them at work.

Everyone is different, but for me a sure fire de stress involves a dog, euphoric music and running very slowly in the woods.

Best man for the flow tips: Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (pronounced ‘chick sent me high eee’ !) on YT or elsewhere.

A theme on threads like this that I always find interesting is how being active outside can be a great de-stress, and mention of mindfulness. I think for most of us moving through the woods (etc) on foot or on a bike is one of the times we engage the part of the brain that’s all ‘here and now’, trying to put our feet in the right spots or get the corner line right. I heard that described as a meditative state and didn’t see how it was similar to our ideas of a meditating monk but actually it’s all about switching off the active bit of the brain, the bit that won’t shut up at 3am.

Perhaps anyone who runs, rides, surfs etc has a head start on being more mindful as we’ve already been there without fully appreciating it. We appreciate the experience of riding overall but there’s so much more going on. The trick in day to day life may be being able to recognise the thoughts or thought patterns that we can park to the side for later (or ignore) to clear space in the present, in the same way that avoiding rocks and ruts clears that space instinctively?

It often comes down to placing unrealistic demands on ourselves, it’s okay to be mediocre at most things you do including your job, your hobbies and being a parent if you are one.

I have had to learn to accept being just okay at most things if not all the things I place importance on, and that’s good enough really.

I know that it’s very fashionable with the middle class mumsies at present- but open water swimming.  (OW is far more enjoyable than a chorine-dosed municipal pool,

I’ve been dipping my toe in this recently (geddit?), and have to say it’s positive but probably not as beneficial as a good ride (of either sort), for me. Nice to do something my GF enjoys though.

A theme on threads like this that I always find interesting is how being active outside can be a great de-stress, and mention of mindfulness. I think for most of us moving through the woods (etc) on foot or on a bike is one of the times we engage the part of the brain that’s all ‘here and now’, trying to put our feet in the right spots or get the corner line right. I heard that described as a meditative state and didn’t see how it was similar to our ideas of a meditating monk but actually it’s all about switching off the active bit of the brain, the bit that won’t shut up at 3am.

Absolutely. I often say I do MTBing instead of meditation. Just takes you out of yourself for a bit. Lovely when you get the “flow state” thing, but not common enough.

Anything that gives you the opportunity to simply be in the moment is what works for me – walking, running, cycling or my current favourite sea kayaking as it requires a degree of concentration, plus I just get to just focus on my surrounds – navigating my course, enjoying the scenery, looking out for wildlife etc.

I also agree about Labradors – whether she’s curled up next to me on the sofa or running up hills

 biggest things that helped me were journaling every day to get things out

A lot of my job is about wellbeing and I’ve tried quite a few of the things we preach to service users.

I would recommend gratitude logging, which is related to journaling I suppose.

Just write down 3 things you’re grateful for each day.

Can be particularly effective if you have someone to swap them with, ideally who knows you but isn’t closely involved in your day-to-day life. So you can be more open.

Don’t allow an adult step child & their boyfriend to live in your home if they can’t be arsed to help around the house at all.

And breath. I think more walking/bike riding might be in order for me.

Currently sat, after a panic filled drive to Doncaster, in Costa emptying my head on to paper