Day 45: RELEASE THE STRESS
As I mentioned yesterday, my glass has been half empty lately, but I’m working on altering my perspective. Part of my problem is stress, stress over situations that are beyond my control. (I hate to bring it up, but my furnace was leaking again this morning. Seriously?!) Since I identified part of my problem, it was time to brainstorm solutions.
My first method of stress relief was sweating it out. And I can tell you there was no stress left after a grueling yet rejuvinating hour of spinning class. (There may not have been any stress left, but there was certainly an abundance of muscle spasms and soreness.)
Next, I tried exhaling out the stress. For this method, I revisited my deep breaths challenge I did a few weeks ago. I didn’t practice deep breathing every hour like last time, but it sure seemed to help relieve the tension in my upper back whenever I did it.
Finally, after sweating out the stress and then exhaling it out, I decided to throw caution to the wind and dance it out. Yes, you read that correctly. I DANCED out the stress. And this was far and away my favorite stress-releasing tactic.
I love my wacky eclectic taste in music. I love that I can’t get through a run without P!nk or Maroon 5 screaming in my headphones. That I am instantly relaxed when I hear Nora Jones or Indigo Girls. That bands like Fleetwood Mac and Barenaked Ladies evoke vivid memories that make me smile. That I can’t help but get out of my seat and boogie when Lady Gaga or any song from the Mamma Mia soundtrack comes up in my iTunes scramble rotation. Since music holds a place in my hierarchy of needs almost as sizeable as air and water, I figured I could use it to my advantage as a stress reliever.
So I cranked up Ms. Gaga, grabbed both pairs of kid hands, and danced until I couldn’t dance no more. Then I collapsed on the floor, entirely too exhausted to care about the new river of water in my garage. Mission accomplished.
My methods must have worked, at least outwardly, because when the furnace guy left this afternoon (the 6th visit from his company in the last week) he said, “Wow, you must be a very understanding person because I’d be PISSED if I were in your shoes.” If he only knew.
Love it! 🙂 I have to say, I've never found exercise to be stress-reducing aside from the good feeling of dropping a pant size. Music, though, works wonders!!
So glad to have found your blog to follow! I love the premise of doing something different and challenging each day, and many of the things you've written about (or done) are things I have either tried or I have wanted to try! As far as half full or half empty…I like the idea of making a half-full glass of wine totally empty:)
Thanks for following me- I am following you back. I like your stress techniques -dancing with your kids works. We usually break out in dance at least once a day!!
Your right! Dancing and exercing is very stress-relieving..
I love it!
Just getting my arse out of bed and finding the time to do it!
I'm glad you found your outlet.. 🙂
xoxoox
I love dancing with the kids!
My favorite stress therapy was Aikido — no way was I stressed about anything after tossing the guys in my club around for a couple of hours…