Let's face it: life is difficult. With homework, jobs, family, we barely have time for ourselves. It's difficult to get our lives to feel 'stable.' That's why it seems like those who do have their lives together have all the time in the world. Luckily, there's always life hacks to get your life together in ten stress-free ways:
1) Find your faith: Faith guides you along the path.
Be it Catholicism, Judaism, Buddhism, or even believing in the Spaghetti Monster, faith opens the doors for you, and it gives you something bigger to believe in. It gives you motivation to keep going to reach that higher place; it keeps you grounded and stable. You'll be a faithful person, and in turn, more people will want to be faithful. You'll be part of something bigger than us and you'll get more people to be part of something bigger than us.
2) Get an agenda.
Agendas will help you achieve what you want to accomplish daily. They'll help you organize your time wisely, that way your days don't seem so difficult that you can't handle them.
3) Make sure to prioritize.
I get it, we want to do everything. We want to be Wonder-Woman (or Superman) and do our paperwork, pilates, and binge-watching all in 24 hours. But some days, it's just not possible. When we make sure we do what's important, we'll be able to get the more stressful errands out of our lives and still have time to be a superhero.
4) Set aside "me" time.
Sometimes, our daily lives burn us out worse than when Spongebob didn't know his name. This is when we need to take a day for ourselves, break out the worn-out Titanic DVD and just gawk over Leonardo Dicaprio. Schedule one (or two or three) days a month to just unwind and do what you love. Go shopping, get your nails done, heck, sleep all you want. Just recharge to keep yourself going.
5) Organize.
Stress will get us to a point where you just stack all your work together and throw your clothes into one pile. But a messy room/workplace/house equals an even messier mental state. Clutter will only make the stress more. Organize! Get a file organizer, a hamper. Make sure your space is tidy. It'll make you feel a lot more at ease.
6) Learn to say "no."
One of my biggest problems is that I say yes to everything. But saying yes to everything will only give you additional stress because you're signing yourself up to dedicate additional hours of your precious time. Saying no every once in a while doesn't make you a jerk, it makes you a stabler person. If there's no time for it or you just don't want to go, say no. If it doesn't make you feel comfortable, say no. Learn to say no and your life will seem calmer.
7) Make a playlist with all your favorite songs.
When life gets you down, a little dose of Bohemian Rhapsody might just make you feel better. Make a playlist with all the songs that lift your spirits and just jam out to them when you're not feeling so well. Here's my playlist, maybe it'll inspire you to make one of your own: https://open.spotify.com/user/ashley_gonzalez1998/...
8) Write down your daily accomplishments.
There are days where you feel like you've amounted to nothing, but the little things amount to something. Write down anything and everything you might have done that day that's little, like waking up or drinking a few glasses of water, and you'll see that a bad day does not equate to a bad life.
9) Get enough nutrients.
Everything psychological is biological. Not eating or drinking the right things or missing some of the important nutrients will make you feel mentally crappy. Start drinking at least 8 glasses of water, eating fruits and veggies, and exercising! In a few days, you'll see that you'll begin feeling a little better.
10) Sleep for eight hours.
It's hard for some of us, but make a cutoff time for yourself and make sure you're in bed at the same time. Sleeping for eight hours or more will make you feel refreshed and, in fact, it will make your life feel more in place. To start a normal sleep routine, go to sleep fifteen minutes earlier and wake up fifteen minutes earlier until you reach a desired time to go to sleep and wake up.
All in all, stress does sometimes take the best of us, and it makes it seem like our lives are falling apart. It may bring us down and seem like we'll never be okay, but if we follow these guidelines, we can kick stress in the butt. Our lives will never be "together," but with these hacks as a super glue, we can at least make it seem that way. Sometimes seeing is believing.
