In my health class, we are doing a behavior change project. So basically you start off by taking all of these quizzes assessing different areas of your health and then you study your behavior in an area where you need to improve. Next, you work on turning that negative behavior into a positive behavior. Anyways, I go through all of these quizzes and the area that was the worst in my health was my emotional health and particularly my stress issues. I cannot say that I was surprised, but just how high the results of this test really threw me.
So this quiz lists a bunch of common stressors and numbers them accordingly. Higher numbers of high stressors. All you have to do is add up the number of the stressors that you have. Before I tell you my result, I should key you in on an important detail; if your score is 300 or higher, you are at a risk for stress-related diseases. Some of these diseases include heart disease, cancer, gastrointestinal diseases, mental disorders, insomnia, and muscular disorders.
Not only was my score above 300, but it was out of the park. I scored a 749. Now that made choosing the area of interest to improve for this project incredibly easy, but the difficult part to decide was how to work on improving my stress levels. Let me tell you now. If you look up how to reduce stress, you're gonna find millions of results, but there's only so much that a person can do.
Ultimately, I decided that everything I wanted to do to improve stress was all linked to my time management. So my ultimate goal with the project is to be better about managing my time, but then you have to figure out how to do that because easier said than done. To do this I have decided to make stepping stones, or mini-goals, to contribute to my overall goal of better time management.
After deciding these mini goals, you have to create a timeline to achieve all of these goals. Rome was not built in a day and changing all of your bad behaviors will not happen instantly, either. You start with the goal that you need to wake up earlier in the day so you have more time. If you are anything like me, it is gonna take quite a bit to get me regularly waking up earlier.
So you make the goal to wake up by 9 gradually over the next two weeks. Start by setting your alarm back every 15 to 30 minutes a day. Let's say your next goal is to meal prep so you do not have to worry about what to eat. So, every Sunday morning, plan out your meals for the week and then, that day, go grocery shopping.
Maybe you specifically do not have these goals or stress isn't your major issue, but the point is to break everything down into manageable pieces. Looking at the pile of everything you need to do or even want to do is overwhelming and then you end up getting nothing done because what is the point in even trying. It will never all be done. Instead, make realistic goals and set out to accomplish anything you set your mind to.
