Our days can be filled with small events and interactions that seem insignificant. When we think about how they add up, though, they can be responsible for stress and overwhelm.
Stress and overwhelm we may not even realize is caused by all these tiny little things. Being mindful of how these small events and interactions can accumulate and affect our nervous system is a great step in managing them.
Do any of these sound familiar?
- Back-to-back meetings: With no breaks, there is no time to reset, switch gears, and process. They overload our brains and can often build up physical tension due to prolonged sitting.
- Irritable children: some times our children just have off days and aren’t able to articulate why.
- Interruptions during focused work: think coworkers popping by your office or constant dings from notifications for email, texts, and more.
- Technical glitches: printer jams, frozen computers, etc. Technology is great. Until it’s not. Then it’s just an aggravation.
- Ambiguous emails or texts: these cause your mind to go to worse case scenario thinking.
- Unclear instructions: clarity is kindness. Unclear = stress and anxiety.
- Traffic: This doesn’t need an explanation, right?
- Long lines or slow service. Let’s face it. They can be a practice in patience especially if you’ve already had a stressful day.
- Micromanagement: undermines the confidence we have in ourselves and our ability to do our job well.
- Tension between coworkers: even if nothing is spoken, when there is strife between two coworkers it can be sensed and make us uncomfortable.
- Last minute meetings or deadlines: sudden requests for a meeting or a last minute task that is put on your plate can disrupt your day and cause extra stress.
These seemingly small things can have a profound effect on our nervous systems if we aren’t aware. Repeated small stressors can keep our bodies in a low-level state of fight or flight (low level state of alert that can cause muscle tension, increased heart rate, and shallow breathing.) Our emotional responses can be overblown. We may start to carry tension in our neck, shoulders, and jaw. An increase in elevated cortisol levels can cause sleep issues, mood swings, fatigue, digestive issues, and more.
So how do we help release the stress that micro-stressors can cause?
- Name it to tame it: acknowledging when you are feeling the stress can help reduce its grip on your nervous system.
- Micro-Breaks & movement: pausing for 1-3 minutes to stretch, take a deep breath, or stepping outside can help you reset your nervous system. Check out my 7 Mindful Micro-Breaks for Your Workday.
- Turn off notifications: silence your phones, turn off alerts and notifications that just distract you.
- Affirmations: remind yourself that having moments of stress is normal and that a temporary stressor doesn’t define your day.
- Build margin: add margin into the different parts of your day and between meetings and appointment to give you room to breathe in case unexpected situations arise.