As we embark on a new year, now is the perfect time to self-reflect and face your next chapter head-on. It’s easy to feel overwhelmed and stressed and fall into old habits, but with the right tools and approach, you can enter the new year feeling refreshed. Whether you subscribe to the idea of new year’s resolutions or not, a new year provides a feeling of a fresh start. It goes hand in hand with starting new healthy habits to improve our mental, emotional, and physical shape, providing endless benefits.
Here are some tips on how to get a stress-free start to the new year.
Declutter Your Home
If you don’t make time for regular decluttering, you’ll be surprised at how quickly it can begin to pile up. You may not notice all the clutter that has accumulated in your home or its effect on you, but more often than not, clutter in your home leads to clutter in your mind.
Start the year off by going through your belongings, putting things away in closets using clear, well-labeled bins, donating what you don’t need anymore, and reorganizing what you keep. Depending on how cluttered your home is, you can start small and take on the task yourself or consider hiring companies that organise homes to help you effectively purge and organize your belongings.
Find a Hobby
Picking up a hobby unrelated to your work or other obligations is a wonderful way to learn new things, spend time doing something you love, and reduce your stress levels. Some common hobbies and activities include:
- Learning a language
- Master cooking a new type of cuisine
- Learning a craft
- Picking up a new sport
- Take up bridge
Spending time on a purposeful activity you enjoy that is entirely separate from other tasks and responsibilities provides a way to completely unwind from everyday stresses.
Get More Sleep
It’s often said, but not always listened to, that getting more sleep provides a wealth of health benefits — one of the most important of which is stress relief. Not getting enough sleep leads to problems like diabetes, high blood pressure and obesity, as well as being less productive, increased errors and more risk of accidents.
Some of the ways to improve your sleep performance include:
- Reducing screen time in the hours before bed
- Going to sleep at the same time every night
- Only use your bed for sleep – no snacking or watching TV
Be Kind to Yourself
Taking these steps will help create healthy habits for dealing with stress, but one of the most important ways to reduce stress is to avoid putting too much pressure on yourself. Setting goals or resolutions can give you something to work towards, but it’s important to treat ourselves kindly when we don’t meet these goals or take a little extra time to achieve them.
There will always be stresses in life but taking time to create healthy ways to reduce stress and cope with it when it does arise will set you up for a more relaxed and healthier mindset for the coming year.
Also read: Natural Remedies That Will Have You Feeling Zen in No Time
