10 tips for a stress-free life

If there’s one phrase we hear over and over again, it’s “I’m stressed.” Stress is something that invades our everyday lives, whether you’re a stay-at-home mom, a hardworking dad, a career woman or even if you’re in your golden retirement years. We are all badgered by stress. In last week’s episode of Modern Living TV we learned that living a Zen lifestyle is something that is within everyone’s reach.

When planning out this episode, one of the first people that came to mind was the beautiful, multi-hyphenated author, TV and radio host Cory Quirino who also happens to be the national director of Miss World Philippines. I first met her at a ladies’ lunch hosted by Eti Bar-On, the wife of Ambassador Menashe Bar-On, former ambassador of Israel to the Philippines. She was sharing her inspiring story of her past traumatic kidnapping experience and how she was able to let go of all her emotional baggage and live a full, happy life without stress or regret.

I have learned a lot from our conversation and can relate it to my life. The older I get, the more simplified I want life to be. In fact leading a full, happy and purified life is not that difficult and much of it has to do with our surroundings and outlook. Life always throws us curve balls but we must learn how to catch them with confidence and positivity.

Based on my discussions with Cory, as well as my own personal research, here are 10 ways to help you live every day in a more peaceful, stress-free way.

1. De-clutter. It starts with your environment. Purge unnecessary items from your home and workspace. Donate, sell or throw things you haven’t used in a long time.

2. Clean and organize. In the same thread as before, living in orderly surroundings allows light and positive energy to circulate around you. Also, having the essentials in a more accessible manner will help make your life easier. This goes for emails, too! Delete all the spam, sift through unread messages, trash irrelevant ones.

3. Start the day with a moment of reflection. Even if it is just a few minutes in bed before you get up or while sipping coffee, alloting quiet time to reflect on what you are grateful for, what is important in your life and what tasks you have to tackle during the day is a good way to help you focus on your priorities and weed out the superfluous.

4. Start the day on a positive note. Do something good whether it’s a small achievement like exercising or cleaning out the accumulating clutter in your handbag or an act of kindness or generosity, like writing a long overdue thank you note to a friend or bringing a box of donuts for your officemates. Good energy has a way of coming back to you and multiplying exponentially.

5.  Surround yourself with positivity. Have things that motivate you nearby and frequent people who uplift your spirits rather than drag you down.

6. Take the time every so often to re-asses your life. This might mean deciding to stay away from certain negative people in your life, to ponder your difficulties and try to accept what happened in the past and let it go, examining your career and how happy you are, or even as simple as looking at what you can improve within yourself.

7. Learn to look at the big picture. Someone once told me to remember during difficult moments of parenthood that “the days are long but the years are short” and I keep finding myself applying it to everything. In the end, we have to look at the grand scheme of things and how important or trivial certain things are in the course of our lives. To also remember when things get tough, that “this too shall pass.” And it usually does.

8. Choose your battles. Not every problem is worth getting stressed over. Sure you woke up late, spilled coffee on your silk shirt right before an important meeting and traffic is going at a snail’s pace. But is it really worth getting angry over? Is it really worth getting an ulcer and anxiety attacks? Plus, remember nothing ever gets properly resolved with a hot head.

9. Don’t underestimate the power of breath. We are always so busy, multitasking, moving at such high speeds that we often forget to breathe. Deep, long, slow breaths can help calm you down in the most stressful of states and can truly help you restore balance and focus.

10. Love yourself. You cannot truly love and help others if you don’t start with yourself. And for Cory Quirino the best way to show that you truly love yourself is by embracing the discipline to eat well and exercise. You have to take care of the body for you to be able to heal your mind and soul.