More Stress Reduction Tips

Tips to make it happen

by Leigh Anne Jasheway-Bryant

6. Put laughing on the calendar.

Every day will have at least one laugh if you put a funny, page-a-day calendar on your desk or table. Find a calendar featuring a cartoonist or stand-up comic you really love, and you’ll start every morning with a grin or a giggle.

7. Cushion yourself so you don’t get bruised in transit.

Rather than waking up to or going to sleep after watching the news or some violent TV program, make sure you choose something joyful instead. How you start your day sets the tone for the rest of the day, and what you do right before bedtime affects your sleep — don’t take the world’s stresses to bed with you; there isn’t room, what with the kids, the dogs, the cat and the ferret.

8. Don’t let life push your buttons.

When you go out, wear a funny button. Funny buttons tell everyone you have a sense of humor and are open to hearing jokes and funny stories. Like the time the woman at the airport told me about how she got her head stuck in her doggy door, totally humiliating her teenage daughter.

9. Look out another window.

If the view from your window is depressing, find another angle on life. You get to choose your own perspective.

Author and pastor Charles Swindell once said, “Life is 10 percent what happens to me and 90 percent how I react to it and so it is with you.”

Get yourself some plastic Groucho glasses, and start looking at the world funny.

10. Keep a nose out for traffic.

Road stress is a problem for most of us;   keep it at bay by  keeping a selection of your favorite comedians on tape or CD (or 8-track if you’re like me) and an animal snout in the glove box. Next time you’re stuck in traffic and it’s not going anywhere, strap on the snout and pop in a CD. You’ll have a better time than anyone else!

Enjoy your life more fully by letting the stress out of the bag.