Be spontaneous. You don’t have to plan a time for having brainless fun. If you’re hanging out with friends and suddenly don’t feel like talking about your stock options, then get silly! Do something completely new. Take a salsa class, go to a comedy show, or have fun putting temporary tattoos on your friends’ faces. If it would appeal to a fifth grader, even better!
And if you’re hanging out with friends who are acting slightly reckless – drinking too much, speeding a little, being annoying at the drive-thru – then yeah, you can be the person who says, “Stop it, you guys!” or you can roll with it and see that nothing bad will happen.
If you’re really a type-A, hardworking person, then you may feel like you won’t get a moment of rest until whatever task is at hand gets done, but in reality, if you take half an hour away from your task, you may be able to get it done more easily and with a more level head.
If you’re really feeling stressed out in the middle of the day, don’t underestimate the power of a good 15-20 minute power nap to helping reboot your system.
And on the opposite end of the spectrum, hanging out with people who are super uptight, who are obsessed with perfect grades, the perfect career, etc, are bound to make you even more uptight, too.
If you’re super stressed out all the time, you may feel like you don’t have time for things like exercise. But if you can move your schedule around, you’ll find that you’ll be able to carve out the time for your mind and your body.
It takes baby steps to get here. One way you can start is to start thinking of the multiple outcomes that can happen. Let’s say you’re up for a promotion. Instead of assuming you’ll get it, think of the different options and how you’ll react to them – you may get the promotion, or you may be told that you will get it pretty soon, or you may be told that you need to work harder if you really want that promotion. Whatever happens, if you’re prepared in advance, you’ll be less freaked out when “the unexpected” happens. There are some things you really can’t prepare for in advance. Maybe you and your boyfriend are on your way to a romantic getaway when your car breaks down. Yeah, it sucks, but sometimes, you have to learn to laugh at the things you can’t control. Let go of being a micro-planner. If you obsessively plan every fifteen-minute block of your day, then you are guaranteed to be frustrated and disappointed when something doesn’t go your way.
Once you stop expecting people to act the way you want them to act, you’ll be pleasantly surprised when they exceed your expectations. People aren’t perfect. Sometimes, they will be rude, insensitive, and immature. And that’s okay. This goes back to the “letting go of control” thing – let go of your high expectations of everything around you, and you are guaranteed to loosen up. This includes letting go of the unrealistic standards you set for yourself. If you expect yourself to be a CEO/Oscar-winning actress/best-selling author by the time you turn 25, then yeah, you are bound to be tense and disappointed when it doesn’t happen for you.
People who can’t loosen up are so stuck in expecting themselves to be perfect that they feel like huge losers if they misstep somewhere down the line.
If someone is really partaking in irritating behavior that is driving you crazy, take some deep breaths, take a bathroom break if you need to, and learn to look past it. The worst thing you can do is to tell everyone within a 25-mile radius about how annoying the person’s behavior is; talking about it will only make you look uptight and is guaranteed to make you feel worse. Try to think about the scheme of things. Will Bill’s antics or Mallory’s loudmouth really annoy you even twelve hours from right now? If the answer is no, then why not stop letting it annoy you this moment?
That’s not to say that you shouldn’t keep up a positive attitude and expect the best. But if you’re aware of the other possibilities, you’re much less likely to freak out and cause a ruckus if something less-than-great happens.
The key is not to be so darn sensitive. If you act like you’re going to cry or get upset about every little thing someone says about you, then no one will feel like they can relax around you. You don’t want to be that person who stops people from having a little harmless fun, do you?
This doesn’t mean that there’s always a great reason for someone to act out of line. But more often than not, if you dig deeper, you’ll be able to find an explanation for it. And that’s what people who need to relax live on – explanations.
Make a list of all of the things that are leading you to be stressed and unhappy. If you notice a pattern and see that most of them are coming from one source, then it may be time to make a big move. This may be scary, but in the end, you’ll be a happier person because of it!
