For a Life With Less Stress

Simple strategies for managing daily pressures that I learned after pushing myself too far

FRANCISCO LUNA

Leading up to a mental health crisis, my typical weekday looked like this:

After about five hours of poor-quality sleep, I quickly got ready, grabbed my laptop, and trudged across the street to my local coffee shop. There, I ordered a coldbrew coffee and began to work.

After a couple of hours of spreadsheets and emails, I went to the office for meetings. Lunch was usually a quick bite before more spreadsheets and emails, and by mid-afternoon I signed off from my part-time job. That gave me the perfect opportunity to grab another coffee before shifting into work on the business I had launched.

Remote meetings with my team, proofreading scripts and coordinating production schedules for commercials, and perfecting pro-forma financial projections for investor presentations filled the rest of the afternoon until it was time to head to my evening MBA classes. Four hours later, the local bar that served late-night dinners inevitably called my name.

After a meal and a cocktail, I was primed to accept an invitation from my “work-hard, play-hard” business colleagues: “Drinks?” Sometime between 1 a.m. and 3 a.m., I would finally crash, ready for another five hours of poor-quality sleep before starting all over again.

Although living like this, burning the candle at both ends, was not the sole cause of my years-long mental health–related disability, it is safe to say my high-stress lifestyle and my use of alcohol to cope did not help. Since then, I have learned that stress, while not inherently bad, can trigger and worsen symptoms if not carefully managed, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

HOW I MANAGE STRESS TODAY

Although my days of working two demanding jobs plus a full load of master’s courses are long over, my stress levels can still get high enough to negatively impact my relationships and mental health if I am not vigilant. Here are a few practices that help me keep stress under control.

PRIORITIZE GOOD QUALITY SLEEP

The most effective habit I have developed for keeping stress manageable begins the night before. Instead of the “don’t stop ‘til you drop” approach of my MBA years, I now try to finish high-stress tasks by around 8 p.m. At that point, I go outside with my cat, letting him wander while I clear my mind and breathe in the fresh air.

After 15–20 minutes, I feed him, take care of a few evening chores, and then relax with my fiancé, maybe sipping a non-caffeinated herbal tea as we chat, read side by side, or watch TV. What I no longer do to wind down is drink alcohol. The Cleveland Clinic reports that while alcohol can make you feel sleepy at first, the way it is metabolized interferes with sleep quality. That is not even considering the middle-of-the-night wake-ups to run to the bathroom. Experts at the University of Michigan Department of Psychiatry recommend limiting alcohol at least three hours before bedtime, so on nights when I do enjoy a drink, I stick to early evening and no more than two, or one for women, according to CDC guidelines.

If it has been a particularly stressful day, I find that putting on headphones and listening to a curated “Sleep” playlist helps. Another option is meditation. The free Healthy Minds app, developed by researchers at the University of Wisconsin, is a great resource with sleep-specific meditations.

LIMIT CAFFEINE

These days I limit myself to one cup of coffee in the morning and one cup of tea in the afternoon. A cup of black tea has about 25% of the caffeine of coffee, and green tea often has even less, according to UC Davis Nutrition. But it is enough to carry me through the day until I unplug around 8 p.m. Since caffeine can linger in your system for up to eight hours, I avoid it after 3 p.m. so it does not interfere with sleep.

Limiting caffeine has reduced both mental and physical tension and cut down on the “caffeine spiral” that happens when poor sleep leads to more caffeine, which then disrupts sleep again. I will admit this habit was harder to maintain when I was juggling two careers and an MBA program, but I have seen its benefits firsthand.

One of my relatives who struggles with anxiety cut caffeine completely, even while raising three children under four, and says it has made a huge difference in her stress levels.

EXERCISE

Second only to sleep, exercise is the most effective habit I have developed for managing stress. Harvard Health Publishing reports that exercise lowers stress hormones and elevates mood, and my own experience confirms this. I love the sense of calm I feel even hours after a workout, especially on demanding days.

I also combine exercise with the practice of “worry time,” where I allow myself up to 15 minutes each week to think about everything on my mind. The rule is that I cannot worry about those things outside that set time. I usually schedule it right before a long run.

The U.K.’s National Health Service offers this as a self-help technique, and when I told my therapist, she suggested I had trained my body to expect physical relief after this mental exercise. After practicing it for a couple of years, I have found it really works.