Mental health as a single man: Ridiculously easy tips to reduce your stress levels

WORDS: Raimond Volpe PHOTOGRAPHY Supplied

I wrote a book about navigating anxiety, stress and achieving your goals but that doesn’t mean I’ve mastered it perfectly. I’m still learning about stress management. There is never a point at which you are have learned it all, especially not in this modality.  Maybe it’s me? Maybe I’m just born to stress? One thing is for certain, I wouldn’t be where I am today (which is a pretty great place) if stress hadn’t pushed me along.

Stress can be your friend if you know how to manage it.

Managing stress is an endless cycle, from the morning to the evening. These are the steps I follow to make stress my friend:

• The first is to get physical exercise move and get the good hormones flowing – Preferably doing something you enjoy to avoid the stress of commencing .. Interacting with people is also extremely important and interacting outside is even more important it’s very calming to be in  the outdoors.
• Write lists of all the things I have to do – This list includes my exercise routine. I use different colour texts as “labels”. Green means I’ve ticked something off the list which I’m in the process of doing, red is ticked off the list when completely done. This gives me the reason to think that I’ve accomplished something and gives me momentum for the rest of the day.
• Light is my friend – Waking up in the morning with light actually increases your cortisol (which is good to have in the morning) and it then slowly reduces during the course of the day.
• Our moods naturally get better as the day progresses – I learned this when I went through my vortex of anxiety for about six months. I noticed that every day at around 5 PM – 6 PM I would naturally be happier. I realised that was the time to capitalise and was the perfect time to go for a walk with my furry friend. When I get home I can enjoy my dinner, relax and watch some TV and hopefully get a good solid sleep.
• Reducing adrenaline levels – If you’re a high-achiever you need to get the adrenaline out of your body. Exercise and housework really help me with stress relief, they don’t need a lot of mental space. I often get baskets and clothes wash them to put him on the line fold ’em as part of my stress relief! It seems unusual but it works for me! When I look back I can see how productive I am.
• Clear the clutter – Stress is cluttering your brain. If you come home to a cluttered house it can induce that clutter in your head. Again, for me, cleaning one room and looking at that room was enough to keep me happy and motivated.
• Eat well – There are many diets on the market but it’s better to find what food works well for you. If you’re eating food that makes you tired it’s going to add to your stress. Limiting the food that I ate when I stressed was also a challenge because comforting foods have carbohydrates, so I had to swap them for protein alternatives. I also had to swap my fizzy drinks for Making smoothies helped me tremendously. They’re full of goodness! I’m not sure if they did any good to my body but just looking at something that’s green with and nutrient-dense was enough to make me smile.
• Posture – Using power-poses to change my testosterone levels in my body could also reduce my stress This involves walking with your head high walking and shoulders back. These are traits of people that are confident, so feeling confident is all about thinking confident and that’s all about visualising confidence that would all come out in my posture.