Balancing Hectic Life: How to Manage Stress in Daily Life

Last updated on March 18th, 2024

No matter how hard you try, it is tough to have sound mental health while living a very hectic life. Even if you are not going through a hectic schedule regularly, without proper care, your mental health is bound to deteriorate in these trying times.

You might have already gone through different mental health problems, including depression, anxiety, etc., and now you’re trying to get rid of them by finding some solutions.

However, it is not an easy task to keep your mind healthy and cure all the problems. Especially when you live a hectic life, the problems get bigger, and it becomes harder to maintain sound mental health.

But it is really important to take care of your mental health. Otherwise, you might find yourself in deep dark places and having disturbing thoughts. And further, not caring about mental health can lead you to cause self-harm and many other problems.

So, you must take proper measures to take care of your mental health and ensure sound mental health for yourself.

Here are a few tips that can help you to ensure your mental health is sound even if your life routine is really busy and you’re leading a hectic life.

#1. Explore Your Imagination

Every person possesses some level of creativity in him/her. Tapping in one’s creativity is an excellent practice to get rid of mental gloominess.

The researchers found out that nine out of ten people can significantly heal from mental depression after a half-hour colouring session.

The bright colours and completed picture gave the people a sense of purpose that they thought was lost. Not only drawing or colouring, writing a novel, playing an instrument, or learning a new bike stunt can be effective.

Helpful reads:

#2. Leaving the Sedentary Behaviour

You might know physical exercise is a way of having physical benefits, but you must know that exercising has many other benefits, including mental health benefits.

If you’re already into exercising regularly, you know how fresh and amazing you feel after every session. Any fitness program can make you feel a lot better than you’d feel without any workout.

Three primary hormones work to make us feel good or happy, and theories are serotonin, dopamine, and endorphins. When you work out and break a sweat, these three hormones get released in a better quantity and make you feel good.

So, you can exercise to take care of your mental health and have a good time with yourself and others who work out with you.

#3. Eat Something Sweet

Having something sweet to eat can always elevate one’s mood. The brain produces fewer stress hormones when you consume something sweet.

According to a study done at Tokyo’s ‘Kyorin University, the researchers concluded that people who have ice cream in the morning are more intelligent than others.

Let’s be honest, who doesn’t feel good with a tub of ice cream or a cake with lots of sparkles? However, consuming too many sweets can add some pounds and cause long-lasting health conditions.

#4. Stress Buster Activities

You have to make time for your favourite activities no matter how busy & hectic your schedule is, and they can be anything. Listening to music can be your favourite activity, and if so, you must find some time to listen to your favourite songs.

Listening to music is a therapeutic thing to do, as we all have a certain type of favourite music that helps us to feel better and triggers our feel-good hormones more.

Music is known to stimulate dopamine and promote creativity in us. So, listening to music can be a great way of taking care of your mental health.

Not only music, but you can also go for anything else, whatever you want. Even a walk in the park in the afternoon can work wonders for you. Going close to nature and spending a certain amount of time with natural things can be good for mental health.

Read this:

30 Stress Buster activities (Feel Your inner Child)

#5. Organize Your Responsibilities

Although nobody is safe from the grasp of stress, knowing how to balance your hectic life is the key to leading a healthy life. Learn to organize your responsibilities and worries.

Then find out ways to reduce and discard the factors that can easily overwhelm you. Once you find the core reasons that induce stress in you, they seem pretty manageable.

Some nights, you may be faced with a lack of sleep due to stress. List the reasons for what seems so earth-shattering. Often, when you write things down, you may find that they may not be as big as they appeared before.

Pin them for solving in the morning, and you may have a pretty good sleep.

#6. Do-it-Yourself Projects

Any do-it-yourself project can uplift a person’s mood significantly. It has been very evident during the 2020 pandemic. The sudden lockdown ad impacted highly on the mental health of people around the world (1), (2).

Fortunately, many started to upload videos of their DIY projects on social media platforms. Thus inspiring others to try the same.

A lot of people expressed that they had been in a very dark place while in isolation. But the DIY projects have inspired them greatly and made them find a very new side of their ability.

Not only in isolation but also in a hectic life, giving some time to your creativity is said to promote mental health.

This article is going to help you:

43 Productive Things to Do at Home

#7. Setting Realistic Goals

If you set really hard and almost unattainable goals for yourself and set a short amount of time to achieve that; it is bound to kill your mental health. Mental health can get hampered when you aim for things that are too high and will take an extended amount of time.

For example, if you desire something that you can ultimately have at the age of 30; still, you’re still rooting for it in your student life and trying hard to achieve it. No matter what you do, you’ll fall short and harm your mental health as a result.

It is better to go for things step by step. Things that can be achieved now and seen at a close distance and actions that will lead you to your ultimate ambition.

You should know that there is nothing wrong with having high aspirations, but you must prioritize achieving them in several steps that are easily achievable by your standards. This will keep your mental health sound.

#8. Not Enforcing Positivity

You might find it cliche if someone tells you to practice positive thinking, but trust me, this works. When you try to find the positive points out of something, you will start feeling better.

However, there are things you can not find any positivity from, and you can not and should not enforce positivity anywhere and everywhere.

Enforcing positivity is a toxic thing to do, which can unintentionally hamper your and others’ mental health.

However, promoting positive feelings and expressing gratitude to your close people can do the trick most of the time. Instead of enforcing it, if you gently make your behaviour positive, it will help your mental health a lot after a long hectic day.

#9. Venting Out

When we’re busy and living a hectic life, we often don’t get time for ourselves and bury our worries inside. So, venting out things that are heavy on your mind can be therapeutic and help your mental health a lot.

You don’t even need to vent. If you talk to someone you love or someone close to you, you can do wonders for your mind.

Let people close to you know what you are going through and what is happening in your life lately. Even if they can’t help you with anything, just talking might make you feel better.

Or if you need professional help, getting counselling from psychologists can be helpful for your mental health.

#10. Quit Smoking, Drinking & Drug Abusing

Smoking and alcohol-abusing can seriously impact one’s mental health. These substances can cause withdrawal symptoms which can promote depression and anxiety the next day.

It can also cause a lack of concentration to work while drinking for prolonged periods and may induce severe memory problems, motor problems, confusion, and eye problems.

At the same time, drugs may get you paranoia and prolonged delusional moments. It can be dreadful for your mental health as well as physical health especially if your life is already hectic.

Read:

#11. Using Bright Light Therapy

We have talked about some behavioural methods, and now this one is more technological. I have heard using light therapy in a hectic life has surprisingly been a massive success in improving people’s mental health.

Taking bright light therapy regularly by using a lightbox can significantly increase the hormones that make you feel good and help you get rid of depression and other similar things.

It works like sunlight, the way sunny days can make you happier. Light therapy can make you feel better in the same way. You can resort to this if other methods don’t seem to work.

But I don’t suggest this technology method and you shouldn’t do either without the guidance of a professional.

Final Words

Mental health is a really important matter to look after, and you shouldn’t compromise it at any cost. So, take care of your mental health properly by balancing your hectic life.

And don’t hesitate to take expert help if you feel like you need it.

You have only one life to live; why not live it healthy?