Reduce Stress and Maintain Balance One Box at a Time

A hectic lifestyle can burn out every type of personality if it isn’t kept in check. Reduce stress and maintain balance in your life by looking around your house. What things are cluttered and out of place or just sitting around collecting dust? What room do you hate going into? Do you have drawers that will not open and close with ease? These things are not serving you; they are only confusing your conscious and subconscious mind. This confusion will make you feel tired and stressed so why not change your surroundings and clean your house at the same time.

1. Keep the things you believe are beautiful or useful. You will feel better because these objects are now supporting a balanced life.
2. Start with one box in the garage or basement that has not been opened in years and decide immediately if it should stay or be thrown out. Do not second-guess your first instinct. Use the first tip as your guide.
3. Move your collectibles around or rearrange the furniture. This movement begins to clear the stagnant energy around you and you may realize you do not need all this stuff. If you do not need it, give it away or throw it out.
4. Go through your closet and try on all of your clothes. If you haven’t worn an item in over a year, you probably won’t so give it away and let someone else benefit.

Whenever you begin clearing the things away that aren’t serving you, balance is restored and you will feel less stress and more peaceful.

Finding Quality Time

It´s such a cliche now, but make time for your family and partner. BE there. Sit down and really talk with them about whatever they want to, and then talk with them about the things that are important to you. Share your lives with each other. Most relationships break up because people drift away from each other. Don´t let the drifting start.

Know Yourself

The first step in finding a balance in a relationship is to figure out what each person truly wants. Sit down and know what *you* want out of the relationship before taking the step of figuring out how the two of you will merge your needs.

Share some hobbies

While it´s good to have separate interests, try to make sure at least some of them overlap. It´s easy to drift apart if you never spend time together. Take the time to teach your partner about what you love, and show interest in your partner´s hobbies.

Harmony in the Workplace is Easier than you Think

Employers all over the country are looking for ways to increase productivity, reduce stress and create harmony in the workplace. Balance and order in the working environment are critical when it comes to keeping employees. According to Feng Shui, the Chinese art of placement, clutter and disarray in the workplace makes employees less productive, stressed out and even sick. Here are some things you can do in your office to reduce stress and increase profitability.

1. Blend natural essential oils such as lemon, lemongrass, orange, eucalyptus and rosemary in a room spray. Use three to four drops of each in a two oz. spray bottle and add water. When there is tension in the air, spray this citrus blend and the room will feel better. Citrus oils are tolerated well by most people and are refreshing.
2. Burn or smudge a leaf of white sage in the office. Native Americans do this for purification and it will make the room feel better. Let the smoke waft throughout the corners of the rooms.
3. Go through all of the filing cabinets and take out old past files that are no longer necessary – keep only the files you need for present business. Store the old files in a separate room or storage facility. This de-clutters the office and allows new business to come in.
4. Set up each office so the employee does not have their back to the door. Sitting with your back to the door causes a feeling of vulnerability and agitation. Facing the door allows the employee to face every situation head on.
5. During a happy event or party, take a group photo and display it prominently in the front reception area. This is a constant reminder of fun and camaraderie among the workers.

These tips allow balance and harmony to flow in the office. Your employees will feel the difference and your bottom line will reflect it as well.

Clear the Clutter

Sit back and just look at your area in front of you. Is it cluttered and dingy? Full of interesting things that remind you of home, or full of paperclips and floppy disks? This environment surrounds you every day, but most people don´t really stop to look at it.

Sit down and completely clear off your work area, and start again. Put little items that remind you of the good times - of what you are working *for*. When you glance around, have photos of loved ones, or small statues from vacations, or even cartoon character figures to help bring a smile to your lips. It´ll help make the whole day easier.

Set your own goals

People can easily get into the habit of doing what their parents tell them to do, or their bosses, or their friends, or their partners. It´s easy to begin thinking that everything you do is because you have to do it.

Sit back and take some time to relax, and determine your own priorities. What is important to you? What are your goals, for work, for your home, for your relationships? Find things that meet these goals. Discuss these things with people who are important to you, but know first what *you* want, instead of talking to them and having them tell you what *they* think you want.

Leave work early

Are you always working late? This will make your partner feel unimportant and neglected. Take the time at least one day a week to go home on time or early, to spend some time together.

Stay Healthy

It seems like such an easy thing - you wash your clothes, you put oil in your car, but many people don´t take care of their own bodies. The resulting imbalance affects your entire life, changes your moods and adds aches and pains to your life.

Take a look at your diet and exercise. Even small changes in eating more healthily, drinking lots of water and getting out for walks can vastly improve your mood and outlook on life.

Music Soothes the Soul

A fair amount of working through relationships is learning to understand your feelings. Music can have a huge impact on the way you feel. Play slow, soothing songs, and your anger will melt away. Play sultry songs, and you will start to feel sexy and smooth. Play lively, pop songs and you´ll be in the mood for dancing.

You tend to play songs that reinforce your current mood, but be aware that this is going on. Are you feeling angry? Don´t necessarily play lots of "bang your head" music to rile yourself up further - consider playing something slower and more relaxing to bring you down. Just finished a fight with your lover? Instead of pouring on the "love is a battlefield" songs of angst, try instead to put on songs of reconciliation. You´ll be surprised how you can help yourself work through an emotion with the help of music.

Really evaluate your current job

Many people end up in a certain job through a sequence of chance occurrences. A job happened to be available, and another one happened to look interesting, and now you might be in a job that you don´t enjoy, or with people you dislike, or even in a field that no longer interests you. Everybody changes, and perhaps you are now not suited for the profession you´ve been stuck with.

Sit down, think about this, and seriously evaluate your options. Switching gears sometimes means moving back temporarily on the pay scale, but this is not necessarily true. You can find a "middle job" to transition you into where you want to be. If for example you´re a programmer but always wanted to learn more about scientific work, get a programming job in a biotech industry. You can be a scientific programmer, and probably even take courses in scientific work to enhance your work.

If you do have to slide back in pay to make the move, do not automatically discount this. Many friends of mine have taken lower pay for better jobs, and the trade-off in their happiness and the happiness of their entire family has been immense. Your time with your family, and your health and well being, should count for quite a bit against a small pay decrease.

Remove Clutter

Many arguments in the home start over manageable situations that have gotten out of control. For example, clutter happens over time. It´s hard to even remember how half the stuff ended up where it is. Sit down for a weekend and remove all the excess items from your main living areas. You´d be amazed, once your rooms are clean and organized, how much calmer you feel when you hang out in them.

Easing main concerns

Sit down separately and write down your top concerns with the relationship - do you not spend enough time together? Is the time together not well spent? When both are set, sit down and go over the issues with an open mind. See if you can find ways to ease any of the concerns.

Organize your Studies

School can seem overwhelming when you look at the stack of things to do, and this pressure can end up harming the relationships you are in. To balance yourself, simply choose the thing which has the highest priority. Work on finishing that. When that´s done, start on the next thing. By setting short term goals, you´ll find the task isn´t that bad after all!

Schedule play time

With days being so hectic, it is often easy to schedule work, chores, family duties and classes and forget to leave any time for relaxing. Relaxing and playing are extremely important to a positive outlook - leaving them out can make you less able to function during the things you have to do.

Set aside some time each week to do something you really want to do - for fun. It may be hard to justify the time, but think of it as an investment in yourself.

Teacher Troubles

Teachers are humans, and have their own strengths and weaknesses. If you´re having trouble with your teacher, find a quiet time to sit down with him or her and explain that you want things to get better. Most teachers truly do want to help their students, and you might find that everything can be resolved easily once it´s talked about.

Plan a Great Menu

Food can have a huge impact on how you feel, which then affects how you deal with others in your life. Many people skimp on food - either by dieting and restricting their food, or by working too hard and grabbing meals where they can. Treat yourself right every once in a while - sit down and really enjoy a meal that you love. It doesn´t have to completely blow your diet, but it can be something special that you enjoy, that you rarely get to have. Food is one of those basic needs that can really set your mood for an entire day.

Plan your work growth

If you don´t have a plan for what you want out of your job, you can end up spending countless hours doing things unrelated to your goal, and become very stressed about it in the process.

Sit down and map out what you want from your job right now, and 5 years from now. Figure out what you need to do to achieve these goals, and set out a reasonable timetable. This will help you plan your hours so that there is time for both work and homelife ... it will also reduce your stress, so that your time overall is much better spent.

Working from Home

If you work from home, try to separate your work and home lives. When your work time is finished, turn off the computer and turn your attention to your partner. There needs to be time in life for both parts of your world.

Snacks and Nibbling

Many people are sensitive to fluctuations in their food level, without realizing it. You may get cranky if your sugar levels dip, or if you haven´t eaten in a while, and not realize this is the cause.

It´s more healthy to eat more, smaller meals throughout the day anyway, so find some healthy snacks and keep them at your desk or in your purse or backpack. Nibble on them occasionally, and drink lots of water. You´ll find that your outlook on life may improve greatly.

Get a Pet

Sometimes you have to focus your attention outside yourself to regain perspective. Having a pet helps with that - you take time to think about its needs, and normally its unconditional love back is very healing. Researchers have shown that even adding just a fishtank to a nursing home makes a huge improvement in the attitudes of the people there.

Can´t afford even a goldfish with an automatic timer? Get some plants instead, something low maintenance that you water occasionally. Having it around may be the distraction you need to keep yourself balanced.