Simple Ways to Lower the Tension at Your House
By Sandy Schroeder
Most of us know ways to lower stress at work, but what about stress at home? Do you need a stress-free zone at your house?
When you and your family all arrive at home after a busy day, do things flow smoothly, or does everything hit at once? The need for dinner, unhappy restless kids, and an overloaded spouse may make the evening a challenge.
You may think you are handling everything OK, but see if these look familiar.
Emotional signals - Are you sad, anxious, sleeping poorly and wondering how to regain your balance?
Physical tipoffs - Do you have ongoing headaches, light-headedness, rapid heartbeat, dry mouth, stomachaches or sweaty palms?
Reactions - Are you angry, tired, impatient, or irritable? Do you struggle to avoid snapping at our family?
How to Calm Down
HealthyForGoodHeart.com suggests ways to ease the tension and smooth out the bumps for everyone.
Family time to talk - Defuse anger by creating times to just sit and talk. After dinner or on the weekend, sit down and air everybody’s complaints. Stress drops when people feel like they are heard, and answers are found.
Streamline schedules - Family chaos mushrooms when everybody has too much to do. Start with overall schedules and and shed extra meetings, events and tasks.
Find a family activity - Yours might be music, gardening, or puttering in the kitchen or tinkering in the garage. Whatever brings everybody together can ease the tension.
Take control - Pinpoint stress-producing issues such as finances, health, household space or tasks, and do something about it. Getting a grip on the troublemakers helps everyone relax.
Be realistic - As you look around at your spouse and your kids, you know some things will continue to bug everyone. There will always be homework, extra meetings, and unexpected deadlines. Put some good backups in place to help solve them, and then just accept them as part of life.
Pick good support - Everybody needs people to jump in and lend a hand. If your support teams lags, start looking around for friends and family that you know you can count on.
Organize and simplify - Take a look at the areas in your house that surge out of control as people frantically look for their phones, keys, sunglasses and totes. Pick central spots to corral everything and use them every day to simplify the mornings and evenings.
Lower the volume - Use light and sound dimmers to create a calm quiet house. Add plants and use natural woods, fabrics and paints to create a quiet setting.
As you and your family work through stress, you may want to see your doctor or a psychologist to work on any stress or anxiety that persists.
To learn more about your health, wellness, and fitness, see your local chiropractor at The Joint Chiropractic in Tempe, Ariz.