This weird thing called stress – and how to deal better with it

This is part three in my series of blog posts about my struggles to live a balanced life. As you might remember, in part 1, I wrote about setting boundaries as a strategy that has helped me be less stressed and finding a better balance between chasing my financial goals and craving freedom and adventure. In part 2, I shared how setting a meaningful goal and making a plan to achieve it has helped me. 

That leaves us with one more topic: dealing better with stress – or better yet, not getting stressed so easily. 

This year was the second winter in a row where I had a hard time staying positive. For three years now, I've been spending summers travelling and exploring and used winters to work more and save up. While that sounds like a great balance in theory, it hasn't been working that well for me. 

I love my summers! But I am miserable in winter. 

Not surprisingly, all the challenges I've had this winter disappeared the second I cut back work hours and hit the road again in my van. While that is great, I've promised myself that I will not have another miserable winter next year. 

I don't want to spend half the year miserable just so I can enjoy the other half. There must be a better way. 

I don't want to give up my career and financial ambition. I like that I'm a nomad with a successful career and financial security. And, as you will remember from my last blog post, I dream of buying some land and having a base in the not too distant future. So in short, working less isn't really an option. 

That only leaves one option: I need to learn to deal better with stress. 

I've been thinking and reading about stress lately, and the more I do so, the more I find that it is a kind of bizarre concept. It seems to me like stress itself is the problem most of the time ­– not the things that make us feel stressed in the first place. Or maybe that's just the case for me??? 

When I look back over this winter now that I have some perspective, I can't help but wonder why I ever felt so stressed. 

Yes, I had a lot of work! I over-committed myself a bit, and my over-achiever mentality meant that I was working long hours to deliver high-quality work for everyone. But I checked and the most I ever worked in one week all winter was 52 hours. Most weeks, it was more around the 40-hour mark. You do have to remember that I'm a freelancer which means these are actual productive hours – I don't get paid for coffee breaks, chats with my colleagues or sneakily checking Facebook during work hours – so it is quite a workload. 

But even so. There are 168 hours in a week. Let's say I work an average of 40, sleep for 56 and spend another 28 doing necessary life admin like cooking, eating, showering, shopping, cleaning, etc., that still leaves me with 44 hours of free time. That's more than six hours every day. 

That should have been plenty of time to get out into nature, exercise, read, relax and do other things important for my mental health. 

So why didn't I do most of those things regularly throughout this winter? 

Why did I feel stressed for months when I had six hours of free time every day? 

The more I think about it, the more I believe that it is a mental issue. It wasn't the actual workload that caused stress. It was my mindset. More specifically, it was me spending my free time worrying – often about things out of my control or that hadn't even happened yet. 

Instead of spending my free time doing the things that are good for me, I spent it in my head caught up on negative thoughts and emotions. 

And now that I think about it, I realise it's something that I do a lot. Nine times out of 10, when I feel stressed or other negative emotions, it's either about something that I can't control or that hasn't even happen yet – I just worry it might. 

How crazy is that! All this stress without a real reason. 

But how do you change something like this? How do you control your mind? 

As I've been looking for books and articles around this topic, I kept running into the same concept over and over again: meditation! 

I have to admit, I've always been a bit sceptical about meditation. I've tried it a few times, but I never stuck with it. It kind of just didn't seem right for me.  

However, after reading about the benefits over and over again, I've decided to give it another go, and I started an eight-week meditation course. The course is called Mindfulness: A practical guide to finding peace in a frantic world and was designed by Professor Mark Williams. There is a book to guide me through it (and we all know how much I love books) as well as audio files of the guided meditations. 

 I've just finished week two. So far, it's been surprisingly enjoyable, given my failed attempts to get into meditation in the past. Once a week, I read a chapter in the book and then I do the (short) meditations twice a day for the week before moving on to the next chapter/week.  

It's too early to say if meditation will help me stress and worry less and maintain a more positive mindset throughout the next winter. But I'm determined to stick with it this time and complete the eight-week course. I'll keep you posted…

In the meantime, I would love to hear from others who meditate regularly – or tried and didn't get into it. I'd love to hear about your experiences – good and bad – and lessons learned. Share them in the comments or contact me here.  

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