Nathan Borror

Your heart starts pounding, blood pressure soars and you begin to take shorter faster breaths. Why do we put every cell in our body through such a traumatic experience?

Stress was hard wired into our bodies for those face to face moments with mountain lions. It's called fight or flight. Mountain lions don't seem to bother us anymore so we've repurposed this reaction to things like client deadlines, idiots on the freeway, and that bar that plays horrible music on wednesday nights below my loft. I've decided for myself this is unacceptable so here is what I'm doing to combat this ridiculous instinct.

• Exercise: Clears my head and makes me a lot happier the following day.
• Don't Pass the Buck: Some might think this causes more stress but in my experience it doesn't. Suck it up and move on.
• Make Task Lists: This gets the stuff you try to remember off your mind so you can make room for other things.
• Check Off Tasks: For every three tasks I write down I try to immediately complete one of them. This inevitably leads to checking off more.
• Get It Done: When it's done it's off your plate and out of your mind.
• Controlled Breathing: This may sound weird but if you control the speed at which you breath in and out it has enormous calming effects on the body.
• Stretching: Certain stretches can make you feel more introverted or extroverted.

Stress is very counter productive and we need to be more aware of how stupid it is.