Reduce Stress By Avoiding The Holiday Blues

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Reduce Stress Levels and Increase Your Willpower Using These 3 Stress Reduction Techniques

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Life Is Stressful! Here Are 17 Ways to Relax and Reduce Stress at Home That Anyone Can Use.

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5 Ways to Reduce Stress and Anxiety at Work

Stress at work can be a result of too many short deadlines, a pushy boss, too many major projects and more. Whatever the cause of your workplace anxiety though, you can reduce the associated stress through these five simple steps from Dumb Little Man:

Prepare for the pressure. If you know you’re going to have a high pressure situation coming up, get ready for it so you can go into it with the right mindset and tackle issues as quickly and efficiently as possible.Know when to say “no.” Taking on too many tasks is a surefire way to stress yourself out and ensure you do a medoicre job on many projects rather than a great job on a few.Refuse to climb the molehill. This one is simple: don’t make a mountain out of a molehill.Relax your muscles. Feeling relaxed physically will make you feel relaxed mentally as well.Cultivate positive thinking. Seeing the bright side of things can help you make the best out of any situation and fight anxiety in the worst conditions.

Learn how to use each of these suggestions to minimize stress, the ten habits suggested in the article are: 10 Habits to Reduce the Stress in Your Daily Life

Featured photo credit: sad unhappy girl in the autumn forest, stress, depression via Shutterstock

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10 Ways to Reduce Stress at Work That Could Save Your Life

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Reduce Stress and Anxiety: 5 Effective Ways to Deal with Stress and Anxiety at Work

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How to Reduce Your Mail to Almost Nothing

It’s been estimated that the average American will spend about 8 months of his/her life opening junk mail. Would anyone consciously choose to do that? Probably not. But how many will end up doing it anyway?

And this is just the average. Some poor folks actually spend years of their lives processing junk mail. This is especially common if you have multiple sources of mail, such as your home and a business.

Each piece of unwanted mail you process is a needless waste of your life. It’s also a major source of distraction that gets you thinking about things that are off course for you.

Even if you don’t open most junk mail, it still wastes time to pick it up, look at it, identify it as spam, and trash it. And if you’re ever tempted or tricked into opening some of it, it wastes even more time. Even if you’re way better than the average, and you waste only 10 minutes per week dealing with junk mail, it will add up to nearly 87 hours wasted over the next decade. That’s like working more than 2 weeks full-time just to process junk mail. And this doesn’t even count non-junk mail that you may also process.

Fortunately there are many simple steps you can take to reduce this unwanted nuisance down to almost nothing.

The first step is to assess how much mail you’re actually receiving. If you process your mail every day or two, it may not seem like a lot. But if you collect it over a longer period of time, such as 30 days, you may realize just how much of a waste it is.

When I started traveling more and had my mail held by the Post Office, I noticed just how much would accumulate during my absence. Also, as I would recycle all my mail, I could physically see just how much would pile up during the two weeks between recycling pick-ups.

I recommend stockpiling all your unwanted mail for the next 30 days. Then you’ll see just how much there is.

Alternatively you could compile a list of what comes through, but I prefer to let the physical pieces pile up for an easy visual assessment. The recycle bin is an easy place to do that.

Another reason to keep each physical item is so that you can use the information on them to cancel them from being sent in the future. More on that later…

Now for each piece of mail that arrives in your mailbox, ask yourself whether it needed to be sent at all.

I find that in most cases the answer is an obvious no.

I realized that there were only two types of mail I actually want to receive: pieces containing checks, such as royalties or affiliate commissions, and packages containing goods that I specifically ordered. Everything else is superfluous, at least in terms of sending physical objects through the postal service.

There are also some notices which I’m okay receiving by mail, such as bills and tax forms, even though I don’t necessarily need to receive them by postal mail.

If you didn’t need to receive it, and if you’re likely to receive something similar again, consider it a candidate for elimination.

The next step is to manually opt out with each company that sent you something you didn’t need to receive.

Most junk mail will include a phone number or URL. I think the easiest approach is to call them. Phone them up directly, and get a live person on the line. In my experience this isn’t difficult. Then say, “Hi, I’d like to stop receiving all mailings from your company. Would you please add me to your opt out list? I’d really appreciate it.”

They’ll ask for your mailing address, do some database stuff, and that should do it. Usually these calls take about two minutes.

Sometimes it’s helpful to have the mailed item in front of you because if they have any difficulty finding you in their system, you may be able to give them an ID number or customer number from the address label. This makes it fast and easy for them to look you up.

When you do call, be as polite and friendly as you can. Most likely the person handling your situation is just some student trying to earn tuition money by working in a call center. I always get their name and use it when I talk to them. Don’t act like a jerk or treat them like dirt, or you may give them reason not to opt you out properly.

Often you can also opt-out online. Go to the company’s website, and look for a link to their privacy policy or a contact form. Sometimes the privacy policy will have a section with instructions on how to opt out of their mailings, usually a link to a form or an email address to use. Otherwise just use the contact form. I recommend the phone option, however, since it’s typically faster, and then you get confirmation that you’ve been successfully opted out of their mailings. If you email them, you may not receive confirmation that you’re opted out.

Note that you can even opt out of those coupon and local advertisement mailers. Just look for a phone number or URL on the front or back. Worst case you can probably find a number for their advertising sales. Call them up and ask to opt out.

Once you do opt out, give it a month or so to take effect. Don’t be freaked out if you still get something a couple weeks later. Often these companies have mailings queued up for weeks in advance. You have to allow time for their physical mailings to sync with the database update.

Be sure to call companies you’ve done business with, such as your bank, to ask them to opt out of mailed solicitations. For me one of the worst offenders has been Cox Cable (a major ISP in Las Vegas). They sent junk mail constantly to promote their Internet phone service, cable TV, etc.

Sometimes if you just get one nasty mail spammer to stop, it can save you a few hours over the course of a year. Realize that even 5 minutes per month processing junk mail is still an hour per year, and 10 hours over the next decade. Take two minutes today to save those 10 hours later.

My #1 nemesis when it comes to junk mail has been DirecTV. Sometimes I’d receive two junk mailings from them per week. I’m glad to be opted out now, but their incessant spamming has convinced me to never do business with them. They gave me the mental association that DirecTV = spammer. Their service is obsolete anyway, so perhaps that’s the reason for their desperation.

Additionally, ask these companies to set your account to the maximum privacy settings possible. Tell them you don’t want your info shared with anyone. It’s common for companies to share customer data for marketing purposes, so this step can cut down on a lot of junk.

Be sure to call:

your bankmortgage lendercredit card companiesinsurance providers (auto, home, life, health, etc)phone companiesinvestment account holderscable companyInternet providerany other mail-happy company with which you have an account

Watch your mail to see who’s mailing you.

One annoyance I had with Cox Cable is that they told me I could only opt out of their mailings for one year at a time. I thought that was incredibly lame, so I pushed back, but the guy told me their system is actually programmed to force him to enter an expiration date with a maximum of one year out. So I gave up and just added an entry to my calendar to call them again in one year to refresh my opt out.

Many vendors such as banks, credit card companies, and utilities now allow you to receive statements by email or via their websites, so mailing physical statements isn’t necessary. It’s cheaper for them, so sometimes they’ll incentivize you to switch to e-statements, or they’ll punish you with a “statement fee” if you don’t.

You can still print out hard copies if you need them.

Do whatever you think is best, but you can always try e-statements for a while and then switch back to paper if you don’t like it.

The Direct Marketing Association has a website that makes it easy for you to opt out of common catalog and junk mailings in one place. Their members use this service to screen their lists, and they have a lot of members.

Just visit DMAChoice.org and follow the instructions. You have to create a free account to use this service, but the process is quick and easy.

If you have a credit file with the major credit bureaus (which happens by default if you open any line of credit such as a bank loan, student loan, or credit card), you should know that they share your info with other companies that may result in your receiving credit card and insurance offers by mail. I’ve probably received hundreds of these offers.

If you’d prefer not to receive such spam, it’s very easy to opt out. Just call 1-888-5-OPT-OUT (1-888-567-8688), or go to www.optoutprescreen.com and follow the instructions.

You can opt out for 5 years or permanently. If you want to opt out for 5 years, you can do that by phone or online. If you want to opt out permanently, go to the website above; you just have to print and sign a short form and mail it.

I did the permanent opt out.

If you ever want a new credit card or some insurance, it’s easy to find vendors and apply online. There’s no need to deal with distracting junk mail for the rest of your life due to spam that originates from having a credit file.

Americans can also reduce or eliminate unsolicited telemarketing calls by visiting www.donotcall.gov. It should take about one minute to add your numbers to the registry. Just remember to do this again if you ever change phone numbers.

I used to get spam calls several times a week by telemarketer scum, but after adding my numbers to this list, it’s down to virtually nothing now.

For good measure you may want to add your fax number too if you have one. I don’t see how it could hurt.

For more info on this, see the Do Not Call Registry FAQ.

Kudos to the Federal Trade Commission for providing this service.

When you move it’s tempting to leave a forwarding address with the Post Office, so they’ll automatically forward mail from your old address to your new one.

This is convenient, but if you want to reduce your junk mail, I think it’s best to avoid using this service. It makes it too easy for the spammers to stay in touch.

Let the important mailers know your new address. Let everything else die.

When you move to a new place, you’re likely to get some junk mail from vendors who target move-ins, especially if you just bought a house. Bed, Bath, and Beyond comes to mind. Furniture stores are another typical source.

These mailings are often addressed to “Resident.”

Let the junk pile up for a few weeks after you move in. Then take 30-60 minutes to call everyone to opt out. Otherwise you may become a permanent addition to several new mailing lists, and this will waste hours, if not days, of your life down the road.

I’ve often maintained a PO box for my business, usually for receiving mail orders. But the longer I’ve held such mailboxes, the more spam they accumulate, especially if I list the address on my website. After a few years of having such a box, the mail they receive can become 95% spam.

Last month my current PO box, which I’ve had for a few years, was due for its annual renewal. I was about to cut the check when I paused and asked myself, “Wait a minute… do I really need this box anymore? What would happen if I dumped it?” It was probably getting about 65% pure spam, but nearly 100% of the mail received there was unnecessary.

Originally I opened the box to receive mail orders and for people who wanted to send feedback by mail. But for all the workshops I’ve had, maybe one person has ever registered by mail. And I’ve read enough feedback on my writing to last a lifetime, so I really don’t need the letters either. It was a fairly easy decision to close the box, which means less mail henceforth.

When I turned in the keys, I was handed a stack of packages that I never bothered to pick up, all of them sent by publicists hoping I’d review their stuff on my website. More fodder for the recycle bin. Henceforth this PR spam will end up in limbo.

When I first started blogging, I thought it was cool that publishers and their publicists would send me free personal development books in the mail, hoping to get a review on my website. But after several years of that, it gets pretty stale. Today, however, I’ll be happy to give them my PO box address.

Alternatively, if you don’t want to close your box, consider recycling it. Open a new box, and redirect your mail there till all the important stuff is shifted over. Then close the old box. This is a good way to periodically reset your spam to zero. I recommend doing it once every few years, or whenever the spam volume gets too annoying.

If having a consistent address is important to you, like if there are lots of places where your address is listed (i.e. old catalogs), then you may be stuck with the same box for a while. I preferred a stable mailing address when I sold shareware games during the 1990s since the mailing address was included in the free demos, which were spread all over the Internet. Changing my box would mean losing some orders from older demos.

While this isn’t always possible for businesses, if you can keep your mailing address off of public Internet sites, it should help reduce the amount of junk mail you receive. I’ve seen plenty of evidence that if you do post a mailing address online, you’re probably going to invite some additional junk mail.

It’s okay to enter your mailing address on online order forms when you want to buy something, such as from Amazon. Just don’t post it where it will be displayed publicly, like on a public discussion forum or on your Facebook page.

Despite the good they do, many charities, bless their hearts, can be notorious spammers. Donating to certain charities can trigger an onslaught of dozens of give-us-more-money solicitations over the following year or two.

If you don’t want your donation to be treated as spam bait, then when you make a donation, immediately ask the charity to opt you out of any future mailings.

For a while I was doing recurring automatic donations to a popular charity. They’d mail me monthly statements and a few solicitations each year. When I finally canceled those recurring donations, I received an onslaught of solicitous mailings from them. Such annoying behavior isn’t going to motivate me to donate more, but it does convince me to opt out permanently.

I appreciate the good that many charities do, but I’m not interested in opening their solicitations for the rest of my life. It’s easy enough to find a worthy cause when I desire to donate.

Be alert for potential sources of junk mail as they arise, and nip them in the bud quickly when you can.

Sometimes when I’d buy gifts for people, I’d get junk mail from the companies I bought from, even if I never bought anything for myself.

One time I bought a gift card to White House | Black Market for my sister via their website. Then I started getting lots of junk mail from them, addressed to me. I would never shop there for myself, but now I will never buy anything from them for anyone.

When you buy something online from a new vendor, ask to be placed on their opt out list right when you order. If you order online, there’s often a “special instructions” or comment box where you can notify them of this.

One thing that gets me a lot is when I make hotel reservations. After my stay, I often start receiving junk mail from the hotel. Seriously? Am I really going to revisit that Hawaii resort right after I just stayed there? Again, this kind of spam has the opposite effect and makes me less likely to return. I have to remind myself to opt out of hotel mailings right when I make the reservation.

Once a family member bought some gifts from Justice (a girl’s clothing store) for my daughter Emily, and the gifts were mailed to my house. I started getting an absolutely ridiculous amount of junk mail from them, addressed to Emily. Finally I had the sense to tell them to stop.

Worst case, you could have someone process and screen all your mail for you. I think this should be a last resort, however, and it doesn’t negate any of the above. Why have someone waste their life on pointless busywork when it’s faster and easier to cut off the flow of junk upstream? Don’t try to process spam more quickly. Stop the spam from being sent. Then no one needs to process it.

If you do use an assistant, then have him/her make the calls to reduce your mail to the bare minimum.

One of the best Seinfeld episodes is where Kramer decides he wants to stop receiving postal mail. He puts a brick in his mailbox, so the mail carrier can’t deliver any more mail to him. Eventually the Postmaster General has Kramer kidnapped and intimidates him until Kramer agrees to play by the rules and start receiving mail again.

How necessary is postal mail these days?

If the ideal is to receive no unwanted physical mail at all, how close can we get to that? I suppose that if you don’t have an address, such as if you live in an RV, then maybe you could do without mail altogether. But if you do have a physical address, do you think you could someday do the equivalent of putting a brick in your mailbox, so no further mail delivery is possible? You could still receive packages at your door if you want, but no more letters, cards, postcards, magazines, etc.

Does the postal service itself let people opt out?

Physical mail delivery was once a marvel, especially if you lived in Ancient Rome, Persia, or the Mongol Empire. Today it’s a dying technology that’s clearly becoming obsolete.

The U.S. Postal Service is in seriously bad financial shape, so bad that their very survival is in doubt. They raise postage rates, lay people off, and close locations, but they’re still hemorrhaging cash with no end in sight. We’re talking a multi-billion dollar deficit. A major downsizing is inevitable; it’s only a matter of time. If the decision were up to me, I’d either gut the service to the bones or kill it altogether. It’s best to put them out of their misery sooner; delay will be worse.

For any readers who still work in postal mail delivery, I’d start developing new career options sooner rather than later. I don’t think you have much time left. No union can save your job when the math is against you.

* * *

For the purposes of mail reduction, I suggest doing about 30 days of collection first, coupled with immediate use of the various opt-out services above. Then at the end of those 30 days, go through your stack item by item to make your phone calls to individual spammers, either in a single marathon session, or spread over the course of a week.

Then mark your calendar to do another round of mail reduction every 6 months or so. That should massively reduce the amount of unwanted mail you receive for the rest of your life.

It may take a few hours to complete these actions, but I think you’ll agree that the payoff is worth it. Would you rather spend 8 months of your life opening junk mail?

Even if you only apply some of the steps above, I think a 75% reduction within 60 days is an attainable goal, and I’m sure some will achieve a 90%+ reduction. If you really push it though, you should be able to reduce your incoming mail to almost nothing. Don’t waste your time processing crap that never should have been sent to you. Go have a life!

If you do discover a way to completely brick up your mailbox, please let me know… if you can figure out how to contact me, that is.

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10 Mindful Minutes: Giving Our Children--and Ourselves--the Social and Emotional Skills to Reduce Stress and Anxiety for Healthier, Happy Lives

"Goldie Hawn embodies delight and joy, and 10 Mindful Minutes radiates these. Her book can help any adult-parent, grandparent, teacher-make double use of their moments with the children they love and have a terrific time while helping shape that child's brain for a lifetime of resilience and happiness."
-Daniel Goleman, author of Emotional Intelligence

Across the country, the revolutionary MindUP program, which was developed under the auspices of the Hawn Foundation, established by Goldie Hawn, is teaching children vital social and emotional skills. By understanding how their brains work, children discover where their emotions come from and become more self-aware. They learn to appreciate the sensory aspects of their lives and to value the positive effects of mindfulness, compassion, and kindness. This, in turn, empowers them to manage and reduce their own stress-and helps them be happy.

Those who have seen the remarkable effects of this program have been eager to learn how to implement it in their own homes and use its practices for themselves, too. Now, for the first time, its secrets are being shared with all parents and children in 10 Mindful Minutes.

Price: $24.00

Click here to buy from Amazon

How to Declutter Your Life and Reduce Stress

Excessive clutter is often a symptom and a cause of stress and can affect every facet of your life, from the time it takes you to do things to your finances and your overall enjoyment of life.  Clutter can distract you, weigh you down, and in general it invites chaos into your life.  Often times, however, tackling the clutter can seem an insurmountable task if you don’t know where or how to start.  By devoting a little of your time to getting rid of the clutter in your life and maintaining things relatively clutter-free , you’ll reap the rewards of pleasing living areas, reduced stress, and a more organized and productive existence.

The best way to tackle the decluttering of your home, your work space, and your life is to take things  one small step at a time.  Combined, small steps will lead to big improvements that will be easier to maintain over the long-run.  Here is a blueprint of how to start tackling that clutter and enjoying a less stressful life:

If you want to be more productive and focused in your work, getting the clutter out of your work area is essential.

Start with your desk. Clear everything off the top of it and take everything out of the drawers.  Assemble the items in piles on the floor.  Clean and wipe down your desk, and marvel at how pretty and clean it looks.  Sort through all of the “stuff” that was both in and on your desk.  Toss out as much as possible a relatively small amount.  Once you’ve weeded things out, it’s time to sort through the remains.  Set up a basic alphabetical filing system with a folder for each project or client.  Keep your office supplies and other items in designated drawers.  If you need to, label things, but the main thing you should do is designate a spot for every item you decided to keep and make sure that it stays there, or goes back there when you’re done using it. Keep flat surfaces clear, and have an inbox for all incoming papers.  When the papers  come in, sort them each day – toss, delegate, do immediately, or file simply file all documents, but whatever you do, DO NOT KEEP THEM ON TOP OF YOUR DESK.  All you want on the surface of your desk is your phone, computer, inbox, and maybe a special photo in addition to the documents you are working with at the moment.Declutter your computer. Get rid of files and programs on your computer that you don’t need.  Get rid of most or all of the icons on your desktop.  They not only slow down your computer, but they also create visual clutter.  There are better ways of accessing your information.  Regularly purge old, unused files.  If organization is not your thing, utilize a program such as Google Desktop to search for your files when you need them.Then move on to information. In the digital world of today, there are so many different ways that information creeps into our lives.  Information in itself can become overwhelming when you have too much of it, and this is called information clutter. Instead of letting information take over your life, set limits.  Reduce the number of things that you read each day and get rid of things from your RSS feed.  Chuck those magazine subscriptions, and reduce your consumption of news and television. I’m not suggesting that you cut yourself off from the world, just that setting some boundaries will help.  Instead of letting information, even the kind that friends share on Facebook, take over your life, control how and when you receive it by limiting what you read.r

Outside of work, home is where many of a bulk of our time.  So it’s no wonder that a messy house can add to daily stress.

Simply your rooms. If your rooms are too cluttered, you’ll want to simplify them.  Start by clearing off anything that is on the floors.  Throw out or donate unused things.  After clearing the floor, move to flat surfaces such as countertops, shelves, tops of dressers, etc.  Clear them as much as possible, and then move onto furniture.  Consider if you need everything .  Sort things in piles – toss, donate, or keep. Organize everything that you’ve decided to keep into drawers, cabinets, and closets, keeping them out of sight, but still neatly organized and uncluttered. Do this one room at a time.Tackle the closets. Closets are a great place to store things that you don’t want out in the open, and can easily become a place where you shove things just to keep them out of view.  Go through your closets – take everything out, clean it, and toss ,  donate as much as you can.  Decided a specific place to store anything you decide to keep.  Keep only the things that you love and use frequently.  As for your clothes, get rid of anything that you haven’t worn in six months.Clean out your drawers. Drawers are prime place for things to get shoved into.  Empty out your drawers, and sorting them by whether you’re keeping, tossing, or donating them.

Decluttering your work area and your home are great ways to start reducing the clutter and stress in your life, but there’s still more than you can do.

Reduce your commitments. Often times, our lives are too clutterd with all of the things that we need to do at home, work, school, in our religious or civic lives, with friends and family, with hobbies, and so on.  Take a look at each area of your life and write down all of your commitments.  Seeing it all written down can be quite an eye-opening experience, as well as overwhelming.  From here, look at each one and decide whether it really brings you joy and value, and if it is worth the amount of time that you invest in it.  Another way to reduce your commitments is to identify a few that you truly love, and get rid of the rest.  Learn how to say no and decline offers. If you eliminate the things that don’t bring you joy or value, you’ll have more time for the things that you love.Reconsider your routines. Many of us do not have any set routines in our daily lives, and simply tackle our obligations, chores, and daily tasks haphazardly.  Without structure, it can lead to chaotic days and a drop in productivity.  Instead, batch tasks together.  Instead of doing your laundry several times throughout the week, do it all on one day.  It’s helpful to write down all of your weekly and daily obligations, chores, and tasks, and then plan out daily and weekly routines.  Hang it up where you can see it and try to follow it.  You might find that having a routine brings a new sense of calm and order to your life.

Once you’ve successfully decluttered, whether it be one area or all the areas mentioned above, clutter will inevitably begin to creep back into your life. You must be vigilant in weeding it out on a regular basis, or it will just take over your life again.

Set up a system to keep clutter in check. Examine the way that you do things and how things make their way into your life, and consider whether you can put together a simple system for everything, from your laundry to work projects and email.  Write down your systems step-by-step and try to follow them as best as you can.  Follow your systems and you’ll keep the clutter minimized.Don’t slack off.  It’s easy to put things off for another day, but it’ll save you headaches in the long-run if you deal with things immediately. Throw it out, donate it, or keep it and put it in a designated area.

Julie McCormick is a freelance writer, and co-owner of The Cleveland Leader, a Technorati Top 1000 site. She married and is the mother of two young children. You will often find her playing around with the latest tech gadgets, messing around with code, or writing up a storm. She holds a Bachelor's degree in visual communications, and spent nearly a decade working in one of the largest public libraries in the U.S.

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