I find that a helpful strategy for managing my stress and anxiety is to simplify wherever I can. I am not always consistent in maintaining simplicity but I like to think that I am on an ongoing journey to simplify my life.

I will provide a few examples of little changes I have made in my life that have reduced some sources of stress. I view my tolerance for stress like a water glass and stress as the water. I can only deal with so much stress before I overflow and have some sort of anxiety attack. Every little thing I do to reduce stress helps me from getting overloaded.

Vacuuming – Household chores are not necessarily an anxiety trigger, but certainly a contributing factor for me. Vacuuming for example is a terrible chore in my book. One day, I decided that I was not going to vacuum anymore. I bought one of those Roomba, robot vacuums, programmed it to run every day at 10AM, and suddenly I had one less responsibility on my plate.

Laundry – Another, very small, example is related to laundry. I have always struggled to keep track of my socks. When it came to finding a matching pair of socks I would often be rummaging through the house looking for a match. One day I decided that I was going to correct this very small annoyance in my life. I slowly began to retire old pairs and only buy one style and brand of white socks, and one style and brand of dress socks. Now all my socks match.

Personal Finance – Cancelled all but one of my credit cards and scheduled most of my bills to directly chard that card. This way we only have one bill to pay per month.

These are a few examples of very small changes I made in my life that when added up start to have a measurable impact on reducing the stress I experience on a regular basis. I continue to look for ways to make small stress reduction adjustments, please let me know if you have any suggestions that have helped you.