Do you want more peace in your life? Of course you do! Who doesn’t? Life can be so busy and stressful when you’re trying to keep up with your obligations and responsibilities. We don’t always have time for big breaks and large actions to preserve our peace.
The good news is that big results can be built on many small efforts. Adopting some of these tiny habits, habits that are a change in behavior, or only take a few minutes, can help increase your peace and happiness.
1. Start your day without your phone.
You may not realize just how big an effect your phone can have on your day-to-day happiness. Instead of reaching for your phone first thing in the morning, take about 15 minutes to wake up, sit in silence, or do some stretching first. That gives your body and brain time to fire up and start running before introducing the rest of the world to your day.
What awaits you on your phone? Well, there are undoubtedly some good things, but there are plenty more chaotic and disruptive things. Social media will inundate you with negativity, you have whatever stress is waiting from work or other people, and then there is the news.
There’s no reason to bombard yourself with all of that right when you wake up in the morning. It can disrupt the peace of your whole day because you are looking at things likely to give you anxiety and stress.
2. Practice 5-minute decluttering.
Big projects are much more manageable when you break them down into small tasks. In fact, that’s basically what this article is about! Cleaning can be a big project, particularly if you have a hard time keeping up in general. You can wind up so far behind that the job may look too big and intimidating to get done.
Enter 5-minute decluttering. All you do is pick a spot that needs cleaning, and clean it for five minutes every day. Before you know it, everything will be cleaned up as it should be.
The 5-Minute Rule, in general, is a powerful life hack. All it states is that if you can do a job in under five minutes, then just do it and get it done. As WebMD informs us, keeping your space neat and organized does help with anxiety and your personal peace.
3. Limit your reactions, not your emotions.
There are few tools more powerful for creating peace and happiness than a pause. That is, when you get triggered or you’re feeling negative emotions, just pause for a few seconds before responding. Take some time to think about it, defuse the negative emotions, and then respond. It’s so much easier to handle difficult people and situations that way.
It’s normal to want to respond based on your emotions. If you’re angry, then yeah, you want to stand up and defend yourself, right? Well, maybe. Yes, there are times when that is absolutely necessary, but then you have other times where a bad reaction just perpetuates a problem, causing more stress and chaos in your life.
There’s power in pausing. In many cases, avoiding chaos in life is just choosing not to participate.
4. Keep an “annoyances” journal.
Sometimes when we are confronted with a problem, it can get stuck in our brains. You may find that when a problem does get stuck, it just keeps rolling over and over and over again with spiraling thoughts.
One way to break that cycle is through journaling. What you do is sit down, write out what the issue is, and then choose to leave the issue in your journal. From a practical standpoint, that means you get it out of your head, and when your thoughts try to come back around to it, force them off of that subject onto something else.
I did this as part of my own mental health recovery efforts from Bipolar Disorder, and it helped a lot. Sometimes, you just get something stuck in your head, and it just loops and loops. It wants to go somewhere, and on the page is the best place for it to go. I would journal about the chaotic elements, my stresses, and my anxieties, and it helped me to process them.
One suggestion I will make: neatly handwrite your journal. Different parts of your brain are engaged when you handwrite. Furthermore, handwriting is slower and more methodical than typing. It forces you to slow down, think about what you want to say, how you want to say it, and then commit it to paper. It provides far more space for mental and emotional processing than just typing it or saying it into a voice note.
5. Take a daily nature break.
Even if it’s just a ten-minute walk, being out in nature helps ease a heightened nervous system in a way that screens and walls don’t. People are not wired to be locked in small cages and inside buildings all the time.
There are a lot of hormonal responses going on simply by being outside. It’s no secret that sunshine and exercise can help with mood-balancing because they stimulate endorphin production. The Anxiety & Depression Association of America informs us that if you can spend time in green spaces, it decreases heart rate, blood pressure, and cortisol levels.
6. Set small boundaries.
Preserving your peace will often come down to not involving yourself in chaos. The way you avoid that is through having healthy boundaries. If you’re not someone who has had healthy boundaries before, you may find it uncomfortable, but it’s worth going through that discomfort to get to the good stuff.
Start small by saying “no” to low-stakes activities and what people ask of you. The more you say no, the more experience you’ll gain and the more comfortable you’ll feel. It’s not just about managing the other person’s reactions, but it’s also about how to handle how you feel about it. It can be uncomfortable if you’re not used to saying “no”.
7. Speak less and listen more.
Make it a habit to genuinely listen when others speak without looking at your phone or planning out your next response. Just let yourself be quiet and take in what they’re saying to you. Quiet often brings with it a clarity that you can’t find in chaos.
The human brain is bad at multitasking. If you’re looking at your phone, your mind is trying to process what’s going on there at the same time it’s trying to process what’s being said. It’s easy to miss subtle nuances or real social connection if you don’t allow yourself to be present in the moment with other people.
And not listening can cause you so many easily avoidable problems that end up disrupting the peace in your life.
8. Sip a beverage mindfully.
How does one “drink a beverage mindfully”? Mindfulness is about being present, rooted in the present moment. If you think about a drink, there is quite a lot to it from a sensory perspective. You have the flavor, texture, temperature, and weight of the beverage in hand, and in some cases, you may have a sound – like fizzing soda.
Take a sip and really consider what you’re drinking. Think about all of the sensations you’re experiencing from it. Think about the taste and temperature, how it feels in your mouth before you swallow it until you finish.
What you’re doing is a form of meditation, focusing your thoughts solely on this drink while you consume it mindfully, rooted in the present.
9. Do a 60-second reset when you’re stressed.
Sometimes you just have to pause amidst the chaos and take a quick break. A little breath exercise can help ground you in the present moment and calm the chaos in your head. There’s a technique called “Box Breathing,” and it is simple and effective.
Stop what you’re doing, inhale deeply for four seconds, hold for four, exhale for four, and repeat. Think about your breath as you breathe. Mentally picture the air flowing into your mouth and nose, filling your lungs.
It can take less than a minute for this technique to work, interrupt stress spirals, quiet the chaos, and bring some immediate calm.
Creating peace in your life.
A peaceful life is something you have to actively work at.
You need to choose not to engage with that which will disrupt your life when you have the choice. You have to choose to limit chaotic people and take time to reduce your stress. If you don’t do these things, the chaos of life will keep interfering and making it harder for you to find your peace.
You may not need to make big changes all at once. Instead, these small habits can create peace in your life just a tiny bit at a time.
