Declutter your mind

Once you're done clearing out your cupboards it may be worth doing a bit of internal decluttering.

Most stress we experience is induced by how we perceive situations, so pretty much produced ourselves and usually needlessly. City life is stressful enough: tight deadlines, long working hours and difficult bosses can all take their strain along with juggling family and social commitments, without us adding to it.  However most of us have a constant internal chatter in the background running over what we have to do, what we have done, what we do or don't have time for along with over-analyzing situations and worrying about things that may or may not happen. 

Think about all the times you've worried about something and then it hasn't materialized ... this must happen millions of times in one lifetime, and each time you induce a feeling of stress you also set off a chain of biochemical reactions in the body, increasing your blood pressure, imbalancing your blood sugar and speeding up the ageing process amongst others.  In addition this constant mental chatter takes over brain capacity that could be available to other processes such as creative thought, problem-solving or memory. 

However telling someone to stop stressing is really unhelpful and fairly useless advice!! So what can you do to declutter mentally?

Meditation is a great way to switch-off and clear some mental space but can be hard for beginners - yoga is a great way to start with meditation, first focusing on the moves and breathing before moving to meditation at the end of a class.  It is beneficial even if you can only induce a zen like relaxed state in your mind for just a few minutes.  Most city gyms run beginners classes which will usually finish with a guided relaxation.  I also like the yogazone dvds which you can buy on amazon.

The Power of Now is an excellent book on cutting out unnecessary thought, but the technique takes some practice.  The author, Eckhart Tolle, recommends starting with just doing one task at a time and focusing on that task only rather than thinking about what you're going to do next or anything else ... much harder than it sounds for serial multi-taskers, but worth the effort.

If a lot of your thought or worries are generated by relationships with other people including your interactions with work colleagues then I'd thoroughly recommend reading A Model for Living by Julian Short which helps you see situations in a much more rational sense and thereby making you less likely to worry or over-analyze about them.

There is also a lot to be said for just taking a pause ... next time you feel overloaded just take a deep breath in counting to five on the inhale and five on the exhale ... you'll find even this tiny bit of space can give you renewed focus and calm to deal with the situation you're faced with.