How to Relieve Stress with a Personal Calendar

Do you ever feel like you've got too many pressing engagements and assignments filling up your head and stressing you out? Ever wish you could put away all of those stressful thoughts and focus on the brighter, more joyful parts of life? Now you can! By following these simple tips you can quickly and easily be on your way to relieving your stress with a fun and simple personal calendar.

First, get a calendar
This in itself can be a stress-relieving part of this project. Sure, you could run to the store and buy a month-to-month calendar, or print one off of the internet, but why not design your own? Just grab a piece of paper, a ruler, and come colorful markers or colored pencils and design a grid-based calendar for yourself. It can be a monthly, weekly, or even daily calendar. Just make sure you leave the boxes big enough to fill in the number of the day, and all of your information for that day. Also don't forget to leave space to label the day of the week and the month.

A fun tip: want to make your weekends last longer? While it won't affect the real length of your weekend (unfortunately) you can experiment with making the boxes for weekend days longer than the boxes for workdays. This way it will look at a glance like you're weekends are longer and fuller, so that looking at your calendar is relaxing and cheerful. It's a great way to trick your mind into de-stressing, because seeing those big boxes will make you feel like it's ok to slow down a little bit.

It's a good idea to write down all of your important events on your calendar, so that the stress of carrying all those thoughts around with you is lifted. Simply having a calendar won't maximize its stress-relieving benefits, though. Try these tips to add to your calendar, and take advantage of its stress-relieving properties:

Get Crafty:
If you've chosen to make the calendar yourself, try decorating it with patterned paper in your favorite colors, and adding stamps or fun jewels to help yourself relax.

Get Spiritual:
Add inspirational or spiritual quotes and sayings to each week to help keep your stress level low and put everything in perspective.

Make a Countdown:
For each day, write how many days are left before your summer vacation or next long weekend.

Write down more than just your obligations:
Looking at page after page of mundane work tasks can be depressing. Write down all of the events that make you happy, no matter how small! Include upcoming holidays, favorite TV shows, movie premieres, special events, and parties. Don't have any exciting events coming up? Make some up for yourself and put them on the calendar! Maybe on Tuesday you're going to watch a favorite movie with your cat when you get home, or on Friday you're going to prepare your favorite dinner. Putting these events on your calendar will let you see how much you have to look forward to, and help keep your mind off of stresses at work.

Setting and keeping goals:
If you need to work out more, drink more water, or lose a few pounds, use your calendar to keep track of your goals and achievements. For instance, writing specific events like, "Eat right today," "Attend Yoga class," and "Walk the dog," will help you keep your promises to yourself.

It can be stressful to prioritize and keep your life in order, especially if you allow yourself to lose track of the fun and relaxing parts of life. I hope you take advantage of these tips, and begin moving toward a happier, healthier lifestyle.