Small Changes that Helped Us Reduce Stress as a Family

Deep breaths are helpful, but when they dominate your breathing, it’s time to reduce stress as a family. When patience runs out quicker and the voice levels are on the high end, things need to change.

Most of the time when we identify a problem, we want drastic measures that would solve it at once. The issue with these is that they don’t create very lasting results. Easily we go back to old ways.

When I noticed that I was texting my husband more frequently than usual with “My patience is running out.” That was a red flag for me that something had to change, but I wanted small changes that would actually help me reduce stress and preserve my patience and the peace of the whole family.

I’m not talking about us losing control of our emotions, but being always tired or on the run was not helpful for any of us. You probably can relate to that, wishing that there were less snapping, less stress, and more quiet. And if you do lose control and need to be an example of asking for forgiveness and recognizing your mistake, take it as a valuable lesson for the younger ones.

Drive Less

This might seem super simple for some or maybe impossible for others. But work on reducing the amount of time commuting. Pick a day of the week to do chores, or set specific days in the month to grocery shop. For us, it was to combine on the same day therapies and tutoring. Yes, I was driving more from one place to the other, but it was only two days a week.

Getting in the car less will also reduce the struggle of getting others in the car, especially if you have small kids. The idea of this small change is to be able to spend more time at home doing what you value the most. Consider going out when the traffic is not at its peak, if possible. If you are very crunched on time, consider delivery services for a season or for the more complicated days.

In our area, people driving are usually in a considerable hurry, and being in the midst of their hurry can affect me as well, so planning to spend less time on the road or leaving earlier helps a lot.

Create Simpler Routines

Whether it is for the morning or evenings, which are sometimes called bookend routines, looking at a stressor during those times and tackling it can make a huge difference. Don’t try to implement a new routine next Monday for the whole family; it will stress you even more.

Pick one, and for a week look at what is raising the stress levels for you or the kids; maybe it’s the same thing, or perhaps it’s something different. Once you’ve identified some, pick the easiest one to adjust. I like to start with something that is related to me directly, for example, doing my devotional before starting the homeschool time.

It might be waking the kids up 5 minutes earlier, changing shower times at night, setting a time for electronics to be turned off, or choosing the clothes for the next day, among others. Again, small changes can have a considerable impact on your daily routines. Once everyone is used to that change, make another small one.

A simple one for me has been deciding on a set breakfast for each day: eggs and toast on Mondays, pancakes on Tuesdays, etc. It helps me know what I’m preparing right away, and the kids know what they are getting as well. Plus no more waiting for minutes for them to decide.

Declutter might make you think about renting a roll-off dumpster and dumping everything you can in there; we have done that, but it’s not what I mean here. I’m talking about if there’s a recurring area that contributes to the stress, let’s pay attention to it.

You might identify those areas while looking at your routines. Let’s say that the issue is finding matching socks; take 10 minutes and go over the socks and remove the singletons. You could even reduce the number of pairs. Want to go a bit farther… buy the same color socks in different lengths or brands for each person in the family; there will always be a pair.

Another common stress area is mail and school papers. We put everything that comes in a basket, and once a week I go over it and recycle everything that we don’t need to keep. Any area that is causing you to waste time searching for something or that makes you think more than once a week, I need to clean this, tackle it and reduce the stuff.

There are plenty of boundaries we can set around technology, but one that can help reduce stress as a family effortlessly is to change the notification settings of your phone and other devices. In case you needed to read this, you don’t need to allow notifications for every app. Take 5 minutes to go to the notifications setting on your phone and start turning those off. Let’s reduce those “bings” that distract you from what you’re doing.

And it’s not only distractions, but they add a mental load that you don’t need. There is no need to read every rant post on the neighborhood community group. Reading every single news article won’t bring you peace or solve the world’s problems. Be in the know, but protect yourself. Personally, I removed social media from my phone, but if you still have it, turn the notifications off.

More ideas about technology to reduce stress as a family:

• Plan for non-tech activities,
• Set limits to the use of devices or the type of content that is consumed.
• Limit what calls come in after a certain hour.

The purpose of this change is not to eradicate technology from the home but to reduce the noise that is overwhelming us. The hard part is helping our kids to identify when too much of something can be bad.

Reads to reduce stress as a family

Rest Intentionally

Slow down.

Stop.

Rest.

There are countless things we can do to reduce stress, but we also need to be intentional about not doing so much. Not necessarily lying down without moving but paying attention to life, to those around us.

I remember once I was very stressed about work and my postgraduate studies. I needed a quick break and went to a nearby store to get a candy bar. While waiting at the traffic light to cross the street, I felt a breeze on my face. That made me stop and recognize that I need to slow down and enjoy what seem to be the little things in life.

Reduce stress as a family today

After reading these examples, I’m positive you’ll be able to identify at least one thing that you can do today to reduce stress as a family; take action individually but also include everyone. There might be some resistance, as there usually is with change, but involve everyone. Once the stress starts to go down, it will be embraced.

None of us like to be stressed out or deal with the consequences of it; we are just used to doing things in a certain way. Once the peace starts to increase, the others will also identify more small changes to implement. What change will you try first?