News Blog

As you return to school, the coming days will undoubtedly be jam-packed with activity, meetings, people stopping in to see you, hundreds of emails, phone calls and messages, one project after another. Here at AusPen, we are usually able to maintain calm and focus in the midst of a workday, but the last few days have put all of our abilities to the test. We stayed calm, but the stress levels were definitely higher than anyone would like.

While many people learn to manage their stress, we think the most important advice should be to get to the source of the problem, and cut stress out before it even happens. And now is the best time to start! Without further ado:

1. Get your Sherlock Holmes kit out...

This is the most important step of all. You should start identifying the things that stress you out in your life is the first step towards eliminating them. Take 10 minutes to think about what stresses you out during the day. What weekly occurrences stress you out? What people, activities, things cause stress in your life? Make a Top 10 list, and see which of them can be eliminated, and start to weed them out. For those that can’t, find ways to make them less stressful.

2. Do you really think that coffee or tea is good for you?

Yes, you should eat healthy, no you should not drink caffeine. Why? Caffeine (often found in larger doses in tea then coffee) basically stresses you awake, and activates stressors in the brain in the form of Beta brainwaves.

Want a healthy alternative? Try Yerba Mate. This South American herbal drink contains 26+ antioxidants, and a host of stimulants that are healthier, less addictive, and don't have the shaky, twitchiness and insomnia effects of caffeine. Plus it stimulates Delta/Theta brainwaves, calming and putting you in the zone similiar to when you meditate.

We strongly believe if you become healthier, many major sources of stress will disappear. Also, we’ve found that greasy food, often puts us in a worse mood and can contribute to stress levels immediately.

3. How you do your desk is how you do your life.

We’re all disorganised to some extent. Even if we’ve organised something, and created a great system for keeping it that way, things tend to move towards chaos over time. But too much disorganisation can stress us out, in terms of visual clutter, and in making it difficult to find stuff we need. Take time to get things in your life organized, starting with your desk, and moving on to other areas, including your classroom, car, bedroom and even the old plastics cupboard.

4. I am lord of everything, muhahaha!

We are not the Master of this Universe (sigh). I know we sometimes wish we were, but acting as if we are is a sure way to get stressed out. Trying to control situations and people cannot work, and only serves to increase our anxiety when it doesn’t work. Learn to let go, and accept the way that other people do things, and accept what happens in different situations. The only thing you can control is yourself — work on that before you consider trying to control the world. Also learn to separate yourself from tasks and to delegate them. Learning to let go of our need to control others and the situations around us is a major step towards eliminating stress.

5. Unschedule. Meetings suck.

Create more open periods of time in your life. It’s not necessary to schedule every minute of our lives. Learn to avoid meetings, keep wide open blocks of time where we either work on our important tasks or batch process the smaller ones. When someone asks to schedule a meeting, first try to get it done through email or phone … if that doesn’t work, avoid having it scheduled. Ask them to call you and see if you’re free at that time. You will love having an open schedule.