Introduction

Life can be stressful. From an endless list of to dos, deadlines, outside expectations and let's not forget about taking care of yourself - there are more than enough challenges testing you and your character every single day. Often enough though, we waste our energy and mental resources on quite meaningless challenges. Many of them fall under the category of micro stress. In this post, I explain what it is and why we should try to eliminate as much of it as possible. Afterwards I share my top practical application scenarios to help you get started.

This post contains...

1. 🤔 What micro stress is
2. ☯️ Reducing micro stress
3. 👕 Example 1: Reducing clothing diversity
4. 📱 Example 2: Owning less devices
5. 💸 Example 3: Decluttered wallet
6. 🏠 Example 4: Stress-free home
7. 🗄 List of further examples
8. 🌍 Conclusion

What micro stress is

Micro stress describes small forms of stress triggers in your everyday life that accumulate as the day progresses. From a harsh alarm sound in the morning, rushing to the train station because you're running late, your phone dying in the middle of a call and the anxiety of not finding your AirPods - individual micro stresses may not feel like a huge deal break at first but with each occurrence they strip you of mental energy. As a result, you become significantly more vulnerable to feeling overwhelmed when the main and important challenges of the day show up.

Reducing micro stress

The core of reducing micro stress fundamentally comes down to consciously analyzing your everyday for (reoccurring) moments of stress and figuring out which of them can be eliminated by adjusting certain systems or behaviors. If you don't immediately have an idea for a solution, write them down. Solutions for a specific micro stress factor may range anywhere from developing a complex system to combat a fundamental stress factor, buying a gadget or tool or simply readjusting your approach on that thing you're trying to overcome. To give you some guidance, the following post consists of examplary micro stress situations and their solutions.

Example I: Reducing clothing diversity

Looking back at my hype beast phase during which I regularly bought new clothes and tried to impress my friends with vibrant and exotic new brand pieces, getting ready in the morning often caused quite the headache. Since I have downgraded to eight copies of the same black t-shirt, two pairs of similar jeans and one pair of everyday shoes, my mornings have gotten tremendously more chill. And even on days where I am running late, I can trust that a simple grab in the drawer will provide me with the perfect outfit to get me through my day.

Example II: Owning less devices

Phone, laptop, iPad, Kindle, smartwatch and headphones - The amount of devices we own is at an all time high. Owning that many devices may seem like an efficiency boost but often enough it creates more problems than it solves. Each additional device is one more thing to remember to charge, one more expensive product to worry about losing, breaking, letting the wrong people get ahold of and one additional weight in your backpack. Each device is x quid less in your bank account or investment portfolio. Which of them do you really need?

Example III: Decluttered Wallet

Have you ever lost your wallet or keys? If you have, you certainly know the crushing pain and stress it creates. It is also the perfect example of a problem you don't need to have. Driven by the fear of losing my wallet, I went through it and checked for everything I actually needed, discarded the rest or stored rarely used items at home. I realized that with services like ApplePay, there is no need for carrying a physical (losable) credit card anymore and that the only other things I need are my ID, my driver's license, my public transport ticket and my gym card. I don't have to worry about blocking a lost credit card anymore and everything else is fairly easily recoverable.

Example IV: Cleanable Room

If you disagree, I don't mind, but I genuinely believe that living in a clean and organized environment is hugely beneficial to feeling and performing at your best. The struggle is usually to keep a room clean though. For making cleaning straight-forward and stress free, there is a couple of things you can do. From rearranging the bed to allow for easier sheet-changing, keeping surfaces mostly empty for easy wipinp and arranging your furniture strategiclly to allow for frictionless vacuuming - make it your own.

Additional idea list

As you can tell, combatting micro stress is a very personal quest and highly depends on individual circumstances. The following list includes additional examples, but realize the awareness of micro stress factors stripping you of energy is the most important part.

• getting rid of annoying email ads by using email alias services like simplelogin
• traveling with hand luggage only to save time at the airport and not run the risk of any main luggage getting lost
• taking the bike on the train so you have the flexibility to get places even if public transport lets you down.
• leaving gym gear at the gym so you don't have to carry as much stuff
• designing a lock screen wallpaper with a contact email address so when you lose your phone, people who find it have an option to return it.

Conclusion

Micro stressors may seem small individually, but they accumulate making life unnecissarily hard and making it less likely for you to withstand the real challenges that await you. We can combat micro stressors by analyzing their origin and changing systems to kill them in their roots. This may take a bit of initial effort, but longterm it to be more zen and face life's real tests with in a calm and cool fashion. What are your micro stressors?