On stress and managing expectations

I have come back from a week away this week and typically, I’ve been feeling pretty stressed out because I have about a million things to do and to catch up on. Sounds familiar? I bet it does.
Well, guess what? I have been thinking about stress a lot lately and have come up with some sort of solution that helps me cope. In my view, there are 3 key things to this:

1) We must put things into perspective. No one has ever died (to my knowledge) because a work email didn’t get a reply within 24 hours. This is kind of linked to the second point too, which is…

2) We must learn to manage expectations, especially our own. What I think has been a key thing I had to learn in my career is to distinguish what is urgent and what is important and based on that call, to manage other people’s expectations as well as my own’s. I have come to realise that I am often my worst enemy in terms of setting standards and managing my expectations: it is OK to take a break, it is OK to ask for help and most importantly it is OK to recognise that there are things we cannot influence or change and therefore there is no point in stressing out about them.

3) We must acknowledge that stress is a physiological response to a situation that should only be temporary (a fight or flight situation) and whilst some level of stress is good for us (it helps us improve and feel challenged in a good way), on-going stress is never healthy. As and when I feel I’m heading towards a non-healthy level of stress, I stop, take a break and turn to meditation. I do appreciate meditation is not everyone’s cup of tea, but there are plenty of other activities that can help here: breathing, taking a walk, talking to a friend, drawing, writing a diary, etc.

How do you cope with stress? Any tips or thoughts you would like to share?