The Top 3 ways to ease Stress in 2020!
Today’s blog is a guest post from Colin Carter with his top 3 ways to ease stress in 2020. We’re almost at the end of the year, and what a stressful one it’s been!
Christmas is often seen as a stressful time of year any year… but this year might seem more stressful than ever. With rules on who you can visit and when, not to mention having to post or deliver presents to people you might usually visit at home or meet for a drink in town. Love Colin’s ideas to ease stress and he shares some of the exciting ways he can help too.
Colin’s Top 3 Ways to Ease Stress
Taking part in Jenny’s recent workshop over zoom brought home to me the fact that I had a number of positives to share this year. After working in the rewarding corporate world of broadcasting engineering for many years, last autumn I knew the time was right to step away and follow an invention idea I’d had some time before, to make internet access easy.
So I said my goodbyes to my great design team in August 2019 to start my company, developing and selling Smartphone enabled signage and badges. Signage that enables you to tap and go straight to a website – and so starts the first blessing…
Tip 1 to Ease Stress – Take regular exercise, taking time to appreciate nature
In the corporate world I managed a team of engineers spread across the UK, this meant that I regularly travelled 500 miles a week. If I wasn’t on my laptop I’d be sat in a meeting or driving.
Physically we aren’t designed to spend so much time sitting, I found myself stiffening up.
From September 2019 I planned in routine exercise and getting out in nature as part of my working week and felt so much better for it.
In the Spring, with restrictions in place around leaving the house, it actually encouraged me to make the most of the opportunity and I started to take regular cycle rides and dog walks with Narla.
I was benefitting from both better fitness levels and improved sleep quality, and it was great to rediscover my local parks, canals and quiet back roads. What a beautiful world we have!
In March I was set to visit potential customers to discuss the Smartphone technology with some enthusiastic people I’d met at Birmingham NEC exhibitions, unfortunately these potential customers were now wrestling with their own businesses survival rather than looking to take on innovation – even if it was cost effective and ‘contactless’.
So for me a change of direction was needed.
Tip 2 to Ease Stress – Embrace your creative ideas
When they were young, I used to make up bedtime stories for my children. For years they’ve been badgering me to write them down. They even bought me a Children’s story writing course.
And so this year has given me the opportunity to do just that…get creative, starting with the first in a series of illustrated Children’s stories.
I’ve written these as engaging bedtime reading for ages 3-7 years and I’m delighted to say they’ve been beautifully illustrated by Bence Borbelly.
So we have the first adventure of Fred the Amazing Badger – The Bicycle Adventure
Tip 3 to Ease Stress – Have Fun!
Seeing friends and family’s stress levels rising in their separate bubbles during the first Lockdown, I had an idea.
What if I developed a fun game that families could play within their limited home/garden space, it could be based on some of the characters from the Adventures of Fred stories.
This has resulted in a fun home Treasure Hunt game.
The game comes with a series of QR code tokens you print off and then ‘hide’ around your house. Players take part, against the clock, to find all the animals. Take a look and download one of our free games!
Thanks so much Colin for sharing your tips on how to ease stress. I love all them, especially as we can see how you have embraced each one. What an amazing thing to write a children’s book!
I’m a big fan of finding the fun in every situation too!
