How to Take Less Responsibility to Reduce Stress

Many people take on too much responsibility in their everyday lives end up being stressed out by the amount of work or responsibility they have. Stress can lead to a multitude of health problems, such as high blood pressure, headaches and back pain. Learning how to take on less responsibility in your life can assist you in lowering your stress level and improving your health.

Instructions

• 1

  Make a list of all the responsibilities you have currently in your life. Be sure to list everything you have to do in a given day, week and month, no matter how small. Making a list of all your responsibilities helps you to see just how much you take on in a given period of time.

• 2

  Evaluate which of your responsibilities are must-dos, which are important and which could be done without you. This will help you to assess what you need to keep in your life and what you can eliminate to lower the amount of stress in your life.

• 3

  Start by eliminating or delegating the responsibilities that you don't need to take on in your life. For example, this might mean you are no longer the room parent in your children's classroom but instead help out once a month. By eliminating the responsibility of managing the whole classroom, which could be done by another parent, you are lowering your stress level tremendously.

• 4

  Evaluate the important responsibilities in your life to see which of those might be able to be reduced or delegated to another person. For example, you might enjoy hosting dinner parties every week and be part of a dinner club, but the stress of being host once a week is really getting to you. While this is something important, you might think about only hosting a party once a month to reduce the amount of stress you place on yourself and ask other club members to take on the task of hosting. You can also try to delegate some of your work responsibilities to a coworker who has less to deal with in a day than you do.

• 5

  Think about the must-dos in your life and consider whether they are really as important as you have made them. People sometimes rank activities or responsibilities higher on the list because they enjoy them or feel guilty if they don't do them. Reevaluating the must-dos in your life might help you to eliminate or reduce them to important things in your life.

• 6

  Avoid feeling guilty for taking less responsibility, which could lead you to take on more again. Taking care of your own health should be a priority, and there are many health risks associated with being too stressed out. You need to focus on you and being the best person you can be. Taking on too much and spreading yourself too thin means you cannot devote proper attention to all of your activities.