Sup millenials! How's life lately? 

Lemme guess:  Mostly Stressful. 

You're either a bit or A LOT worried about some imminent thing(s) that hasn't happened yet. And the always-on anxiety it's screwing with your mojo and/or ability to do any of the following sufficiently: sleep; breathe; poop; care. 

Yes?

So, from our mutual page of the book called Modern Life,  here's a not-so-new(s) fact: almost a third of us suffer from some kind of anxiety disorder. One THIRD I said. Furtherworse, only a very small percentage of us seek treatment for our angst and often said 'treatment' is in the form of a less-than-effective synthetic drug with ample longterm side effects. Yugh.

While I am from the school of thought that a small amount of stress is muchos effective at the right time and place to keep me at the edge of my cushion-less seat, I DO NOT allow excess stress to wreak havoc in my body and mind.  Which it undoubtably and inevitably will.  

(I recently had to add "shrinks brain" to my spreadsheet of "Sh*t caused by STRESS:" after reading this study at Yale which showed that, in otherwise healthy individuals, adverse life events caused shrinkage of the parts of the brain responsible for regulating emotions and metabolism). Sexy.

HENCE, my current 5 latest things I use to "Calm. the fuck. down":

1. This on my desktop:

(and phone top, counter top, all other devices with or without tops.  It should say "If you have lungs, take deep breaths in sync with this")

2. Coloring for grown-ups:

Yes. Me and every shade of Faber-Castell pencil are ALL IN. Check out Colour Me Calm,  and the siiick looking  Secret Garden. 

3. A cup of chamomile tea, and then this clip: 

(with special attention and replays of Oprah's one-hand-up hop sequence) 

4. Get a cat. Or have a baby. No, get a cat. 

Playing with pets and/or small humans lowers stress. Science says so.  Visit your infant friends as often as possible. Then give them back to their owners, so you can go home and have a lavender Epsom salt bath with a side of Malbec and Enya. 

5. Blow up a balloon. 

It makes you breathe deeper and exhale for longer  (#goals) . Get multi-coloured ones and aim to have your workspace resemble that of a toddlers Bday bash by the end of the day. Laugh now, thank me later. The belly-breath's where it's all at!

Prioritise your calm.  

(Disclaimer / P.S : I also dance a lot and do yoga everyday and meditate --have you downloaded Headspace yet ? --- and occasionally I drink vodka or vodka based cocktails.)