When it comes to managing stress, by default adults tend to discount the implications it may have for children, or the elderly under our care.
What’s more, the stress reduction techniques you may employ would not necessarily be the best course of action for the rest of your family.
Hence, the need for activities that the entire family could take part in, which would effectively manage the debilitating effects of stress.
In fact, stress could be a significant contributor to marital problems, child rebelliousness, or poor family relations. It is therefore very important to manage stress as a family, so as to ensure every member feels contented and fulfilled.
Still unsure what to try? Have a look at these activities, which are excellent stress busters and heck of a lot of fun too!
Sponsor Family Events
To start with, keep it limited to your immediate family, spouse, kids, and maybe your parents and in laws. These events don’t have to be extravagant, or break the bank, but can range from anything like a simple family barbecue, to family movie night or to a road trip.
The key is to make it fun for everyone, promote family bonding, and let go of all feelings of pressure and anxiety. After all, there should be nowhere more comfortable and relaxing than with your immediate family.
Take a Walk with Your Family
The health benefits of regular physical activity and well documented and important, so why not include the entire family? Walking is a great stress reducer, can get your blood flowing and increase expression of endorphins so you feel better a long time after completing your walk.
Anywhere suitable will do, whether it around a block, or a walk around a city area. Just be sure to not make it into a completion or someone could be left feeling like a loser.
Incorporate Meditation
A lot of stress in families is as a result of saying too much, so why not take an opportunity to say nothing at all? If the entire family sits for a short meditative session (as little as 5 minutes may suffice), you can feel your stress levels melt away and your inner happiness increase.
Families who meditate also get along much better and are typically more goal and results driven. Not a bad investment for 5 minutes of your time daily, huh?
Develop Rituals
No, we’re not talking about any occult rituals here, but more or less little habits that when performed every day become ritualistic like clockwork. For example, in the evenings, the entire family can help in preparing tomorrow’s lunches, such as cutting veggies, storing and preparing necessary ingredients.
The same could apply to packing school bags for the next day. In addition to fostering trust and mutual understand, rituals help everyone involved to become extremely efficient and can come in handy when in a rush and you’ve already covered your bases.
Eat Together
It’s surprising how many families do not dedicate one hour to dinner every evening, but rather adopt a random haphazard policy to mealtime. Family mealtime, devoid of any interference, be it TV or your phone, can be a great bonding period for everyone involved.
It is important not to project emotions at this time, such as displaying anger after a hard day at the office. In fact, family mealtime may be just what was needed to loosed you up.
Final Thoughts
Activities to reduce family stress are profound, and are so simple that they are typically overlooked. Making just a tony investment of 5 minutes of your time to spend together could result in massive improvements to the wellbeing of your family, and lead to an enhanced state of wellbeing. Give a try today!
