7 Budget-Friendly Ways to Refresh After a Stressful Day

I sat on my kitchen floor twenty minutes yesterday before I could take the shoes off. It was not that dramatic, it was simply the silent acceptance that my brain had reached its limit. The day was not really a disaster, there were no big crises or high-level fights but it was rich with those micro-stresses, which later make your shoulders hard as granite.

As soon as I stood up, the first thing that I wanted to do was to pick up my phone and waste some time scrolling, or find something that I could purchase so that this feeling could dissipate. It is constantly being explained to us that to refresh ourselves, we need to engage in a trade-off, a candle or blanket or an app that will offer us bliss in the form of small, scheduled doses. However, in the course of the years, I have been able to understand that such things just tend to bring more stuff in a life that is already too busy.

Actual recovery does not occur at a checkout counter. It occurs in the muffled, minuscule spaces that we cut ourselves with what is available to us. I have long perfected a personal list of ideas of how I can get a bad day behind me without spending any real money or stepping outside of my home. These are not the radical hacks, simple methods of reconnecting with myself.

1. The Deliberate Shedding of the Day

I sense the presence of the outside world and I am sure the weight of the outside world is attached to my clothes the moment I walk through the door. It is childish to say the least, but I really feel that we bring the energy of our surroundings in the very fibers of clothes that we wear. The first thing that I do is change when I have a stressful day.

I do not simply wear so-called loungewear because it is comfortable. I do it as a ritual of getting rid of the person I had to be out there. My performance clothes are the stiff trousers or the structured jacket. Removing them is a message to my nervous system that it is time to finish the performance. I choose the most battered and old-fashioned shirt that I have. I am concerned with the tactile experience of the material. It’s a transition period. I have also discovered that when I wear my work clothes, I remain in a work mood. I will be checking mails in the kitchen island or stressfully arranging the mail. Replacing my clothes brings about a physical barrier which my mind ultimately acknowledges.

2. Low-Light Living

We live in an era of excessively bright lives, particularly at night. I would get home and turn on all the overhead lights and think of why I was still on edge after sitting on the sofa. Now that I have reformed, I walk round the house once and switch off all the big lights.

I use little lamps or sometimes I only use the light of the stove clock when I am in the kitchen. The act of switching off the lights is somehow primitive. It reminds the body that the sun is set and the chase, or grind, is finished. The laundry piles or the sinkful dishes in the background appear less demanding. They soften. I discovered my inner monologue mollified with them. I do not feel the necessity to clean up the dust on the bookshelf when I cannot even see it. I am only able to live in the yellow light of one corner. It is a quick and free method of calming my heart.

3. The "No-Input" Window

We are constantly devouring the thoughts of other people- pod casts on our way to work, music at the supermarket, never ending views on the internet. Our brains are hardly left to rest. On a bad day, even watching a movie or a book is more of a burden to me, as I will have to process information.

I have been training what I refer to as a no-input window. During thirty minutes, I do not hear anything, see anything or even read. I could sit by a glass of water and stare out of the window, or look at the steam coming up from a pot on the stove. At first, it’s uncomfortable. Distraction is what my brain desires. But when I endure that first itch, a clear coolness succeeds--as in muddy water left to itself. I do not have to work out my problems in this window; I simply need to put an end to adding more noise to them.

4. Tactile Grounding

Stress is a head thing, though it is experienced in the body. When I feel overwhelmed, I tend to have no connection whatsoever to my physical self. I’m a floating head of worries. In order to get down into my skin I do something that is not related to productivity but tactile.

This can sometimes be as basic as hand washing of the dishes. I do not think of how I am going to get them clean, I just think of the warmness of the water and the sensation of the bubbles. On other occasions I will spend five minutes stretching, not a work stretch, but merely a stretch of my extremities until I get to the point where the tension is lurking. I could knead a bit of dough when I am making bread, or may simply sort out one drawer. The trick lies in the fact that it should be a physical activity not involving deep thinking but involving the senses. It puts me in the here and now. You can not be concerned about a deadline that is three days away when you are concentrating on the detail of orange peel or whether the mug will be hot or cold.

5. Writing Without an Audience

I have been journaling on and off since I was a child, however, I was fussy about it. I needed them to appear good and be sound-wise like anyone could read them one day. That is not self-care but it is more performing.

Now, when I find myself to be stressed I am able to use what I refer to as burn writing. I get a scrap of paper, an envelope or a page of some cheap notebook, and scribble down precisely what is bothering me in the most incoherent, honest way possible. I am not concerned with grammar or being fair. When I am angry or am scared, I take it to the page. When the thoughts have been excommunicated out of my head, they become powerless. They are not monolithic truths but become mere words. I dispose of the paper at the moment. It is so satisfying to roll something bad and put it into the trash bin.

6. The Walk of No Purpose

A majority of us walk to go somewhere. We stroll to the vehicle, to the work place, or to achieve a step count on a fitness tracker. It is different when walking is taken as refreshing. I attempt to make a purposeless walk on at least some occasions (at least once a week) and particularly after a hard day.

I don’t set a timer. I don’t wear headphones. I simply walk out of the door and go either way. I observe trees and house construction and the pavement lighting. I am not attempting to burn up some calories or clear my head by brute force. I’m just letting my body move. Walking has a rhythmic nature that appears to be the way we process trauma and stress. Left, right, left, right. It’s bilateral stimulation. By the time I come around to my front door, the rough edges of my stress are generally smoothed out by the mere process of passing through space.

7. Temperature Therapy

When all other things fail and I still feel like the coiled spring, I reset my system with temperature. It is the oldest swindle in the book as it is biological. The splash of cold water on the face or a very cold glass of water can bring out the "mammalian dive reflex" which in turn slows the heart rate.

Another option is a hot bath or shower which operates on the opposite end. I do not refer to a so-called spa-like experience of high-cost salts and oils. I simply mean being under the water and letting it strike the back of my neck where I keep all my tension. I suppose the water is literally washing the day off me. It’s a sensory reset. At other times, the shower hotness to the coolness of the bedroom is sufficient to send a message to my brain that the day is officially over. Daytime I have drowned and all that is left is resting me.

All of these have one thing in common since they do not need money, but time. We are programmed to believe that our time is our most important resource to generate something, therefore, we feel guilty wasting it on nothing. Nevertheless, it is not a waste to use a quarter of an hour to sit in the dark or a tenth of a minute to walk around the block. It is an investment in the capability to wake up tomorrow and repeat the same all over without collapsing.

Refreshment is not necessarily a big show or a complete change of lifestyle. It is in the small, ordinary places where we decide to be nice to ourselves; in the act of setting the phone in another room, getting out of comfy clothing and the act of acknowledging that, on this particular day, we have done enough.

I am yet to learn to be comfortable with the silence. There are harder nights than other nights, and the stress has also been known to accompany me even to my pillow. However, these small free tools in my back pocket make the world seem a little less daunting, no matter what is going on outside.

What is your ritual of shedding the day? Perhaps, it is time to switch off the large lights and sit in the silence in order to make the noise finally cease.