Often times, it can be difficult to recognize the stressors in our life. Many times it can be more than one stressor that is able to take a toll and negatively impact your attitude. When it comes to drug addiction, this is often the root of the problem.
We dived into the 4 ways to combat stress in our previous blog you can check that out here. But let's take a closer look into the 5x5 rule which is a great skill to combat stress in difficult situations by putting problems into perspective.
The 5x5 rule states that if you come across an issue take a moment to think whether or not it will matter in 5 years. If it won't, don't spend more than 5 minutes stressing out about it. When your problems need to be put into perspective, the 5x5 rule is a good thing to remember. The fact of the matter is, there are some problems that do not need your full attention. It is easy and quite honestly just human nature to devote hours to days, and even sometimes weeks to being upset about trivial matters. So, if something won’t matter in five years don’t bother being upset at it for more than five minutes.
Although this seems like a silly way to cope, implementing this into those anxieties that arise throughout our day can drastically change our day to day outlook. Often times we are put into situations with people that can make the day tough to get through. But when you think to yourself, “will the current situation I am in, matter in 5 years?” More times than not, the answer is no.
So, the next time you find yourself struggling to take it easy- breath and ask yourself "hey, will
this matter 5 years from now?" If it won’t, don’t let it consume your day. Instead take five minutes stressing over it, and then keep telling yourself that this will not affect or define me five
years from now.
