Thanks for your patience! Here is the conclusion to season 2 on stress busting. 

We've had some personal hiccups, so there will be a small delay in our Season 2 wrap-up about the stress-busting techniques we tried. Stay tuned for that conclusion episode coming soon. 

For two weeks, Cindy and Jen went on daily walks outside to relieve stress.

There are many benefits of walking outside:

The benefits of walking can be boosted through mindfulness or walking with friends.

Walking outside can also help you get vitamin D, a necessary nutrient. But be sure to wear sunscreen!

And there are some funny posts about not putting too much pressure on your afternoon walk out there. Humor can also be stress-busting!

Check out the episode for the results of this experiment!

For 2 weeks, Cindy and Jen crafted every day for at least 10 minutes. The type of craft was each host's choice. 

Some potential benefits of crafting include entering a flow state, increased self-reported happiness, reducing stress, shifting focus, decluttering, and increased self-confidence or self-esteem. 

Listen to find out more about why your choice of craft is likely of vital importance. 

And check out our Instagram feed or Facebook page for photos of our craft projects. 

For 2 weeks, Cindy and Jen journaled every day for at least 10 minutes. Emotional release journaling was the primary type of journaling tried, but a general brain dump was okay also.

Journaling has been found to have a variety of potential benefits:

Journaling is a form of organization. Bullet journaling is very common and can be elaborate or simple.

Like other forms of stress-busting, journaling is most effective when done consistently.

Jen was inspired by Morning Pages from The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron.

Check out our Instagram feed or Facebook page for a photo of Jen’s journal.

For this episode, Cindy and Jen committed to reading at least 20 minutes per day for pleasure. There are a lot of known benefits to reading:

Improve sleep.

Read what you like! Don’t worry about reading best sellers or what you think you “should” read.

Some places to buy books, besides Amazon:

Ways to fit in more reading, from the Happier Podcast with Gretchen Rubin:

Books we read:

Lots of ideas and resources are out there for starting a social justice book club of your own, including many virtual clubs you may be able to join. Reach out to Jen if you want to talk about anything like that.

And read the news for personal education, not for stress relief!

For two weeks, Cindy and Jen spent at least 5 minutes a day meditating. There are lots of different types of meditation out there, but both hosts did guided meditation and used apps to make that possible. Jen used the UCLA Mindful app while Cindy used the Peloton app (particularly the sleep meditation!). 

Research for this episode was from the Mayo Clinic and WebMD. 

For two weeks, Cindy and Jen committed to spend at least 15 minutes per day working on jigsaw puzzles.

Links to some of the things we talked about:

Welcome to season 2 of Tiny Transformations! This season Jen and Cindy test out stress-busting techniques. The last year has been busy and crazy and stressful for all of us. So are there some small changes we can make to lower our overall feelings of stress? 

This season we will be measuring our stress using two scales: a perceived stress scale for thinking back on our stress over the last two weeks and a daily question to rate our stress between 0 and 2 every day. Research backs up both methods of stress assessment. 

Our stress assessments were set up through a Google quiz and www.askmeevery.com

We're back!