Tips for reducing stress

My life has been unbelievably stressful, but there are some things I do to shoot it down.

Life has a tendency to be stressful. That's has been particularly true for me the past few years.

My life has been unbelievably stressful, but then I tend to stress out about everything because I want everything to be right all the time.

I have always said if I didn’t show stress toward a situation, then it was obviously something I wasn’t that passionate about. Over the last few months my stress levels are at an all-time high.

I have been in the process of trying to figure out what I will be fishing for in 2012, acquiring sponsors, work changes, trying to sell two different boats, trying to order my new Legend boat in time for 2012, and many more things.

It always seems like you tend to run out of time when it comes to December, which seems to add that much more stress. This also is increased by Christmas, which in that aspect means gifts for family members, but really I don’t want to talk about all things that stress me out.

What I want to do is try to help other fisherman learn ways to reduce stress with some things that have worked for me of late.

1. Go to a gun range: This has really helped me out a lot. For some reason shooting a few clips out of my AR-15 tends to help me kind of get away from the world. I pretty much love to shoot and love to hunt. Actually I have a trip to our deer lease out in West Texas for Christmas that I’m extremely stoked about!!

2. Cooking: I know this kind of sounds different, but this allows me to get away from the world. I really love to cook fish and hate to follow a menu. I just like to go with what I feel when I cook. Sometimes the food comes out delicious and sometimes it’s a disaster, but to me that is part of learning about cooking.

3. Basketball: Although I did tear up my left knee again the other day, it’s still by far one of my favorite sports to play. This is a sport that is nonstop and definitely doesn’t let your mind wonder. I’m really not great at basketball but it does help me stay in shape and reduces stress.

I hope somebody can benefit from these. A doctor might read this and just be floored because these may not be things they would recommend, but they seem to help me considerably.

Good luck and God bless!