10 Effective Stress Management Strategies for Small Business Owners

Small business owners are the chief executive officers of their businesses. Like any other CEO, and for that matter any other human person, they often experience stress in both their personal and professional lives. The difference is the impact their stress can have on the lives of others who depend on them for leadership, guidance, and a livelihood. How can CEOs and small business owners manage their stress?

Here are a few ideas:

1. Get help with handling certain tasks

The worst thing a small business owner can do, is to try to do it all by themselves. The notion that only you can do it the right way is one that could lead to burn out when you are a small business owner. Learn to delegate duties and tasks to others, and trust that the job they do is adequate, if not good, if not excellent. No one person can be all things or do all things. This mindset only leads to raised stress levels, failure and burnout.

2. Outsource when possible

Sometimes, the best thing to do is to outsource certain aspects of the business and not try to do it in-house. This could be due to many reasons. For example, you may lack the savoir faire in–house to get the job done efficiently and at a reasonable cost –and it therefore makes more sense to outsource. Another reason is just a matter of time. The job or task in question could require more time than the current employees in the company have to give to it. If the small business owner refuses to outsource, this could lead to employee burnout and resentment and could lower productivity rates in the company overall.

3. Don’t neglect self-care “me” time where you totally unplug

Take time for self-care where you just unplug from the work and take care of yourself. No, this does not make you a slacker. What this does is that it makes you a well-rounded person who understands that your body is like an engine, that needs fine-tuning from time to time to work at its optimal and peak levels. When you fine-tune your body, you have more energy in the long run to give to your business. To fine-tune your body, you need to take time for self-care, and sometimes you need to totally unplug from everything and everyone so that you can replenish your energies.

4. Eat properly and engage in regular fitness activity

This is so obvious, but one way a small business owner reduces stress levels is to eat properly and take care of their physical health. The problem is that for a lot of small business owners, their personal fitness and diet is the last thing on their to-do list. They forget that without their health, they really have nothing at all worth having—which is a shame. Not only should small business owners engage in healthy eating and fitness practices, but they should also encourage their workers to do the same.

5. Get regular bowel movements going!

This is obviously very delicate and very personal, but you would be surprised how much better you feel physically and psychologically when you are regular vs when you are not. So eat up on foods that are rich in fiber, drink tons of water, and work your abdominal muscles as often as you can.

6. Get enough sleep

Sleep is hugely important to stress reduction for everyone, but especially CEOs (even those in small businesses) because your mood has such a huge impact on other people’s lives. People who don’t get enough sleep can be grumpy, moody and reckless. This, obviously, can be very bad for business when you are a business owner. You don’t want to antagonize your employees, customers and clients just because you are not getting enough sleep. You also don’t want to be making bad business decisions because of foggy thinking that comes from lack of sleep.

7. Keep your distance from people and things that make you nuts

When you are trying to run a business, you need to have the right people around you. People who make you nuts are best kept away from because they usually bring on negative stimulation that does nothing to further your business goals, but instead only serve to sap your creative energies -which you need to succeed. Just keep your distance. Don’t even try to analyze it.

8. Read self-help books

There have been a lot of self-help books on stress management and many of them are geared to leaders, CEOs and business owners. Read, for example, When the Body Says No by Gabor Maté. It is very important to be well-informed about how to manage your stress when you are in a position of leadership. Executive stress, as noted above, can impact the lives of not only the executive and his or her family, but the lives and families of their employees as well. If you don’t have the information at the tip of your fingers about how to reduce your stress, then by all means read up on it.

9. Nurture an activity that you do just for the pleasure of it.

What is your pleasure principle? Get in touch with that and nurture that and engage in this activity as often as you possibly can, because it is a marvelous way to manage your stress and achieve balance in your work, and life outside of your work. If your work is your pleasure, this is surely a good thing. But it is still a good practice to mix things up a bit and engage in other pursuits to work different sides of the brain, from time to time. This will help to reduce your stress by a lot.

• Get a pet

One of the easiest and most enjoyable ways to manage stress is to get yourself a little animal to care for – such as a cat or dog or even a horse. These little creatures are like angels in our lives and their unconditional love just puts everything into perspective for us. As a CEO of your own small business, having or getting a pet is probably the single most effective stress management technique you can employ.