My go-to stress reliever as you all know is running. I like to Sweat Out The Small Stuff. But I have other great ways to de-stress too…

1. My Dog. It’s been shown that pets help reduce stress

the face I wake up to every morning

This guy! My sunshine, my only sunshine….

2. De-clutter and beautify my office space. While I don’t normally buy flowers to keep on my desk at work, we spruced up the office to make a good impression on a new client who was coming in to the office earlier in the week. My co-worker saw that I was in a crapola mood and “re-arranged” the flowers so that one magically appeared in my cubicle. Thanks Joel! That of course sparked me to clean up my space. It’s just feels better now =) This can also be applied to the home environment!

pretty stress-relieving tulips

3. Change of scenery. All too often I sit at my desk and work until it’s time to go home and my shoulders creep up higher and higher as I get tenser and tenser. It’s rare that I step away from my desk at lunch. I work in New York City. There is just SO MUCH to see in this city. Little nuggets of inspiration in random places. So today, I opted to take advantage of this gorgeous Spring day to run an errand at lunch. I walked up 6th Avenue and randomly turned right on 41st Street right by the big New York Public Library. They named the block Library Way and had these metal plaques placed in the concrete along the sidewalk to form “Library Walk”. Great quotes from books. I stopped to read each one (and snap pics of some).

My 2 favorite…

I stopped into the famous cigar shop on 42nd Street, Nat Sherman, and bought a birthday gift for my friend.

unfortunately scaffolding didn’t allow me to take a photo from the front

I bought him a pipe lighter. They gift wrapped it for me for stress free. =)

I couldn’t help but leave my work stress behind for the hour I stepped away. I’m really going to make it a point to take a break each day at lunch. Yes, Tuesdays will probably continue to be a run at the gym but the rest of the days I want to take advantage of all the history that is within NYC’s architecture and neighborhoods. And hello, I am just a mile from Central Park. Boom!

4. Eat something new! OK maybe this isn’t the recommended way to de-stress per-se, but changing up the same old same old lunch routine can bring something to the table I suppose. I stumbled upon a new (to me) turkish place and got the turkish version of a Greek gyro. It’s chicken, with lettuce, tomato, onion and some special sauces on warm turkish bread. I sat and ate it at my desk without multitasking. Correct, I did nothing but eat. For the first time in a long time I actually TASTED my meal. It’s too common for me to inhale meals when I’m working.

5. Listen to music and stretch. Well this hasn’t happened yet but it’s my plan for tonight. Instead of turning the TV on I’m going to stretch and listen to some tunes first.

And tomorrow I’ll run!!!!! =)

OK, little secret. Looks like I might be running the San Francisco Marathon on July 27th. I’m just figuring a plan to afford travel and registration expenses without robbing a bank. I won’t have any major goals for this one other than to have fun and finish in the allotted 6 1/2 hour time limit =) It’s more of a “I don’t want to miss out” type situation because some of my running peeps are signed up including Valerie (sister of a peep) who will be running her first ever full marathon and Roger who is doing their special 52.4 ultra marathon!  So I need to be there to document it and blog about it for prosperity. =)

Question: Have you ever joined a trip with friends because you didn’t want to miss out even though you knew it would be a strain on the budget? Please say yes. =) Have you ever robbed a bank? Please say no. =)

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