How to finally stop sweating the small stuff

The littlest things used to ruin radio producer Sarah Grynberg’s day. Before work each morning, she’d be so worried about her to-do list, she’d turn up feeling flustered. Being stuck in traffic caused her blood pressure to soar. And she flipped her wig once because she spilt her coffee, putting her in her worst mood of the day.

Sarah didn’t like how these things affected her, but didn’t think of how she could react differently – until one message in particular, by the late American motivational speaker Wayne Dyer, resonated with her: “When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.”

Inspired, Sarah began focusing on the mind-body connection. Starting her own podcast, A Life of Greatness, sent her further towards a life of purpose, rather than one mired in trivialities.

But it’s common to sweat the small stuff, says life and relationship coach Megan Luscombe, and that rather than trying to minimise frustration at such moments, we should take time to marinate in our feelings. The key is to acknowledge that what happened was disheartening without letting the event sabotage the rest of your day.

Putting that into practice can be hard, Luscombe warns. We have an inbuilt negative bias, so whenever something small goes wrong, we’re more attuned to magnify other things that aren’t going to plan. Our brains can then project that negativity onto future events, creating the perfect recipe for a ruined day.

Instead of letting that path snowball, Luscombe recommends pausing before actively deciding how you want to react. Ask yourself two questions: is it worth dedicating more than a few minutes of annoyance to this issue? And will you still be stressed about it in two weeks’ time? If you answered no to both of them, it’s time to follow in Elsa’s footsteps and let it go.

To do that, Sarah advises practising gratitude. Now, whenever her heart races at the thought of her to-do list, she reminds herself how lucky she is to do a job she loves. Writing down her feelings also helps, as it gives her the perspective she needs to assess if she’s wasting her energy on something insignificant.

If you keep wasting your energy on minor annoyances, you don’t just risk ruining your day, it can also affect your overall wellbeing, notes new research published in the Journal of Neuroscience.

“Basically, we found the persistence of a person’s brain in holding on to a negative stimulus is what predicts more negative and less positive daily emotional experiences,” lead author Nikki Puccetti explained.