How long is your to-do list? If I asked you what your top priority was, would you have a hard time narrowing it down?

The word ‘priorities’ is a fairly recent addition to the English language – for several hundred years it wasn’t pluralised because the word ‘priority’ meant the one single most important thing. These days, we have many things jockeying for first place and so we more often than not talk about our ‘priorities’.

But is this actually causing you more stress? It’s difficult enough to juggle our separate responsibilities and allow enough time for everything, but if we give more than one thing the same amount of importance, it makes arranging our lives so much more difficult.

Here at The Forge Clinic, we regularly see patients who are suffering pain due to stress and trying to fit too much in, so we are big advocates of learning to manage your stress better and taking time to look after you.

While we can help you to look after yourself by helping you work through any physical niggles or pain, or even massaging the stress straight out of your muscles, it’s important to look at the root causes of a problem.

What are your priorities?
Write down what you consider to be your top priorities. Don’t worry if there’s more than one, just make sure to get them all down. More often than not, these are usually the main causes of stress in your day-to-day life.

What are your real priorities?
While our knee-jerk reaction might be – all of them! take a moment to consider your list. What order of importance would you put these things in? Would you walk out of work if a relative had an accident – if yes, then you know that family is more important than work. Would you leave work on time in order to make a gym class? If yes, then you know that your fitness is more important than work.

Schedule accordingly
Once you know what your real priority is, you can make plans accordingly. When you’re feeling overwhelmed, keep your list nearby and order your to-list in order of what is really important to you.

Keep health at the top!
While we want you to decide for yourself what you consider to be important, we’d like to advise you to keep your health fairly near the top of that list! When you are in pain, it’s harder to focus on other things, so if you’re experiencing any niggles now, contact us to make an appointment and nip it in the bud!