Blog: Thought Bites
how to relax into the turbulences of Work & Life
Stress Hack #1: Turning a happy holiday memory into a powerful stress relief.
🏖️Your holiday memory = your new anti-stress tool. Try this 5-step for your very personal stress relief mini-break while your last holiday is still fresh on your mind:
Pick one joyful memory from your most recent holiday. Don’t overthink—just go with the first one that comes.
Zoom in on the details: What did you see, hear, smell, taste, feel?
Close your eyes. Dive into your memory and let it wash over you like a wave.
Store it. Anchor the feeling in your body and mind.
Replay anytime. You now have a portable mini-break for your everyday life.
🧠 Why this works:
Your brain doesn’t clearly distinguish between a real experience and a vividly imagined one. When you re-immerse yourself in a joyful memory using all your senses, your nervous system responds as if it’s happening now—shifting from stress mode into calm. It’s neuroplasticity in action: with repetition, you train your brain to access calm more easily, anytime you need it.
✨What’s your happy holiday moment?
Here is mine: an early morning swim in the sea—light waves, golden sun on the water, a drifting seagull, and that soft, salty freedom of weightlessness.
Stop Overthinking: What if it was easy?
Do you know the “everything is connected to everything else”- feeling?
You want to take one clear step forward…
But first, you’d need to solve three side issues.
Then you realize each of those has their own moving parts.
This is often the reality in our VUCA work life — where complexity reigns and clarity/simplicity are not always obvious.
Some of us are natural overthinkers.
Others just become that way when we’re stressed, tired, or stretched too thin.
Either way, it’s easy to feel stuck — unsure where to start.
That’s why I love this simple question (it is on a small post-it on my wall):
What if it was easy?
It sounds naive at first. But asked sincerely, it’s powerful.
It invites you to:
✨ Take a step back.
✨ Let go of perfection for a moment.
✨ Zoom out of the entagled issues and look for what’s actually possible right now.
Ask yourself – every time everything feels connected to everything else again:
👉 What if it was easy?
👉 What’s the first (even tiny) step in the right direction?
Not the perfect one. Not the optimal one. Just one that moves you forward.
Because sometimes we don’t need to solve everything. We just need to get moving again.
And ease?
Often starts with a breath, a shift in perspective — and a single, imperfect, liberating step.
💬 Have you tried asking yourself this question? What did it change?