Well-known CEOs experienced uphill battles before they succeed. Most of us wonder how CEOs manage stress. Here are five effective daily habits to handle stress.

1. Cold showers

The CEO of EPSoft Technologies Gopal Parvathaneni manages stress by taking cold showers every night.

“Taking a cold shower doesn’t sound relaxing to most, but it’s how I get my brain to shut down. This allows me to have a restful night of sleep. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be able to stop thinking,” Parvathaneni said in the article of INC.

2. Reading before bedtime

Bill Gates, a former CEO of Microsoft, reads books before sleeping. Doing this habit does not only lessen stress but helps him to be a more informed person.

“I read an hour almost every night. It is part of falling asleep,” Gates told The Seattle Times way back in 1990.

A report from INC mentioned that reading a book helps a person to get a good quality of sleep. Interestingly, most CEOs invested to read books daily because of its benefits.

3.  Playing musical instruments

The greatest investor, Warren Buffet enjoys playing the ukulele. Studies found out that learning to play a musical instrument can help reduce stress. Moreover, it can also lower blood pressure and heart rate.

Research from Tenovus Cancer Care and the Royal College of Music found out that playing instruments can improve one’s immunity.

4. Laughing

One of the ways that CEOs manage stress is to laugh a lot. John Bezos, CEO of Amazon, stated that amidst stress, one should not forget to laugh.

“Stress primarily comes from not taking action over something that you can have some control over,” he said. “I find as soon as I identify it, and make the first phone call, or send off the first e-mail message, or whatever it is that we’re going to do to start to address that situation – even if it’s not solved – the mere fact that we’re addressing it dramatically reduces any stress that might come from it,” Bezos stated on Insider report.

5. Gadget detox

Jud Bowman, Founder, and CEO of Sift Media observed that he can finish the amount of work when he’s on long flights. Hence, he put his phone on airplane mode whenever he wants to focus and get a lot of work to do.

The study showed that if you spend more time on social media, the more likely you will develop depression. Thus, a lot of successful people lessen the use of gadgets to reduce the time being spent on social media.

Sources:

(1) https://amp.insider.com/how-successful-people-deal-with-stress-2017-3
(2) https://www.inc.com/magazine/202009/sophie-downes/productivity-ritual-morning-routine-habit-hack-founder-2020-inc5000