Blogging and Stress. How to cope with stress from blogging?

A growing work force of home office laborers and entrepreneurs, armed with gizmos and tweeting there way to fame and fortune, are toiling under great physical and emotional stress created by around the clock Internet economy that demands a constant stream of information, news, articles and comments.

Blogging is an interactive medium to express your thoughts and views on a certain subject and it is growing at a phenomenal rate. Research from Universal McCann suggests that 45 percent of those surveyed have started a blog recently. There are about a million new blogger’s starting each year.

Why the rat race? Why so many bloggers?

For most people Blogging starts as a quick way of making money on the side. And with a number of blogs being advertised as making good money (and trust me out of those advertised not a lot of them make decent money) more people are getting trapped into this online business.

You can BLOG only if you have a passion for blogging. First and foremost you should have solid understanding of what you want to blog about. Most BLOGS start with no set plan and thus die within a month or so.

Speed can be of the essence in the blogging world. And that is what triggers the rat race and hence STRESS. If a blogger is beaten by a millisecond, someone else’s post on the subject will bring in the audience, the links and the bigger share of the ad revenue.

Once you have a blog most new bloggers will sign up with major social media sites (like Facebook) or Microblogging platforms (like TWITTER) to promote there content. A majority of bloggers start promoting there content / blog too early without even having any quality content on there blogs. And time spent on these sites + no traffic generated - leads to frustration and that adds to more STRESS.

I have read a very interesting and funny post by Michael Pinto on how Tweeting is becoming chronic - Social Media “Experts” are the Cancer of Twitter (and Must Be Stopped). Michael has captured the rise of social media in his own unique way.

What can you do to stop stress or scale it down a bit and enjoy blogging?

• Time Management : First and foremost adopt a time management strategy so that you can keep up different fields of work at the desired level of productivity.
• Lifestyle changes: Lead a more active lifestyle and spend less time trying to get that extra post done for the day, week, month or year.
• Exercise Regularly: Go to Gym every day. Go to gym even if you don’t exercise everyday, trust me it will still help chalking out a routine.
• Regular Day Offs: Start having the occasional day off (This is easier said then done though, but trying is the key)
• Vacationing: Go out of town, enjoy day hikes out of the city. Try to go somewhere - where there is no television, no cell phone coverage - and no don’t bring your pretty laptop.
• Enjoy Blogging: Treat your blog as a hobby, not a business. That alone reduces a lot of the pressure.
• Let it go at times: Resist the urge to post constantly. Think this way - It’s okay to take a few days off here and there. It’s better to take a vacation during the short term in order to maintain blogging for the long term.
• Follow a schedule: If you get frequently lost when it comes to the time spent online, a nice alarm clock can help. Set it to go off after a certain amount of time and know when it goes off, you are done for the day.
• Try not to sit in front of a computer at least 1 hour before you go to bed. The screen flicker makes your eyes, and your mind, think it’s daytime, hence you will have trouble sleeping.
• Don’t waste your time: Time is precious, don’t waste your time online. New bloggers have this habit of checking stats every single hour. This will not help.
• Stress will never help: Stress is unnecessary. Stress diminishes productivity. It’s something you definitely don’t want when you attempt to write your best post. Because well, if your brain is always thinking a dozen or more steps ahead, you end up faili ng to achieve the optimal goal of your present task. And if such behavior becomes habitual, well, then that can be a surprisingly deep hole to climb out of with any success.

I myself work as a web consultant and also do write articles for my own blog and at times do write for some other bloggers. Since I have started blogging I have experienced stress and have already been there and have done most of the mistakes mentioned in this article.

I have followed the simple rules mentioned above for some time now and I am experiencing a better health and overall performance with reduced stress.

Remember blogging is about chilling out. Blogging doesn’t need to be a race. Really. Sometimes you need to learn these lessons the hard way. I certainly have.

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