Entrepreneurs: Practical Ways to Beat Stress as an Entrepreneur

The path of an entrepreneur is full of challenges and stress just comes along with it. Balancing multiple tasks and responsibilities, dealing with crises and uncertainty on a regular basis is part of an entrepreneur’s daily work. When we are faced with a danger or a problem, the human body creates a sensation to get our attention and prompt us to act, which we call stress. In short bursts this can be positive, but stress for extended periods can harm our mental and physical well-being.

Entrepreneurs can always have something that goes against their wishes that is out of their control and thus can cause stress. Whether it’s a funding issue, or profitability, or simply the projector stops working during an important presentation. No matter how hard they try, their work will always create “stressful situations” for them, and the only way they can come out unscathed is by working on themselves. How does this happen? Subah Saraf and Harshvardhan Saraf believe that what they have been able to create in the Satvic Movement can help entrepreneurs follow a healthy lifestyle so that stress does not hinder their health, well-being or decision-making abilities.

The genesis

Satvic Movement is an online holistic health education platform founded in August 2017 by Subah Saraf and Harshvardhan Saraf. The co-founders, who themselves struggled with chronic health issues and overcame them by following a Sattvic lifestyle, applied what they learned to start this movement based on three pillars – a holistic lifestyle, natural diet and daily yoga. Satvik means the guna of goodness. In Bhagavad Gita we learn about 3 modes/gunas – Sattva, Rajas and Tamas. “Today, most of our society operates between the modes of rajas (excessive ambition and greed) and tamas (laziness and ignorance). Satvic Movement aims to spread sattva, the values ​​of goodness,” says Harshvardhan Saraf. The founders believe that it is this sattvic quality within us that makes us happy, blissful, fearless and compassionate.

Why is stress management an essential skill for entrepreneurs?

Entrepreneurs deal with stress in their daily lives. Apart from the things we manage in our daily life like our family, our relationships, our finances, our work and so on; entrepreneurs have to manage a business unit, its growth, sales, profit, employees and their welfare, etc. This is a big responsibility for one person and they may not always have a team to do it for them, at least in the early days of their new venture. Being affected by stress in their love is something they need to eliminate.

“Stress is an unwanted situation, and it’s unfortunate that most millennials today talk about stress management. No need to manage it. It’s like saying “managing depression” or “managing an unhealthy diet.” The goal should be to seek a healthy and balanced lifestyle that will ensure our mind is strong enough to remain unaffected by stressors,” says Subah Saraf.

The answers

The founding duo has some easy tips and stress management techniques for all entrepreneurs – current and aspiring:

Make time for yourself

Entrepreneurs need to set aside some time each day to focus on building themselves. Their focus should be on the 3 M’s – movement for the physical body, meditation for spiritual peace and mastery for skills and knowledge. They must prepare in such a way that even if external stress overtakes them, they are ready to deal with it. The ideal time for such activities is in the morning.

Reducing stimulants

The modern urban lifestyle revolves around stimulants. They are everywhere and in abundance. Glorified by the media and popular culture, a huge part of the population is addicted to stimulants: tea, coffee, nicotine, energy drinks. No wonder they are stressed! They are all too stimulating for our nervous system and over time the mind loses its own ability and becomes dependent on external stimulants for short-term stimulation. This makes them vulnerable to stress, making it clear that entrepreneurs must work to reduce such stimulants from their lives.

Sticking to a regular sleeping and eating schedule

Irregular sleep cycles and irregular meal times are one of the main causes of stress and anxiety. A disciplined personal routine is a key foundation for a stress-free life. Netflix and chill may sound cool, but their impact is definitely not cool. A bad attitude towards regular meals and rest leads to burnout at an early age. Entrepreneurs remain stressed for such extended periods of time that they begin to normalize stress. On the contrary, if they normalize by having a regular schedule, it reduces stress and gives them time to take care of themselves.

Avoiding mindless social media scrolling

Mindless scrolling constantly feeds our brains with information that we compulsively consume, but our brains still process and our emotions still react. Avoiding this, especially before bed or first thing after waking up, improves sleep quality and leaves them refreshed and ready to take on the challenges of the day with renewed vigor. If an entrepreneur spends more than 30 minutes on social media every day, that should raise a red flag. If left unchecked, over time it will reduce productivity and create unwanted stress.

Productivity

Most stress comes when entrepreneurs spend most of their day doing last-minute urgent work. Harshvardhan recommends planning an entire week instead of making to-do lists for the day. He emphasized: “It helps to do things that are most important and less fire-fighting every day. Not planning for the next week and showing up at the desk without a clear plan is a surefire formula for dealing with stress for any entrepreneur,” he says.

How does a stress-free life benefit an entrepreneur?

Entrepreneurs don’t get bogged down in the routine ups and downs of life. Stress is a natural response of the body designed for their survival, and it just remains that way. A stress-free body is vibrant, full of life, and balanced, unlike a stressed body, which is always on edge. So, a stressed entrepreneur is more likely to make impulsive decisions and operate in a reactive mode, while a non-stressed business owner makes better decisions. Dealing with stress keeps them in a vicious cycle because they keep making wrong decisions which in turn keep adding more and more stress. The best advice for them is to take a step back, de-stress and resume with a stress-free and refreshed approach.