Successful Entrepreneurs Share 14 Unconventional Actions to Reduce Stress

Stress Awareness Month each April draws attention to the significant toll stress takes on individuals, particularly entrepreneurs grappling with the demands of running a business. These leaders need solid strategies for both how to manage stress and how to reduce stress. For entrepreneurs, the weight of managing and expanding a business often serves as a firsthand lesson in stress management. Who better than our EO community to offer creative strategies and stress management techniques?

We asked EO members how to manage stress and share their mindset techniques and stress management skills.

How to Manage Stress

To achieve stress relief and learn how to manage stress, we asked EOers to share their quirky daily rituals, unconventional actions, relaxation techniques, or innovative devices that have become their go-to stress reduction techniques to alleviate stress. Here are the stress management tools they shared:

How to Handle Stress with Stress-Relieving Tech

“One tool that I use is Therabody Smartgoggles. The goggles, paired with the app’s various meditation and relaxing sounds, lower my heart rate and relieve stress within minutes. I highly recommend them to anyone who has a hard time unwinding or needs to clear your mind and relieve a little stress.”

— Tom Rauen, EO Iowa, founder and CEO, 1-800-Tshirts.com

How to Handle Stress with EMDR Therapy and Sauna Meditation

“My biggest issue with stress is when I cannot let things go, and they go round and round in my head. I have several ways to cope with stress.

“I work with a therapist who does Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) therapy, an extensively researched and effective method to overcome trauma or PTSD.

“I also practice meditation while sitting in my home infrared sauna, an affordable and valuable investment for stress relief. It has Bluetooth, so when I turn on the meditation music, it is like being enveloped in a cocoon of warmth and relaxation. It is a safe place to let go and go inward — plus added health benefits!”

— Tina Hamilton, EO Philadelphia, founder and CEO, myHR Partner

Consult Coach Dory for Relaxation Techniques

“The immense pressure of building a US$100 million company over 10 years created burnout and anxiety. I needed more support, so being a founder, I created it.

“I run the world’s largest community (10,000+ members) dedicated solely to stress reduction for entrepreneurs: Dory. We have a mental resilience training app called Coach Dory, live peer groups, and we deliver keynotes and workshops around the world.

“I created Dory as a unique stress-reduction strategy and stress management technique to help me understand and improve my mental state. Coach Dory checks in on me daily and asks me to rate myself on seven key factors of my stress response: calm, emotional control, energy, personal identity, focus, satisfaction, and positivity.

“The app calculates a mental resilience score on a 1 to 100 scale, much like my Oura Sleep tracking ring or the Whoop band gives me a score about physiological recovery. I use the app every day to understand and improve my mental resilience.”

— Aaron Houghton, EO Colorado, founder and CEO, Dory

Reduce Stress and Anxiety with Leaf Blower Zen

“This time of year can be especially stressful in my business that specializes in U.S. tax compliance. As stress starts building, I switch it up with something totally low-tech to reduce stress and anxiety. I grab my leaf blower and make a lap around the yard. No screens, no emails, just me clearing leaves — and clearing my head. Sometimes I blast my favorite tracks, sometimes I soak up the silence. It’s simple, but it works wonders for hitting the reset button.”

— Trevor McCandless, EO Puerto Rico, founder and CEO, Fusion CPA

Stress-Coping Strategies: 5-Minute Planks

“When I relocated my family and business, life was chaotic, leaving me perpetually stressed. Recognizing the toll on my health, I had to get creative and find some coping skills. My strategy? Holding plank pose daily for five minutes.

“Initially a 30-day challenge, I have now reached 200 days, and inspired others to join me. Turns out, planking isn’t just for nice abs! The stress-relief benefits are tangible, and the results are fast. By engaging the stress corners of the body — shoulders, neck, and back — you release tension and lighten the physical burden stress can cause. Effective planking demands control and focused breathwork, instantly calming the nervous system and clearing the mind.

“I’ve learned that I can always make myself a priority for five minutes a day. This simple, no-excuse routine renews my sense of control and makes me feel like a complete badass whether I’m having a good day or not. Plus, better abs never hurt.”

— Jess Loseke, EO Nashville, co-founder and CEO, Midwest Barrel Co.

Coping with Stress through Pratyahara, Dhyana, and Pranayama

“The fastest ways to deal with stress, reverse stress, and regain a healthy state is through Pratyahara (withdrawal of the senses), Dhyana (meditation), and Pranayama (breath control). Starting with Pranayama specifically to stop stress, makes the fastest dent to go onto the other practices. It can be done anywhere: at your desk, in your car, or warming up for exercise. If you do them in the right combination, you can eliminate stress in six minutes per day. For a person in overwhelm or early-stage burnout, it can take up to 12 minutes per day. Each of these practices has multiple purposes and must be curated to stop stress and return the nervous system to good health. Beyond that, they can also set the stage for high performance.”

— Kira Leskew, EO Toronto, founder and CEO, Meditation Master, The Eagle Institute Ltd.

Healthy Ways To Deal With Stress: Unplug with Time in Nature

“I’ve developed the habit of unplugging and taking time away at least once a quarter.

“With our work being 100% remote, I take advantage of the same flexibility that I extend to my team. I’m passionate about skiing. This season, I spent a month in the mountains working on U.S. East Coast time and flexing my calendar to maximize my time on the mountains. I hit my goal of enjoying 20+ days in Utah and got to attend EO Sun Valley and SnowEO events on each end of the trip.”

— Warner Moore, EOA Columbus, founder, Gamma Force

Effective Stress Management with Friendships and “Bits”

“Maintaining strong friendships is by far the most important action I can take to deal with stress. I even developed software to help me keep up with important people in my life, using everything BUT social media (which I believe induces stress). Further, I developed an approach called “BITS,” which I think of as something less than a habit or even less than “a bit.”  It involves micro-actions that create the person I want to be. The greater my velocity of bits, the lower my stress.”

— John Cornelsen, EO Fort Worth, founder, Juggle

H3: An Unexpected Stress Treatment: Adventure Dialing 

“One of my stress-busters is daydreaming on the phone with a friend about an upcoming trip together. I need the escape, and my friend on the other end of the line likely does as well! We’ll plan outlandish trips or laugh about past escapades. It’s one of my favorite relaxation techniques. It’s our way of escaping the grind for a bit and remembering more adventures await. That little escape helps me come back to my tasks with a fresh perspective and a lighter heart.”

— Trevor McCandless, EO Puerto Rico, founder and CEO, Fusion CPA

Calm Your Mindset with These 5 Stress Management Techniques

As driven entrepreneurs, members of EO are quite aware of the high-level stress involved in running and growing a company — and many have developed stress coping strategies and unique ways of mitigating its potentially damaging effects. With so many types of stress management to explore, managing entrepreneurial stress is an essential component of a healthy lifestyle and strong leadership. Here are their five stress management techniques:

Best Stress Relief: An Uplifting Morning Routine

“I wake up in the morning, read my Bible for spiritual inspiration, practice yoga for 10-15 minutes, then do a 10-minute meditation or morning prime with Tony Robbins. Next, I time-block my morning using Grant Cardone’s 10x Planner — all before I open a single email. It gets my mindset right before the craziness of the super busy day begins! Finding a mind, body, and spiritual morning routine to properly align my mindset for the day has radically changed both my personal and professional life!”

— Rami Kalla, EO Arizona, president, Point in Time Studios

How to Calm Stress: Own Your Stress to Resolve It

“After my son passed away unexpectedly, I went to a retreat in Thailand where I met Rajesh, a former monk, who helped me through that trauma. I still work with him remotely. He brings a different perspective of learning to be present as the core message in dealing with traumas and anxieties via understanding yourself and your mind. My favorite message from Rajesh: My stress is mine to resolve.

“It means you must resolve stress by taking away the blame or reasons for the stress and focusing on your abilities to accept and resolve your issues. Simple, but powerful.”

— Tina Hamilton, EO Philadelphia, founder and CEO, myHR Partner

Stress Management Tools: Forget Balance, Aim for Focus

“I’ve been able to reduce stress and achieve balance by rejecting the idea of balance! There is no balanced life as an entrepreneur — there are times of crisis, times of intense focus, downtimes, and in-between times. As a former professional actor and improviser, that’s the schedule I love. The key was to realize that my personal life would also look a bit like my professional life and embrace it. 

“Many days a week, I’m a fantastic CEO: visiting clients, closing deals, creating new service lines, interviewing potential employees, and sweating spreadsheets. On those days, I’m a not a great spouse, mother, community member, or friend. I set expectations with my family and friends in advance, and do a lot in advance to ensure they have everything they will need. On other days, I’m an amazing spouse and mother: cooking, helping with homework, and planning vacations or date nights.

“There isn’t balance, there’s focus. Be completely present and focused with the people in your room at that moment. And be sure your priorities even out in the long run — you have to schedule your priorities, not prioritize your schedule. YOU have control.”

— Karen Hough, EO Columbus, founder and CEO, ImprovEdge

How to Stop Stressing: Plan A Vacation in 15-minute Increments

“When there’s too much on my calendar and very little I can do about it in the short term, I find joy in taking small steps to plan a future vacation.

“I take a deep breath and look for one or two weeks to claim as vacation. Sometimes it’s three to six months’ away, buy that’s fine! Once I have the magical date range, I celebrate that small win.

“During the coming months, I research ideal destinations and activities that fit my timetable. Even if all I get is a 15-minute investment in planning part of the perfect trip (or identifying projects to offload before then), I experience the joy of anticipation.

“This strategy helps me get through stress, move forward with my life exploration goals, and carve out recharge time.”

— Cal Al-Dhubaib, EO Cleveland, CEO and AI Strategist, Pandata (acquired by Further)

For Stress Management, Remember Your Purpose

“I believe stress comes from forgetting your purpose in life. When you know and remember your life’s purpose, then you understand that every challenge, setback, and step up is all for a reason: To make you more of who you are meant to become. 

“I come back to my purpose on a daily basis, starting the night before. I write down three goals to accomplish the next day, write my hour-by-hour schedule, and my five-year goals right before going to sleep. This allows my subconscious mind to go through my whole day while I am sleeping. When I wake up, I have a clear direction and purpose for the day. The writing stays in front of me throughout the day so that when a challenge arises, I go back to my plan. It is my top stress management technique.

“When you are guided, nothing can get you down.”

— Ruben Resendez, EO Silicon Valley, founder and CEO, adHere