My Top 10 Stress Busters

I recently read Top 10: Ways to De-Stress. It made me think about the stress in my own life right now and how I'm dealing with it.  Here's my top 5 ways to de-stress (in no particular order):

1. Read: I used to love love LOOOOOVE to read! I would read anything I could get my hands on. Sometimes that was the back of  a cereal box during breakfast. Now that I read all day at work, I have sort of lost interest. I recently started picking up free and cheap novels for my Kindle app on my phone. I have fallen in love with reading again. Having books on my phone makes it really handy to sneak in a chapter here and there! 
2. Exercise: It's amazing what a quick workout on my Wii, or a walk around the neighborhood can do. There was a day recently where I was really down and beating myself up mentally pretty badly. I finally stepped away from my computer, got up and did my Just Dance II workout for about 20 minutes. It was TRANSFORMING! 
3. Get Creative: Whether it's making cards, scrap-booking (digitally or old school), quilting, or knitting (which I pretty much gave up when my daughter came along, but hope to pick it up again someday), getting creative is a great for me to de-stress. It takes my head out of whatever is stressing me out and time just seems to FLY by. I have a couple of upcoming PTO days specifically for this purpose. I'm going to visit my BFF and we're going to spend the day making cards together. I can't wait! 
4. Snuggle: Whether it's snuggling my hubby, my daughter, or both, I believe stress busting endorphins are released when snuggling! Especially when I sniff the top of my daughter's head!
5. Date night: Our daughter's daycare offers monthly "Kids Night Out."  One Friday a month, we drop her off with her pajamas and don't pick her up until 9:00 or 10:00 at night. They entertain the kiddos with movies, crafts, and dinner. When we pick her up, she's in her jammies and ready for bed. She usually requires a little snuggle time after such a long day apart, but that has stress busting qualities in and of itself!