Love them or hate them, distractions are a part of every one's life. The trick is, if you find distractions stressful or unwelcome, learning to accept or even embrace them will take the tension out of them.

Recognize Why Distractions Stress You In The First Place

Recognizing why a thing stresses you is the first step to coping or eliminating your body's negative reactions to it.  Do distractions bug you all the time, or only when working against a deadline?

Is it that you hate having your focus interrupted for fear you won't be able to pick up where you left off? 

Perhaps distractions are only stressful when you are tired, down, or worried about something.

Try to discover the why behind the stress.  Once you do, you can help minimize the likelihood of distractions occurring in the first place.

Minimizing The Likelihood

• Turn off your phones
• Tell your family ahead of time that you will be busy for a while, but that you are looking forward to spending time with them as soon as you are done
• Designate a "private work area" that is off-limits when you are there
• Try getting up an hour early or staying up an hour later at those times when distractions are least likely to occur
• Tend to matters that might come up before you begin working, reading, or pursuing a hobby
• If you are easily distracted by design, learn to embrace the distractions

Reasons To Embrace Distractions

• The average human brain can contain millions of things, including distractions, and deal well with them--understand just how versatile your mind can be
• Distractions can be a welcome break from your task, and you will return to it mentally and physically refreshed
• Distractions can act as teachers, lessons, so each time we embrace a distraction, we will probably learn something brand new from it
• Is this one more chance to spend extra time with a child, a spouse, or gain a new business connection
• If you don't welcome distraction, what how much will you have missed that is beautiful, uplifting to the spirit:  sunsets, a snippet of beautiful music, the drawing of a child, the exciting news of a friend or family member, a bird you've never seen before

Since distractions are a given in every life, why fight them and cause yourself extra tension?  How much better to welcome them, embrace them?