How to Deal With Stress & Stress relief
Generally, humans use the word ‘stress’ when they feel everything has just become too much to handle. Stress can be anything that is challenging to us or poses a threat to our well-being. Medical experts agree that some level of stress is good for the body since without it, life would be boring and purposeless. Such levels of stress are triggered by the body’s instinct to protect it.
When one is under stress, the nervous system of the body reacts to that event or events that are causing the stress. This causes the body to produce large quantities of adrenaline, cortisol and noradrenaline. These chemicals then cause a high heart rate, alertness, heightened preparedness of the muscles and sweating. This kind of stress or response is known as fight-to-fight response.
Nevertheless, when stress undermines our physical and mental health, then it is bad. One needs to deal with this kind of stress before it is out of control.
Most of the time it might appear that one can do nothing about his or her levels of stress. There is pressure from all sides; one’s employment, family responsibilities and social life. Even so, one has a lot more control than he or she might think. In fact, the best foundation of dealing with stress is the simple realization that one is in charge of his or her own life. In order to manage stress effectively one needs to take charge.
Taking charge of one’s emotions, thoughts, environment, schedule and the way one handles problems. One should aim at attaining a balanced life, having time for work, relaxation, relationships and fun. One should also have the resilience to meet challenges successfully, and not to crack under pressure.
Identifying foundation of Stress
The first step to successful stress management is identifying the specific causes of anxiety in one’s life. It is not as simple as it might appear. The real sources of stress are not always evident, and one might find it simple to neglect their own inducers of feelings, thoughts or behaviors. For instance, one may be concerned about deadlines at work but it may be because of one’s pre-judgment rather than job stresses that are causing one to have deadlines stress. One needs to examine closely their attitude, habits and excuses so that we can identify the true causes of their stress. One should also take responsibility for the part they play in creating or managing their stress levels.
The most common causes of stress are:
1. Place of employment & workplace
2. Family responsibilities/problems
3. Relationships
4. Economic hardships
5. Illness
6. Bereavement
7. Lack of time
Avoid Unhealthy Ways of Coping with Stress
Most people try to take short cuts in dealing with their stress. They resort to unhealthy strategies of managing their stress levels. Although these strategies may temporarily work, in the end they do more harm than good.
Some of the unhealthy ways people deal with stress include:
1. Withdrawal from family and friends
2. Abuse use of drugs and alcohol
3. Under eating or overeating
4. Lounging around too much
5. Oversleeping
6. Procrastinating plans, ideas, or tasks
7. Angry emotional outbursts or even physical violence
Learn Healthy Ways to Manage Stress
There are numerous ways to manage stress successfully, but all require one to change either their reaction or their situation. Everyone responds to stress differently, so while one solution might work for one person, it might not work for someone else. The best means of finding out the one that works for you is to experiment with various techniques.
Some of the ways one can cope with stress are:
1. Learn to say no; know and stick to your limits.
2. Avoid individuals who bring on stress you
3. Learn to express your feelings- communicate your concerns openly but in a respectful way
4. Learn to compromise on issues
5. adapt to a more assertive attitude
6. Better time management
7. Be positive and do not worry about things out of your control
8. Learn to get over or deal with problems that might be bugging you contantly
9. Have time for relaxation
10. Exercise
