Stress Management
Stress is our body’s way to respond to a demand or threat. Factors that cause stress are called stressors. Stressors can be real or imagined. A stressor that causes stress in one person may not affect the other person. It mostly depends on the person’s perception of it.
Two type of stressors
Broadly speaking, there are two type of stressors , external and internal.
External stressors
These are related to work and family, such as making preparation for a meeting, visiting a doctor, help kids with their homework, problems in a relationship, major life changes, for example, buying a home or getting married, or pregnancy, or financial problems. These stressors are not necessarily negative. They just put high demands on the person, and the person is relieved when these issues are resolved.
Internal stressors
They arise because of factors like negative self-talk, pessimism, perfectionism, inflexibility, and these stressors are related to the person’s way of perceiving or thinking about the world. Internal stressors are more difficult to cope with than external stressors; you have to reframe your thoughts about these stressors. For example, an artist who is perfectionist is in stress because he wants to present to the world his perfect piece of art. He is not satisfied with what he creates and is in constant state of stress. It also affects him financially because he will not sell his art, thinking that it is bad. Therefore, he needs to change his thinking. He should realize that it is alright for a human not to be perfect.
How to manage stress effectively?
In my opinion, there can be few ways to manage stress.
Analyze the situation and eliminate unnecessary stressors
Most of the stressors are unnecessary and you can easily eliminate them. When I find myself to be surrounded by stressors, I write them down, and then I see that several of those stressors were not even important to address. For example, last week, I realized that I had lot of letters that I have to read and respond. I did not even open the envelope, and the letters just piled up, which made a psychological effect on me to think that I have to answer all these letters; however, when I started responding, I found that several of these letters were not even important; these were some advertisements, or some general letters that are being sent to everyone about an event or festival.
Take no more than you can handle
Don’t take on too much. You should know a difference between what you SHOULD do and what you MUST do. You should always be able to refuse to do if you don’t feel like doing it, or if you don’t have the energy or interest to do it (especially, if it is not job-related).
Avoid toxic people
Toxic people are very demanding. They want you to do things for them. They take advantage of you and are never grateful. Avoid, or better, remove such people from your life.
Find the alternative
If one situation is stressful for you, find an alternative solution. For example, if you find cooking stressful on some day, go to the restaurant or invite your friend and cook together.
Express
Talk about what is making you stressed because it is a great way to relieve your stress. If you are not comfortable doing something, refuse boldly to do it; just say NO.
Fun time
Have a fun time with family is important. Things which are making you stressed before going on vacations will not be stressors after you are back. You become stressed easily when you work and only work, and do not find time for yourself.
Change your perspective
If being in traffic is stressful for you try to look at it from positive perspective, such as think about it as an opportunity to sight viewing.
Be thankful
Appreciate all the blessings that you have in your life. Realize that you have a healthy body, loving spouse and beautiful home, and you live in a peaceful country. This is what I do when I am stressed.
Smile
Research has shown that when you smile, your brain releases endorphins and serotonin. Endorphins are hormones that relieve pain, and serotonin is a neurotransmitter that is being administered to patients with depression in order to lessen their depressed feelings/ symptoms. It's an anti-depressant. These two biochemical substances play a great role to make you feel better, when you smile!
Thanks for reading :)
I would love to hear your feedback about this post, and to know what strategies do you adopt to fight stress.
With love,
Darlene
Very interesting post about how to manage stress. What I think is the most important is to avoid annoying or toxic people, or exclude them from your life because they drain your energy, and they are never happy even if you sacrifice for them; they never acknowledge what you do for them; these type of people can be easily spotted because of their selfishness.
Now I know, the stress I am experiencing is due to external stressors. :D haha Aside from the tips you've mentioned, I want to add up to "always think positive". Thinking positively will attract positive energy in your life. Thank you for this post @darlene.kitchen :)
@annefernandez
I totally agree. This is key factor to manage stress. Thanks for reading :)
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Such good advice here @darlene.kitchen :)
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That's really awesome and thank you so much :) :)
It encouraged me a lot.
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STOPOne point here I definitely agree with is the "fun time" bit.
I find fun helps me be more productive. I use a system for my productivity where I for example, exercise every day or study every day that I work / study from home or clean the fish tank every second Tuesday but I also have fun scheduled into that system as my productivity is worse when I don't allow this. This last couple of days I have started my day off with a frog sandwich. This was based on seeing the saying "eat your frog first" meaning you do your worst, hardest task of the day first but also knowing that it is sometimes recommended to do the most fun and best task first because it gets you thinking in a positive, productive way that helps later. So I made a sandwich. THe last couple of days I have played a match of Overwatch first thing (I have it in my system to play video games every day that I study or work from home but I always choose something with matches etc instead of something open ended like WOW so it doesn't get overdone and reduce my productivity rather than increase it which is what it currently does), then done my hardest task for the day IMMEDIATELY afterwards so I can tackle my hardest task(normally something to do with study) while I am benefitting from the positive feelings, lack of stress and dopamine hit that came from doing something fun like playing the video game, and then I do something that is not my hardest task but is productive (like editing a lets play). Then the rest of the day is based on doing whatever else is in my system and in the app I use, EpicWin but I always do the minimum that is in my system. So far, both days I have exercised as my next activity straight after video editing. I improved my time management adn productivity when I went from using goals only to having a system, then I improved it again with using EpicWin (which also helped with remembering things as things can be put in to repeat each fortnight etc - like paying rent!) and this frog sandwich seems to be an improvement again. I'm getting more done by midday with this approach and I'm feeling more accomplished and more relaxed and less stressed. Starting with fun, then immediately getting the worst task out of the way really seems to help. I think fun time really cannot be stressed enough. It is important. And obviously some companies think it is important too or places like Google wouldn't have fun things for employees. My productivity has improved by planning when to do my non-productive things, my fun things. I agree with a lot of the points you have made, but the "fun time" one is one that I think is the most important.
Nice reply :)
What I do is to do the easiest, fun tasks first because these are easy to do, so takes less time, and secondly, they give a psychological impression that 'I have done a lot' , and this feeling give energy to do the difficult and boring tasks later.
That makes sense. I do get the impression of doing a lot and how that would help, but I personally think for me if I put off difficult and boring tasks until later it will get hard with all of the worst tasks being at the end, without breathing room of doing something simpler / more enjoyable, and I might be more likely to put it off beyond the length of the day which wouldn't be good.
Thanks for this quality insightful piece of education. @darlene.kitchen
I find self care to be of utmost importance for me. Seems like if I can remember that one thing then everything else is far less stressful. On the other hand if I forget to eat or don;t get enough sleep the smallest thing can be an annoyance.
I kind of like that eat the frog strategy 🐸
Best one there--have fun. Get up in the morning and decide that it's going to be a good day, one you have control over. Can't control everything, but you can control the way you feel about everything. So... I agree, have fun. Insist on it :)