Back And See The Wholeness Of The Issue At Hand Not Just The Particulars
Its easy to get caught up in some parts of your stress, but this wont help you change the way you deal with stress. You will keep running into a wall, as you learn that you cant change others or things out of your reach. It is in these moments that you can lend your focus to the positive. See the situation in its entirety, and evaluate what the end result could be and how you can maintain that open, welcoming perspective.
Path To Improved Well Being
Stress can cause health problems or make existing problems worse. Talk to your family doctor if you think your symptoms could be caused by stress. Its important to make sure they arent caused by other health problems.
Learn to recognize when youre feeling stressed. Early warning signs of stress include tension in your shoulders and neck or clenching your hands into fists. Try to avoid the event or situation that leads to your stress. If thats impossible, change how you react to stress.
Common Sources Of Work Stress
Certain factors tend to go hand-in-hand with work-related stress. Some common workplace stressors are:
- Low salaries
- Few opportunities for growth or advancement
- Work that isnt engaging or challenging
- Lack of social support
- Not having enough control over job-related decisions
- Conflicting demands or unclear performance expectations
Also Check: How Does Stress Affect Your Period
Resolve Issues Before They Become Crises
Its human nature to avoid unpleasant topics and circumstances, but if you’re concerned about a brewing situation, whether it’s at work or at home, address it early to keep it from becoming more serious, harder to solve, and more stressful for you. Problems are always easier to handle before they develop into full-blown calamities.
Everyone feels stress it’s impossible to avoid it all the time. But it is possible to keep stress under control by setting realistic expectations of yourself, learning how to keep problems in perspective, and enjoying relaxing breaks from the daily demands of life.
Learn more in the Everyday Health Healthy Living Center.
Healthy Ways To Handle Lifes Stressors
When stress becomes unmanageable, try these evidence-based tools to tackle it in healthy ways.
Healthy ways to handle lifes stressors.
Stressful experiences are a normal part of life, and the is a survival mechanism that primes us to respond to threats. Some stress is positive: Imagine standing in front of a crowd to give a speech and hitting it out of the park. Stressful? Certainly. But also challenging and satisfying.
But when a stressor is negative and cant be fought off or avoided such as layoffs at work or a loved ones medical crisis or when the experience of stress becomes , our biological responses to stress can impair our physical and mental health.
Fortunately, there are many evidence-based tools to help combat the negative effects of stress in healthy ways. They recommend that you:
Don’t Miss: How To Not Stress About Debt
Taking It Out On Others
While nobody can be in a good mood 100 percent of the time, it may be a sign you’re not handling stress well if you’re in the habit of lashing out at others.
“This could be your coworkers, your , or even your who get the brunt of your stress when youâre not in a good emotional space,” licensed marriage and family therapist, Heidi McBain, MA, tells Bustle.
Stress isn’t healthy for you, but it can also be damaging to your relationships. So the sooner you can find ways to manage it, the better.
Keep Your Body Healthy
Another way to increase your ability to resist and cope with stress is by keeping yourself healthy. Put in the good and eliminate the bad. Eat regular, well-balanced meals, and get some endorphins. Research confirms that exercise not only benefits you physically but also mentally. Exercise helps with stress management in the long-run as well as in a moment of stress. Even a quick workout can immediately trigger positive feelings. Getting quality sleep is important as well. On the flip side, there are negative ways to deal with stress. Turning to alcohol, nicotine, drugs, or even binge-eating can seem to be easy ways to de-stress, but they can aggravate your symptoms in the long run. Doctors also suggest reducing caffeine and sugar, as the energy crash they result in can make you more agitated and stressed.
Read Also: How Do I Reduce My Stress
Simple Ways To Relieve Stress And Anxiety
We include products we think are useful for our readers. If you buy through links on this page, we may earn a small commission. Heres our process.
Stress and anxiety are common experiences for most people. In fact, 70% of adults in the United States say they feel stress or anxiety daily.
Here are 16 simple ways to relieve stress and anxiety.
Exercise is one of the most important things you can do to combat stress.
It might seem contradictory, but putting physical stress on your body through exercise can relieve mental stress.
The benefits are strongest when you exercise regularly. People who exercise regularly are less likely to experience anxiety than those who dont exercise .
There are a few reasons behind this:
- Stress hormones: Exercise lowers your bodys stress hormones such as cortisol in the long run. It also helps release endorphins, which are chemicals that improve your mood and act as natural painkillers.
- Sleep: Exercise can also improve your sleep quality, which can be negatively affected by stress and anxiety.
- Confidence: When you exercise regularly, you may feel more competent and confident in your body, which in turn promotes mental wellbeing.
- Try to find an exercise routine or activity you enjoy, such as walking, dancing, rock climbing or yoga.
Activities such as walking or jogging that involve repetitive movements of large muscle groups can be particularly stress relieving.
Try To Find Humor In The Situation
Stress isnât funny, but some situations that cause stress can be seen as humorous if you make the effort.
A good laugh is a good thing. Research has shown that laughter reduces stress and has other positive benefits. Not only does it relieve the stress response, but it brings more oxygen into your body, activates your body, and soothes tension.
Being angry or worrying, on the other hand, is extremely unhealthy, harming your heart, your immune system, and even increasing your risk for stroke.
Finding humor in a situation means:
- You never laugh AT a person. No one person is the target of the humor.
- You laugh about the ridiculousness of the situation.
- You compare a situation to a funny metaphor.
- You laugh about a similar situation in the past and try to show the current situation as a temporary problem.
Youâve probably been in that moment where it feels as if a situation could get very ugly very easily, and then someone cracks a joke and the tension seems to immediately leave. Thatâs what youâre aiming for.
Don’t Miss: Can Stress Cause Crohn’s Flare Up
When To See Your Gp About Your Stress Levels
If you’ve tried self-help techniques and they aren’t working, you should go to see your GP. They may suggest other coping techniques for you to try or recommend some form of counselling or cognitive behavioural therapy.
If your stress is causing serious health problems, such as high blood pressure, you may need to take medication or further tests.
Mental health issues, including stress, anxiety and depression, are the reason for one-in-five visits to a GP.
The Power Of Forgiveness
The insight of a man certainly slows down his anger, and it is beauty on his part to overlook an offense.PROVERBS 19:11.
In the Journal of Health Psychology, Loren Toussaint states that stress degrades and forgiveness protects health. He adds: Forgiveness is the release of negativeand the potential enhancement of positivefeelings, emotions, and behaviors toward an offender. He thus concludes that a forgiving spirit may help minimize stress-related disorders.
You May Like: How To Treat Hair Loss Due To Stress
Know The Difference Between Good Stress And Bad Stress
Not all stress is bad, and not all stress can be avoided.
Good stress motivates you. Deadlines, tests, or being asked to speak in front of other people â these are all situations that create stress, but they are also what motivates us. Good stress tends to be short-term and can even enhance or improve brain function. When the pressure is on, the brain sharpens up.
Bad stress, however, is chronic. It harms your health, slows you down, and can even start to inhibit thinking.
Essentially, stress uses your fight-or-flight response. Good stress gives you time to recover from that response, but bad stress locks you into it and wears you down. Itâs important to know the difference between good and bad stress so you know which is the problem and which is actually helping you.
Accept The Things You Can’t Change
Changing a difficult situation isn’t always possible. Try to concentrate on the things you do have control over.
“If your company is going under and is making redundancies, for example, there’s nothing you can do about it,” says Professor Cooper.
“In a situation like that, you need to focus on the things that you can control, such as looking for a new job.”
You May Like: Can I Sue My Job For Stress
What Are The Behavioural And Emotional Effects Of Stress
When you are stressed you may experience many different feelings, including anxiety, irritability or low self-esteem, which can lead to becoming withdrawn, indecisive and tearful.13
You may experience periods of constant worry, racing thoughts, or repeatedly go over the same things in your head. You may experience changes in your behaviour. You may lose your temper more easily, act irrationally or become more verbally or physically aggressive.14 These feelings can feed on each other and produce physical symptoms, which can make you feel even worse. For example, extreme anxiety can make you feel so unwell, that you then worry you have a serious physical condition.
Not Sure What To Do Next
If you or someone you know are finding it difficult to manage mental health issues, try healthdirects Symptom Checker and get advice on when to seek professional help.
The Symptom Checker guides you to the next appropriate healthcare steps, whether its self care, talking to a health professional, going to a hospital or calling triple zero .
Recommended Reading: How Does Exercise Help With Stress
Get Enough Sleepbut Not Too Much
The thought of hiding away under the covers sounds pretty great when there’s so much to deal with beyond your bedroom door, but sleeping too much isn’t the answer. Research shows that the more you sleep, the more tired you actually feel. Plus, studies that have shown an association between chronic oversleeping and diabetes, heart disease, weight gain, and even higher rates of death . Adding health problems to your already heavy load is only going to exacerbate your stress levels. That said, too little sleep can make stress worse, too. “When you are tired and depleted, things look worse and less manageable than when you’re rested,” Smith says. The sweet spot to aim for, per the National Sleep Foundation, is between seven to nine hours of shut-eye a night.
Energy Investment & Stress
This Psychology Today article talks about the research of Jennifer Grimes, a graduate student at the University of Central Florida, who has been looking more deeply at the introvert/extrovert scale introduced by Carl Jung.
Introverts are more likely to seek a deeper connection when in conversation, whereas extroverts get a boost by interacting in the first place. Grimes poses that either way, we feel more drained when we dont get the interaction we hoped for. Extroverts may feel down after trying to chat with a more withdrawn person just as much as the introvert would with someone who wont go beneath surface conversation.
Extroverts have a more active dopamine reward system than do introverts. Introverts seek meaning, not necessarily something tangibly rewarding like a raise or a trophy. Thats not to say introverts dont want to get promotions and win baseball games, but generally, they would feel more satisfied by contributing to a greater good or establishing a strong bond with someone.
When youre contemplating what it is thats stressing you out in the first place, look to this theory for help. What are your expectations in any of those stressful moments and can you turn them around to benefit your mental health and the people around you? Knowing this going in can help you get in front of any worries or dread you hold onto and ensures you achieve exactly what you want by being there.
Recommended Reading: What To Do When Your Dog Is Stressed
Form Positive Relationships As Much As You Can
Some people start a job with a chip on their shoulder, and seem to set out to make everyone there miserable. Whether youâre starting a new job, or make it a goal for new employees who start where you work, build a better foundation than that.
Not everyone is outgoing or makes friendships easily. And no one is asking you to make your co-workers your best friends. But you can set out to be positive towards others, avoiding negativity as much as is in your control.
- Be a good listener.
- Be sincere but generous in complimenting someone elseâs work.
- Help someone who needs it.
- Be willing to teach or mentor someone with less experience than you.
- Avoid gossiping or speaking negatively about anyone else on the job.
- If conflict or problems have to be addressed, use positive language and avoid accusations or painting someone in a negative light.
Breathing And Relaxation Exercises
Many people find exercises that focus on breathing and muscle relaxation to be helpful in relieving stress. The playlist below will help you to understand how stress works and start feeling better. These exercises can be done anywhere and are designed to help you feel more relaxed in general, as well as helping you feel calmer if you are becoming stressed.
This playlist is free to download, and you can also stream it using the Soundcloud website or app. You can download and listen to individual tracks if there are particular exercises that work best for you. If you’re listening to it for the first time, it’s best to start from the beginning.
To access a BSL version of this playlist, .
Find out more by checking out these 10 stress busters.
Don’t Miss: How Can You Cope With Stress
Avoid Irregular Work Schedules As Much As Possible
Salaried workers donât have to deal with varying work schedules, but hourly employees do. And itâs a huge stressor. Almost 30% of workers with irregular schedules report having serious work and family conflicts over the issue.
Random shift changes, on-call work schedules can all lead to stress, because workers are constantly in limbo when it comes to balance between work and life. They never know when theyâll need to work with much advance, and itâs difficult for them to make personal plans or even decompress when they could be called to work at any moment.
Try to create schedules that your employees can âbankâ on. Make sudden changes as rare as possible. Make it possible for your employees to rely on a steady schedule enough that they can arrange a solid personal life around their work schedule. This will help them return to work refreshed.
Be More Realistic About Your Capabilities
It is helpful to remember that most people underestimate how long it will take to do something, and overestimate how much they can do. This means that they end up taking on too much, and then failing to deliver.
Develop the simple habit of doubling your time estimates for any task.
You are then far more likely to under-promise and over-deliver. This will make everyoneincluding youmuch happier than the other way round .
You May Like: How To Lose Weight While Under Stress
The Remedy: Learn To Say No
Wisdom is with the modest ones, says the Bible. Modesty, or accepting your limitations, empowers you to say no when the load will be too heavy for you to carry.
Of course, saying no isnt always an optionfor example, when your parents remind you about your chores! But if you let everyone add to your load, youll eventually give out. Even the biggest trucks have a load limit.
Tip: If its hard for you to turn down someone outright, try saying, Let me get back to you. Then, before giving a definite reply, ask yourself, Can I really afford to invest the time and energy needed for this activity?
Stay Away From Conflict
Interpersonal conflict takes a toll on your physical and emotional health. Conflict among co-workers can be difficult to escape, so its a good idea to avoid conflict at work as much as you can.
Dont gossip, dont share too many of your personal opinions about religion and politics, and steer clear of “colorful” office humor.
When possible, try to avoid people who dont work well with others. If conflict finds you anyway, make sure you know how to handle it appropriately.
Also Check: Can Stress Cause Epileptic Seizures
