Learn To Recognise The Signs That You Are Becoming Stressed
There are a wide range of possible signs and symptoms that may be associated with stress. These include headaches, stomach upsets and indigestion, and sleep problems. Many people also find they become very emotional and have trouble regulating their emotions.
Unfortunately, most of these signs are fairly non-specific: that is, they may be associated with many different illnesses and conditions. It can therefore be hard to identify when your symptoms are the result of stress. You should always consult a doctor if these symptoms last any length of time.
It is a good idea to learn to recognise the signs that you are becoming stressed, so that you can take action early on.
There is more about this in our page on What is Stress?
Set Reasonable Expectations In Your Daily Life
Being busy is sometimes inevitable, but regularly taking on more than you can manage can cause unwanted and unwelcome stress. Tell yourself that it’s okay to say no to activities at your child’s school or to extra projects at work you are not obligated to accept every request made of you. Additionally, don’t take on more financial responsibilities such as a new car or a bigger house if you think they’ll be a stretch. Being realistic about your finances is an important strategy for managing stress.
Finding The Sweet Spot
It goes without saying that chronic stress affects a student-athletes performance. This is true not only on the court, but in the classroom, with their friends, and in their interactions with family, too. If you have a stressed-out teenager at home, you already know they arent real pleasant to be around at times !
For an athlete, the optimal place to be is just enough stress to play at the top of their game, but not too much that it overcomes their thoughts and emotions or interferes with a healthy, normal life.
There is a sweet spot between normal stress
Just enough stress helps me play well Im competitive and I know that how I do in this game/practice matters
Too much stress
I feel overwhelmed with this crazy schedule and the expectations everyone has of me
I cant focus in class or on the court
This isnt even fun anymore I should just give up.
Read Also: What Helps With Stress And Depression
Identify Your Personal Stress Triggers
We all have particular situations or people that make us more stressed. Some of these are easily identifiable and may be avoidable. However, sometimes stress may build up over time, and result from a pattern of incidents or events, rather than a single trigger.
It may therefore be helpful to use a tool like our quiz Whats Stressing You Out? or keep a stress diary for a few weeks to help you identify what makes you stressed.
This will make it easier to take action to address your stress levels.
Learn To Identify Signs Of Stress
You might not even know youâre feeling stressed. Sounds strange, but itâs possible. Even if you donât know the true level of stress youâre feeling, your body does. The damage that stress does happens whether you are aware itâs bad or not.
There are several signs that stress might be affecting you:
- Feeling anxious, grumpy, or depressed.
- Feeling apathy or disinterest in your job.
- Feeling overwhelming dread about your job.
- Difficulty getting a good nightâs sleep.
- General fatigue and tiredness.
- Socially withdrawing from others .
- Using alcohol, drugs, or other destructive coping mechanisms.
If you see a pattern like this list in your life, you need to take action.
Read Also: How Can Exercise Help With Stress
Helpful Organisations For Money Worries
It is important if you are worried about your finances and debts that you do not try to deal with them alone. There is a lot of help and support available to you through organisations such as Step Change and Citizens Advice.
You should also talk to your GP or a trusted health professional if you are worried about how debt is affecting your mental and physical health.
Look After Yourself Physically
When you are physically fit and well, it is much easier to cope with stress.
When you become stressed, it is harder to motivate yourself to care about what you eat, or whether you exercise. However, not doing so can also make you more stressed. Get into good habits while your stress levels are fairly low, and you may find that they never go up again. These good habits include:
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Taking regular exercise
Stressful situations increase the level of stress hormones such as adrenaline and cortisol in your body.
These are the fight or flight hormones that evolution has hard-wired into our brains and which are designed to protect us from immediate bodily harm when we are under threat. However, stress in the modern age is rarely remedied by a fight or flight response. Physical exercise can be used as a surrogate to metabolise the excessive stress hormones and restore your body and mind to a calmer, more relaxed state.
Try to incorporate some physical activity into your daily routine on a regular basis, either before or after work, or at lunchtime. Regular physical activity will also improve the quality of your sleep.
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There is more about this in our pages What is Sleep? and How to Sleep – The Importance of Sleep.
You can assess your levels of daytime sleepiness with the Epworth Sleepiness Scale.
Also Check: What Nutritional Supplement Is Recommended For Stress Management
Helpful Ways To Deal With Stress At Work
40% of workers reported their job was very or extremely stressful. Thatâs a problem.
Regardless of what kind of work you do, the reality is that workplace stress is detrimental for employers and employees. Read on to find the causes of job stress, why itâs so harmful, and helpful tips to cope with workplace stress.
Address Physical Issues That Are Adding To Stress
As noted earlier, stress has an impact on your physical health, and vice versa.
Basically, all of the things you hear about staying healthy? They help reduce your stress, too.
Read Also: How To Cure Stress Incontinence Naturally
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.
Managing Stress In Daily Life
Stress is not an illness itself, but it can cause serious illness if it isn’t addressed. It’s important to recognise the symptoms of stress early. Recognising the signs and symptoms of stress will help you figure out ways of coping and save you from adopting unhealthy coping methods, such as drinking or smoking.
There is little you can do to prevent stress, but there are many things you can do to manage stress more effectively, such as learning how to relax, taking regular exercise and adopting good time-management techniques.
Studies have found that mindfulness courses, where participants are taught simple meditations across a series of weeks, can also help to reduce stress and improve mood.
Also Check: Can Meditation Help With Stress
Good Stress Bad Stress
Stress is not all bad. Believe it or not, it can actually be good for us.
If youve ever trained for a race, learned a skill, or started a new workout program, you know that pushing your body and mind past your comfort zone is a skill that can take months to master. Its tough, and a little uncomfortable, but not completely unbearable. For the most part, knowing that our training gets us closer to our goal helps our internal motivation and we press on.
This is good stress.
For your student-athlete, the slight stress they feel before a game might be good stress. Showing up for a tryout is an example of good stress. Competing for a spot on a roster? Getting reasonably good grades? Also good stress.
The good stress that our kids go through the kind that pushes them to be more alert, to focus on their goals, get stronger, build confidence, and ultimately achieve the outcome they want is healthy.
But
When there are too many stressors at once, or the stress becomes too long-lasting, thats when our good stress can cross over into overwhelm.
Thats the bad stress that we dont want.
The key is recognizing when the overwhelm feels like its creeping in, and managing it in healthy ways so we never feel like were out of control.
Back And Put The Problem In Perspective
Maybe you’re disappointed that you didn’t get a promotion you were up for or concerned that money is a little tight this month because of an unexpected medical bill. Feeling stressed is a natural reaction. But try to take a step back and ask yourself: Will this issue still matter in a year? In five years? If the answer is no, take a deep breath and try to move forward. Keeping things in perspective is crucial to managing stress.
Recommended Reading: Can Stress And Anxiety Cause Afib
How Can We Handle Stress In Healthy Ways
Stress serves an important purposeit enables us to respond quickly to threats and avoid danger. However, lengthy exposure to stress may lead to mental health difficulties or increased physical health problems. A large body of research suggests that increased stress levels interfere with your ability to deal with physical illness. While no one can avoid all stress, you can work to handle it in healthy ways that increase your potential to recover.
There are several other methods you can use to relax or reduce stress, including:
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.
Recommended Reading: How To Stop Stressing So Much
Healthy Ways To Cope With Stress
Feeling emotional and nervous or having trouble sleeping and eating can all be normal reactions to stress. Here are some healthy ways you can deal with stress:
- Take breaks from watching, reading, or listening to news stories, including those on social media. Its good to be informed but hearing about the traumatic event constantly can be upsetting. Consider limiting news to just a couple of times a day and disconnecting from phone, tv, and computer screens for a while.
- Take care of yourself. Eat healthy, exercise, get plenty of sleep, and give yourself a break if you feel stressed out.
- Take care of your body.
- Take deep breaths, stretch, or meditateexternal icon.
- Avoid excessive alcohol, tobacco, and substance use.
- Continue with routine preventive measures as recommended by your healthcare provider.
- Get vaccinated against COVID-19 as soon as possible get a booster shot if you are age 18 or older.
Tips To Manage Stress
We all have stress at work, at home and on the road. Sometimes we can feel especially stressed because of a bad interaction with someone, too much work or everyday hassles like getting stuck in traffic.
Chronic stress can keep you from feeling and performing your best mentally, physically and emotionally. But no ones life is completely stress-free. Its important to know how to manage the stress in your life. These three simple techniques will help you deal with stress.
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Highly Effective Tips For Relieving Stress
There isn’t a one-size-fits-all option when it comes to stress relief, however. What works for one person might not work for another.
And what works for you at home might not be an option when you’re at work or in the community .
So it’s important to have a variety of stress relief tools at your disposal. Then, you’ll be able to pick a strategy that works best for your current circumstances.
Competitive Sports & Life Lessons
In this post Ill share some solid strategies to help our student-athletes manage stress, so they can avoid burnout and keep their mental wellness healthy and strong.
As volleyball parents, we know a little something about student-athlete stress. But we also know the value of competitive sports. Athletics teaches our kids important life lessons about teamwork and resilience. It encourages goal setting, instills work ethic, builds self-esteem, and helps funnel their natural energy into an active, healthy lifestyle. But what happens when the fun-loving, competitive spirit is overcome by anxiety? Are our student-athletes equipped to manage stress in healthy ways?
According to the National Institute for Mental Health, an estimated 32% of all adolescents in the U.S. have some form of anxiety. For the student-athlete who is overwhelmed its important to learn ways to help recognize, manage, and reduce stress.
But first, if youre new to my blog, WELCOME to Student Athlete Connections! The SAC blog is filled with resources to help you navigate your way through recruiting journey, which in itself can cause a LOT of stress! I hope you stay a while and find something helpful!
Also Check: Does Stress Cause High Blood Pressure
Best Answers To How Do You Handle Stress
1. I work well under pressure, and do my best to complete tasks on time even in stressful situations. When I find myself under a lot of pressure because of a deadline, I make a specific schedule for myself to help me get my work done, and having specific times for each task helps me manage it.
The interviewer wants to know how stress will affect your work, and if youre able to still work hard under pressure. Deadlines are a reality at every job, so sharing a specific way that you handle the stress of deadlines is a great way to answer this question. When youre sharing a specific example, its also important that the stress wasnt caused by you. Its okay to say you were under pressure because of a deadline, but dont say you were stressed because you missed the deadline.
2. When Im in a stressful situation, I try to focus on what I need to fix, instead of how Im feeling. If Im feeling stressed because of an issue with a client, I try to focus on what I can do specifically to fix the situation instead of thinking about how stressed I am.
Stress can be overwhelming for many employees, and some let it get the best of them. When an employer asks you how you handle stress, they want to make sure that youre not going to give in to your emotions when youre in a stressful situation. This answer works because it shows that you choose to focus on the task at hand instead of getting angry or overwhelmed.
