Stress is a very common phenomenon; we always use it in our day-to-day life. Throughout our lives, we all experience stress of varying intensities. Indeed it is an unavoidable factor in our life. However, chronic, long-term and intense stress is detrimental to our mental health as well as our physical health. That is why managing stress effectively is important for maintaining well-being. This article discusses a couple of techniques for stress management

What is Stress?

Stress is a natural mechanism that helps us respond to external pressure, disruptive event, or situation by releasing stress hormones like cortisol and adrenalin in our body. In simple words, stress is how we react physically, emotionally, and cognitively to the challenges and demands of life events.

What are Stressors?

The stress-inducing events or objects are called stressors. Stressors can be positive or negative. For example, events like a job change, interview, marriage, examinations are considered being positive stressors, whereas loss of a loved one, loss of job or money, and chronic illness are negative in nature. Some Stressors are time-limited, some are ongoing while others are severely traumatic and leave long-term effects. Internal factors can also induce stress. These factors include our thoughts, feelings, and unreasonable expectations. Examples include pressure to be perfect, fear of failure, negative self-talk, and conflicting thoughts. Today, many of our stressors are often chronic, and long-lasting.

Stress is not all bad, it also helps us to strive, achieve and perform better. Positive stress (also known as eustress) motivates you and channelize your energy to help improve your performance. On the other hand, increase and prolonged stress have damaging effects on your physical and mental health and causes substantial issues in a person’s professional and social life. Each one of us responds differently to a similar kind of stressors. Common physical responses to a stressor include increased heart rate, rapid breathing, muscle tension, low energy levels. and high blood pressure. A distorted emotional and cognitive response, trouble concentrating, anger, frustration, etc. can occur. As a result, the person may try to avoid situations and responsibilities, exhibit nervous behaviour (such as fidgeting or nail-biting) or use unhealthy coping strategies such as the use of alcohol or drugs. Such avoidance coping patterns cause more distress.

 4 Techniques for Stress management

There are a number of healthy and effective ways that can reduce life stress and help in dealing with a situation that strains or overwhelms the mind and the body. Following are few techniques to help you with stress management.

Adopt a Healthier Lifestyle:

A healthy lifestyle reduces our vulnerability to stress and increases our stress tolerance level. Exercise, deep breathing, meditation, and practicing relaxation or adding some physical activity are helpful strategies. Furthermore, Healthy eating habits, feeding your body with proper nutrition at regular time intervals, and the appropriate amount of sleep will help you keep strong, fit, and effective in your personal and work life. Maintaining a healthy lifestyle protects you from the negative effects of prolonged stress. Other helpful strategies include time management, developing hobbies, and improving social and communication skills.

Deal with stressors in life:

Problem-solving techniques work best when the stressor is controllable and we can do something to change it or eliminate its effect. Whenever a person is overwhelmed and experiences stress, it is important to introspect and identify the source of stress. Once you know and understand the source or situation, examine which of them are controllable and which are not. As you identify a stressor, the next goal is to change or eliminate it. Brainstorm ideas and come up with different ways to deal with a difficult situation, list them according to their potential effectiveness, seek help from family, friends, and other sources and try to manage time effectively. You can break down a complex problem into simpler elements you can handle more easily.

Learn to respond differently to stressful situations

Map your emotions and distorted thinking patterns and replace them with more positive and reasonable ones. The first step is to identify your negative thoughts. Practicing Mindfulness can and building greater self-awareness will help you in identifying unhealthy emotions and inaccurate thinking patterns. Replacing such cognitive distortions with healthy and accurate thoughts and feelings can be more helpful in dealing with stress aroused by uncontrollable stressors as it does not focus on eliminating stressors, but it aims at changing the way you think, perceive, and feel about the stressor.

Know when to seek help:

Sometimes and in some intense stressful situations, individuals fail to cope up on their own and need support from experts. When stress continues for a long period and you have difficulty managing it, when stress is intense and causes an interruption in your day-to-day functioning and relationships, it is essential to seek clinical help. Ask your GP about a Mental Health Care Plan and referral to a mental health care professionals or psychologist.

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