Stress has become an inevitable part of our modern day lives. But stress can have both a mental and physical detrimental effect on our health. Coping with stress is something all of us are called upon to do at some stage of our lives.
What Is Stress?
Stress can be described as the feeling of being overwhelmed, worried, or run-down, Stress has both mental and physical aspects. On the one hand it refers to our psychological perception of pressure being placed on us, and on the other, our body’s response to it, which can negatively effect our health. Stress can affect people of all ages and genders, and can arise in many different circumstances in our everyday lives.
Some stress is often beneficial to our performance, producing a boost that provides us with the drive and energy to get us through situations, such as deadlines at work or exams. However, an excess amount of stress can have an adverse effect on our relationships and our health. When we experience stress, we often find it difficult to think rationally. We become so occupied with our immediate problems, that we are unable to find a way out of the situation we’re facing or to reduce the stress. Excess stress can also cause you to become ill-tempered and unapproachable, and have a deleterious affect on your relationships at home and at work.
Stress Management Basics
Though stress is an issue that affects all people, we can work individually at eliminating it. If you do not take steps to reduce or eliminate stress, it can become the overbearing issue that governs your life. But you can beat stress by heeding the basic rules of stress management. By incorporating these into your daily life, you’ll find that you are better able to cope with stressful situations.
Changing Your Perspective. As they say, it’s all in the mind. Much of the stress is caused by the way you look at the situation. Cutting the situation down to size, realizing that your future does not depend on it, will enable you to take a positive view of your ability to handle it, and conquer the stress you are experiencing.
Not Overexerting Yourself. Taking on ore than you can handle is a sure way of placing stress upon yourself. This is a common cause of stress in the workplace. People set unrealistic deadlines and take on more work than they can manage. You need to negotiate your deadlines and if that’s not possible, spread the workload.
Managing Your Circumstances. Ups and downs happen in everyone’s lives, but people’s reactions to them differ. Some of us take in it our stride, while others experience feel overwhelmed by it. People who learn how to management changing circumstances and their attitude towards such changes are better able to handle the stress that comes with it.
Avoiding Extremes. Extreme situations often cause stress. Having to much work or too little, being too greedy or too generous, having to much self-esteem or too little, can all contribute to your stress. The solution is to avoid the extremes and to place yourself on the middle path.
Avoiding Stressful Situations. Many people find themselves in stressful situations, because they have not learnt to say, no. They land up in stressful situations that they could have avoided. They get into friendships they do not need, they commit to relationships they regret, they take on work they can’t manage. Avoidance is an effective stress management method.
Relaxing. Relaxation techniques, such as breathing exercises, meditation, and yoga, are also effective methods for relieving stress. Learning such techniques and practicing them regularly will enable you not to feel overwhelmed at stressful situations.
Prioritizing. If you have several tasks to do, learn to prioritize. Understand how important and urgent each task is and do them accordingly. This probably the most effective way of managing stress in the workplace.
Changing the Way You React to Situations
Most of us overreact to situations. We seem to have a built-in feedback mechanism in our brains which operate to make things seem worse that they really are. The overreaction can take the form of excessive fear, or even paranoia about something, such as an oncoming examination. Sometimes we can overreact to situations which are actually harmless and can easily be handled in an alternative fashion, for instance when you mess up a meal before your guests arrive. Or when events which do not directly affect you cause you excessive concern, such as when a colleague gets retrenched. Some bring on stress because of an approaching examination. All these are situations that can be easily handled if we remain levelheaded.
It is all about your attitude towards difficult situations. If you see it as problematic, then that is what it will turn out to be. However, people who have learnt to cope with stress view the impediment as an opportunity. They think of the benefits they can gain from successfully traversing the situation, even though it seems intimidating and scary at first. Learn how to look at stressful situations positively and optimistically.
Over-committing Yourself
Stress in the workplace commonly arises as a result of people over-committing themselves, taking on more work than they can realistically do. Or they promise to meet impossible deadlines. Whether it is done due to pressure from superiors, or to appear to be a willing worker or employee, or to be considered for a pay-rise or promotion, it can have negative repercussions on your health, and for the business or operation concerned.
Beside creating a stressful situation for yourself, and for others for that matter, you may end up not being able to complete a task in the allowed time-frame. This will reflect negatively on your credibility and your ability, and could become a source of embarrassment for you. And if you deal with customers or other outside parties, it will also place the business in a negatively light. Even may even lose customers or business as a result. Tight deadlines often cause stressful situations in the workplace, with rising tempers and arguments amongst staff being common symptoms resulting in less productivity.
The way out of this, is to learn how to say no. Being realistic about your capacity and capability, will help you take up only as much as you can handle. This may mean negotiating a lesser workload, or actively suggesting an alternative spread of the workload.
Controlling the Situation
Oftentimes, we let a situation slip out of our hands and allow it to control us. For instance, we delay performing unpleasant tasks to the last minute, which inevitably results in panic and late nights trying to finish it on time. Instead, if you had taken stock of the situation, and planned ahead, you would have been in control of the situation and completed it in a stress-free manner.
We let this happen in every aspect of our lives. Unresolved arguments at home don’t stay there. You inevitably go to work with that baggage on your mind. Problems in your personal life spills over into your professional life. When you let your anger and emotions get the upper hand, you’re letting your circumstances control you. Instead, if you had handled the situation more gracefully and rationally, you would felt in control of the situation and avoided the stress.
Taking the Middle Path
We tend to think in extreme terms. For instance, we may overestimate our abilities, resulting us taking on more than we can handle. Or we underestimate our capacity, resulting in under-perfomance. Either way we allow a stressful situation to develop.
We often consider only the best or worst scenarios, and fail to recognize that there could be a middle-of-the-road scenario. In this way, we’re inviting stress into you lives. Taking the middle path, by adopting a balanced view of any situation, is the optimal way of avoiding extreme stress. An extreme view of a situation, will cause you to shut your mind to alternative possibilities. ON the other hand, a balanced view of the world helps you to recognize all available possibilities.
Avoiding Stressful Situations
The ultimate way of eliminating stress is to avoid stressful situations altogether. This is not always possible or even desirable. However, there are circumstances where it can be appropriate. For instance, when you are on a healthy diet to improve your physical health, indulging in high-calorie or otherwise potentially harmful meals, will leave you short of your health goals, and make you less able to handle stressful situations. Had you kept to your diet, you would have avoided a potential source of stress in your life.
Take for example, the question whether you should take on a very demanding job or managerial position. If you know that you do not have the qualities or experience required for the position, it could be unwise to tackle it, since it will inevitably lead to a great deal of stress in your life, with a concomitant effect on your health. Sometimes, particularly if you’re prone to stress and anxiety, avoidance is the better option to ensure your continued good health and happiness.
Relaxation Techniques
The long-term production of stress hormones in you body, can be harmful to your health. One way to keep the build up of such hormones in check is to follow a healthy diet. There are also several relaxation techniques which are known to reduce stress and contribute to a healthy body and mind.
Yoga. Yoga originated in India, and has become popular across the Western world. It has been shown to decrease the secretion of cortisol, the main stress hormone, and to reduce stress, anxiety, fatigue and depression. There are an abundance of information available on yoga, in the form of online instruction, books on the subject, and you may even find instructors giving yoga classes in your area.
Breathing Exercises. Breathing works because you are channeling a flow of healthy oxygen into your lungs, which is then delivered to the rest of your body via your bloodstream. There are various breathing exercises recommended for stress relief. More information can easily be obtained online or in in literature available in bookstores.
Meditation. There is come evidence that meditation can help in reducing stress. Meditation can be practiced almost anywhere. As with yoga and breathing exercises, there is no shortage of information on meditation practices.
Prioritizing
One of the most effective ways to reducing stress, is to learn to schedule your activities in order of importance or urgency. By prioritizing the more important tasks, you immediately take the pressure off. Stress is often caused by competing priorities, also in finding a balance between the demands of family and work.
Of course, prioritizing often requires you to reach a compromise with the other parties involved, through discussion or negotiation. This is not always possible, and when that is the case, making a decision one way or the other, will in itself probably relieve you of some stress. You will have predetermined that the lesser talk will probably not be delivered on time. Sometimes trade-offs are unavoidable.
Part of Modern Life
Coping with stress is an inevitable part of modern life and takes continuous effort for all of us. But there is no need to become defeatist about it, or for us to capitulate in fear and apprehension. A healthy body and alert mind are better able to ward of the effects of stress, and one should not underestimate the importance of healthy living. But even the fit and healthy will benefit from applying the basic techniques of stress management.
Your perspective on life and achievement matters when it comes to coping with stress. Remember that you can still win the war, even if you lose in the smaller battles that come your way.