Understanding and managing stress is key to leading a healthy, productive life in our hectic world. So many people say that they are stressed out without really understanding what that means. When you say that you are stressed out, what is it that you are really saying about yourself? Can we really be stressed beyond our limits or, by learning and utilising specific strategies, can we in fact turn stress around so that it is a motivating force in our lives?
Stress is a person’s response to a demand for change. We experience such demands on a higher or lower level every day of our lives. Faced with these demands, we may try to resist change while also trying to manage the stress associated with it. Not all change, however, is a bad thing just as not all stress is bad for us. Some stress is very useful to us and is even essential in certain circumstances such as learning. Research has shown that learning takes place under conditions of moderate stress. Your aim, therefore, is not to eliminate all the stress you experience but to understand and to manage it so that it remains at an acceptable level.
The best strategies for managing stress are those that are not destructive but which are healthy ways to prevent stress from increasing or to reduce the tension when stress builds beyond a moderate level. Destructive strategies for managing stress include smoking cigarettes, drinking alcohol to excess, taking illegal drugs or misusing prescribed medication. While these strategies bring short-term relief this is at high cost to both mind and body. One of the worst strategies of all is to do nothing about a problem and hope it will go away. It hardly ever does and the stress of not dealing with it is far greater than that of following a constructive course of action.
Healthy, constructive strategies for managing stress include exercise, nutrition, employing relaxation techniques and exploring talking therapies. Simply sharing a problem or stressful situation with a friend or family member has been proven to markedly reduce stress. Other people may prefer to seek professional help or counselling and this, too, has high success rates. Regular exercise when carried out in conjunction with a healthy diet is enormously beneficial when it comes to managing stress and is far more effective than any pharmaceutical solution.
Another excellent idea is to journal on a daily basis or to write out specific problems and possible solutions as they occur. Seeing a problem or a worry on the page helps us both to define and to prioritise it. What may seem urgent or overwhelming to our minds can appear far less threatening on paper. Setting out a plan of action helps us to understand the problem and to manage the stress associated with it. Giving ourselves clearly defined steps to follow automatically empowers us to bring about positive change. With stress, as with so many situations in life, common sense coupled with a proactive, positive strategy produces optimal results.
If you’ve been desperately trying to relieve your stress and you just don’t know what to do, check out Stress Relief Secrets and you may find exactly what you are looking for.
