Stress Management Techniques That No One Told You Before

 

Introduction

Suppose suddenly an insect starts hovering around your face. How will you react to this situation? You will become more alert, keep an eye on its movements and look for ways to save yourself from being bitten by it. When we encounter a potentially threatening situation our body releases stress hormones. They prepare our bodies to fight stressful situations or to flee from danger. Stress, therefore, is a part of our body's defense mechanism. Due to these hormones, we get a burst of energy to cope with the situation. Therefore, Stress is our body's way of responding to a demanding or challenging situation from within or externally.

Meaning and Importance of Stress

Stress is defined as a state of mental or emotional strain caused by adverse circumstances. In moderate amounts, stress is beneficial for us. It helps us to stay safe from dangerous situations, meet our daily challenges, accomplish tasks more efficiently, and motivates us to reach our goals. It can even boost our memory. 

However, if stress persists for a long time, it can cause mental tension and many other ill effects on our physical and mental health. People under large amounts of stress can become tired, sick, unable to concentrate or think clearly,  and even suffer mental breakdowns. 

Different Types of Stress are

Survival Stress: We experience it when we are in a potentially hazardous situation and are afraid that someone or something may physically harm us. Our body naturally responds to it with a burst of energy. 

Internal Stress: It is when people make themselves stressed on their own. This often happens when we worry about things we cannot control. The source of the stress lies somewhere in our personality or in our way of thinking.

Environmental Stress: This is a form of stress that is in response to things around us such as noise, crowding, and pressure from work or family identifying these environmental stresses and learning to avoid them or managing and dealing with them will help lower our stress levels. 

Fatigue and Overwork: This kind of stress builds up over a long time and can take a toll on our bodies. It can be caused by working too hard at our job, school, or home; and by not knowing how to manage time. This can be one of the hardest kinds of stress to avoid or manage as people feel it is out.

Stress Management

Stress management includes making changes to our life so that we do not remain in a constantly stressful situation. To manage stress we have to train our minds not to react, but to respond positively to the situation. Benefits of stress management include control of blood pressure, heart disease, digestive troubles, and many other physical ailments. Managing stress also helps to improve our sleep, mental health, concentration, and cognition. It improves the quality of life and productivity.

Stress Management Techniques

1. Find out if you are stressed:  Your body will show you many signs of feeling stressed. For example, if you are feeling depression, anxiety, insomnia, are not happy with yourself, experiencing obesity and eating disorders, and frequent headaches, you are probably stressed.

2. Identify and deal with the causes of stress: Sometimes you will know intuitively what is making you stressed. Other times it may seem like everything is going wrong and you are unable to identify the cause of your stress. Remember that stress is rarely caused by an event in itself. It is more often brought about by doubts about your ability to cope with that event. 

3. Make necessary changes to your lifestyle: Be proactive and make small changes to your lifestyle. This will help you slowly gain control over your life and change how you think about yourself and your situation. Different things work for different people but the important thing is to find out what works best for you and take positive action based on it.

4. Yoga and Breathing Exercises: Yoga and various types of breathing exercises derived from yoga are proven ways of reducing stress levels. For example, diaphragmatic or belly breathing is a breathing technique where every deep breath goes straight to the lungs and fills the body with oxygen. This offer many health benefits like alleviating stress, improving confidence, and creating better blood circulation. 

5. Thinking and Meditation: Meditation is a practice where we use a technique such as mindfulness o focus our mind on a particular object, thought, or activity. This is done to train attention and awareness, and achieve a mentally clear and relaxed state. Practicing meditation is a proven way of reducing stress, anxiety, depression, and pain and achieving peace of mind.

6. Physical Exercise: Exercise and other physical activities produce endorphins, which are chemicals in the brain that act as natural painkillers. They also improve our ability to sleep, which in turn relaxes us and reduces our stress. Meditation, massage therapy, and breathing deeply help our body to produce endorphins to reduce stress levels.

7. Vacationing and Holidays with Friends and Family:  Spending time with friends and family is the best medicine for reducing stress. Studies have found that those with strong social relationships (with family and friends) have a lower risk of stress-related health problems than those who are isolated and without social support. Sharing our worries and concerns with our near and dear ones reduces stress like no medicine can do. This recharges and re-energizes people to go back to their work with newfound vigor and enthusiasm.

8. Taking Nature Walks: Walking like any other exercise releases hormones called endorphins. These help in reducing mental tension and stress levels. Nature walks will improve your mood and mental outlook and can relieve muscle tension and stress-related emotions like anxiety, depression, aggression, etc. and have a soothing effect on our minds and senses.