Stress is your body’s response to a demanding situation. Your brain causes hormones to flood your system. These increase your heart rate, regulate your blood pressure, expand or constrict the capacity of your lungs, and tense your muscles. Before you are fully aware of what is happening, your body is primed for action
Stress is a natural response that enables you to deal with challenging or dangerous situations. The stress response begins in your brain. Beneficial stress enables you to act or react quickly. A certain amount of stress can also help you to reach your goals or to perform better, perhaps during an exam, a job interview, or a sporting event.
However, prolonged, extreme, or chronic stress can harm you. When your body is repeatedly or constantly on “high alert,” you may begin to suffer physically, emotionally, and mentally. Your behavior, including the way you treat others, may change. Chronic stress can also lead to substance abuse and other unhealthy means of coping. It may even spiral into depression, burnout, or thoughts of suicide.
What has caused you stress?
1 Insecurity—financial or otherwise
2. A demanding routine
3. Interpersonal conflicts
4. A traumatic experience
How has stress affected you?
1. Health disorders
2. Emotional exhaustion
3. Sleep problems
4. Depression
5. Deteriorating relationships
Stress activates an amazing system in your body—your emergency response system. Hormones are released to increase your breathing, heart rate, and blood pressure. In addition, reserves of blood cells and glucose flood into your bloodstream. This cascade of reactions prepares you to deal with the stressor, the stimulus causing the stress.
After the stressor has passed, your body may return to normal. But when a stressor remains, it can leave you chronically anxious or tense, like a motor that stays revved up. So learning how to deal with stress is important to both your physical and your mental well-being.
How to Deal With Stress
To deal effectively with stress, you need to think about your physical health, the way you interact with others and your goals and priority in life - that is, what you consider to be truly important. This article will review some practical principles that will help you to deal better with stress or perhaps even reduce it.
1.Try to Live One Day at a Time
Daily anxieties are a part of life. But do not increase today’s anxieties by adding tomorrow’s to them. Try to live one day at a time.
Stress can cause anxiety. So try this: First, recognize that some stress is inevitable. Fretting over things you cannot prevent increases your stress. Second, understand that quite often things do not turn out the way we may fear they will.
2.Set Reasonable Standards
Do not be a perfectionist. Avoid setting unrealistically high standards for yourself or others.
Be modest, set reasonable standards, and know both your limitations and those of others. When you do this, you will reduce stress all around and even encourage greater success. Also, keep a sense of humor. When you laugh—even when something goes wrong—you relieve tension and brighten your mood.
3.Know What Stresses You
Negative emotions can cloud clear thinking, so try to stay calm.
Identify what stresses you, and note your response. For example, when you feel stressed, note your thoughts, feelings, and behavior, perhaps even making a record of them. By becoming more aware of your response to stress, you may be able to deal with it more effectively. Also, think of ways to eliminate stressful things from your life. If that is unrealistic, look for ways to reduce their impact, perhaps by managing your tasks or time more efficiently.
Try to see things in a different light. What stresses you may not stress someone else. The difference may be in viewpoint. Consider these three suggestions:
Do not be quick to assume bad motives. A person may cut ahead of you in a line. If you attribute his act to rudeness, you may become upset. Instead, why not assume that his motive was good? You may be right!
See the positive side of a situation. A long wait at a doctor’s office or an airport is easier to bear if you use the time to do some reading or to catch up on work or e-mail.
Keep the big picture in mind. Ask yourself, ‘Will this problem be a big issue tomorrow or next week?’ Distinguish between minor or short-term issues and more serious ones.
4.Try to Be Orderly
Try to maintain order in your life.
We like a reasonable amount of order in life. One thing that can contribute to disorder—and stress—is procrastination, and this may lead to a growing list of unfinished tasks. Why not try these two suggestions?
Make a practical schedule, and stick to it.
Identify and correct any attitudes that cause you to procrastinate.
5.Pursue a Balanced Lifestyle
Workaholics can deprive themselves of the benefits of their “two handfuls of hard work.” They may have no time or energy left to enjoy what they worked for.
1. Have a realistic view of work and money. More money does not mean more happiness or less stress. In fact, the opposite can be true. So try to live within your means.
2. Make time to relax. You relieve stress when you do things you enjoy. However, passive recreation, such as watching TV, may not help.
3. Keep technology in its place. Avoid constantly checking e-mail, texts, or social media sites. Unless circumstances require it, do not check work-related e-mail outside of working hours.
6.Take Care of Your Health
Regular exercise promotes better health.
1. Develop healthful habits. Physical activity can lift your mood and improve your body’s response to stress. Eat nutritious food, and try to avoid skipping meals. Be sure to get enough rest.
2. Avoid harmful “solutions” to stress, such as smoking or drug and alcohol abuse. In the long run, these heighten stress, perhaps by robbing you of your health and hard-earned money.
3. See your doctor if your stress becomes overwhelming. Getting professional help is not an admission of failure.
7.Set Priorities
Carefully consider your priorities.
1. List your tasks in order of importance. This will help you focus on the more important jobs, and it will reveal which ones you can put off, delegate, or even eliminate.
2. For a week, keep track of how you use your time. Then look for ways to make better use of it. The more you are in control, the less pressured you will feel.
3. Schedule some downtime. Even short breaks can reinvigorate you and reduce your stress.
8.Get Support
Kind, compassionate words from others can lift your spirits.
1. Talk things over with an understanding person. A confidant may help you to see things differently or even to see a solution you overlooked. And just unburdening yourself can make you feel better.
2. Ask for help. Can you delegate a task or share the workload?
3. If a work associate stresses you, look for ways to improve the situation. For example, could you kindly and tactfully tell the person how he or she makes you feel? If such measures fail, can you reduce the time you spend with the person?
Conclusively, “Making certain lifestyle changes is the best start” to relieving stress, says the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in the United States. “Start with eating a well-balanced, healthy diet as well as getting enough sleep and exercise. Also, limit caffeine and alcohol intake and don’t use nicotine, cocaine, or other street drugs.” The NIH also suggests taking breaks from work, spending time with family or friends, learning to make things with your hands, or learning to play a musical instrument.
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