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Note: This article is not intended to be used as a substitution for professional or medical advice. The ideas expressed are researched, but still the opinion of the author alone.
How to Manage Your Stress and Anxiety
In today’s face-paced, everything now world, our stress levels have skyrocketed, and continue to climb. It’s a fact that high levels of stress can and do contribute to a multitude of health problems, leaving us vulnerable to everything from cancer to colds. Backaches, headaches, even muscle strain, can be connected to high stress levels.
Bottom line, we can’t ESCAPE stress, so it’s imperative that we learn how to manage it, and reduce our susceptibility to stress born ailments and illnesses.
EASY STEPS TO MANAGING STRESS AND ANXIETY
EVALUATE AND RATE: Find a quiet spot, take out a paper and pen, and start to catalogue what triggers your anxiety and/or stress. From little to big, jot them down and note how you feel before, during, and after the incident that triggers your stress reactions. Does the neighbor’s barking dog make you grind your teeth? Do calls from your child’s teacher make you nauseous? Is just thinking about balancing the checkbook enough to give you a migraine and nasty temperament?
Once you have them down, take a moment to RATE them in order of importance, and the strength of your reaction/symptoms to the issue being rated.
Use a 1 – 5 rating scale. 1 being of mild, or moderate importance, 5 being “set all rockets to fire” at once!
For example - At the top of the paper list: STRESS/ANXIETY, REACTION/SYMPTOMS, RATING
Picking my Irritation! 3
newspaper out
of the bushes
every morning.
Boss reprimands Humilation 5
me in front of Shame Anger
coworkers. Stomach ache
Rapid heartbeat
Empty milk Irritation! Frown 2
carton left Yell
in refrigerator.
MAKE DECISIONS AND LOOK FOR SOLUTIONS
After writing it all out, arrange the stresses in order of their rating, least to most. Evaluate the stresses that you rated of LEAST importance first. Generally, these are stresses that are more readily solvable. If the empty milk carton drives you nuts, and yelling hasn’t worked, what else is there to do? BRAINSTORM a few ideas. Perhaps a note taped to the carton or the fridge. Maybe place the empty carton in the offender’s room each time it appears. The idea is to get your mind looking for practical SOLUTIONS to issues. This alone redirects that stress and tension into something constructive . . . something that potentially, may remove the issue all together. Feeling as though we’re moving in a direction to eliminating a problem, goes a long way to instantly reducing the stress associated with it.
If none of your ideas work, make an assertive, conscious decision to NOT react NEGATIVELY to this particular stress any longer. Ask yourself: in the big scheme of things, how important is this? Can I let this go, without compromising my principals? If the answer is yes, try letting it go and see what happens. Stressing out over a particular bad habit or irritating nuisance is a fixed response, so it will take time to reprogram your stress reaction to it. Give it enough time for your ingrained response or trigger to lessen.
When you get to the MID RANGE stresses, look them over with a critical eye. Does finding the paper in the bushes really rate a 3 on the stress scale? If so, why? What is it about that paper in the bushes that sets you off? Is it because you’ve already complained and now you consider it a show of defiance? Perhaps it’s because you haven’t called, and are more irritated with yourself for not handling the matter in an appropriate and timely fashion? Understanding WHY you react a certain way can be difficult, but helpful in the long run, especially when realistically, you know something is getting more of a rise out of you than it logically should. 9 times out of 10, there is more going on in these instances, and getting to the bottom of things can solve/lessen the stress for several similar cases.
Dealing with the HIGH RATED stresses takes finesse and hard work. They are usually impossible to ignore, and more complicated to solve, BUT, they can be addressed in the same, matter-of-fact manner as the lower, and mid rated stresses. Again, brainstorming ideas and solutions is an effective tool. Take a moment to judge how you might contribute to a situation. The one behavior you CAN control is your own, and as simple as this sounds, it’s often forgotten or overlooked. You might want to bounce a few of your most promising brainstormed ideas off a trusted friend. Even in situations where we feel stuck, there are often little things we can do to steer or change the course of events in our favor. Sometimes all it takes is creative thinking and the determination to follow through.
PRIORITIZE AND ORGANIZE
Even if you’re reluctant to do the steps above, make it a point to focus on prioritizing your life, and organizing that which you can. Making things work for YOU, instead of you constantly working to keep things in check, is KEY to reducing stress and anxiety. Ask yourself a simple set of questions: Am I over committed? Do I feel there is never enough time in the day? What things am I doing on a regular basis that I’d rather not, and are not ESSENTIAL that I do? What can I eliminate from my daily or weekly routine to reduce stress?
These may sound like simple questions, but as you start to answer them, you may find yourself reluctant to let things go, despite the fact that they don’t serve you in any positive way! That’s natural . . . but it’s important that you realize WHAT exactly is most important to you, and what’s not. Think it over carefully. Then do some trimming. Perhaps carpooling is better for the environment, but is riding every day with the yapper from Hell worth starting your days out on a sour note? Solution? Drive yourself and recycle, or ride a bike to the convenience store. Sometimes you must make ALLOWANCES for your own needs, desires and sanity.
Also, learn to say NO. Again, sounds simple, but it for some it takes practice. The good news is, the more you say it the easier it becomes!
FIND A FUNNY BONE TO TICKLE
Laughter truly IS the best medicine. Having a sense of humor can literally be a lifesaver in regards to dealing with stress. Rent a comedy video. Choose friends who make you laugh. Have a handy book of bathroom “potty” jokes on your desk or in your purse . . . anything to give you a giggle.
TAKE A DEEP BREATH AND MOVE ON
Even once you’ve made that list, worked at eliminating certain stresses, and prioritized your life, you still need a few “instant” tools to deal with stress and anxiety as it crops up. Deep breathing is uncomplicated and very effective. First, if you can, remove yourself from the cause or source of the stress. Once alone, take five deep breaths in through the nose, and let them “fall out” through the mouth, concentrating the entire time only on the breath. This helps slow that adrenaline rush and calm the pinging nerve receptors in the entire body, allowing for calmer thought and action. Do this three times in a row if possible, with normal breathing for a span of twenty seconds in-between. Once you are calmer, and if time allows, jot down the issue. If you can deal with it right then, and you feel calm enough to do so, brainstorm and do some solution finding. If not, save your notes and come back to them later.
There is no perfect solution or magic pill when it comes to managing stress, but there are several tools available for people who want or need to make an effort to get their stress levels under control.
The following are a few more things to keep in mind in regards to reducing stress and identifying triggers:
1.) DIET – Too much caffeine or sugar can negatively affect stress levels.
2.) EXERCISE – Exercise releases endorphins with reduce stress and make you feel good about yourself.
3.) MEDIATE/YOGA – Meditation has proven a reliable method for reducing stress, as has yoga. Yoga also has a physical benefit.
4.) ALCOHOL – Drinking to excess can mask symptoms and problems, leaving a person more vulnerable to serious illness and stress related issues. Same with SMOKING.
5.) SLEEP – Not enough or too much sleep can through off your bodies internal rhythms and exaggerate stress levels.
6.) RELATIONSHIPS – Difficult, sour, or abusive relationships are HIGH on the list of major stress triggers. Working towards healthy relationships is probably the number one thing you can do to help reduce unwanted and potentially life-threatening stress-related side affects.
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