![]() |
||
|
Since stress is unavoidable in life, it is important to find ways to decrease and prevent stressful incidents and decrease negative reactions to stress.
Here are some of the things that can be done by just remembering it, since life is basically a routine to follow like brushing your teeth or eating breakfast.
You can do a few of them in a longer span of time, but as they say– every minute counts.
Managing time
Time management skills can allow you more time with your family and friends and possibly increase your performance and productivity. This will help reduce your stress.
Save time by focusing and concentrating, delegating, and scheduling time for yourself.
Keep a record of how you spend your time, including work, family, and leisure time.
Prioritize your time by rating tasks by importance and urgency. Redirect your time to those activities that are important and meaningful to you.
Manage your commitments by not over- or under-committing. Don’t commit to what is not important to you.
Deal with procrastination by using a day planner, breaking large projects into smaller ones, and setting short-term deadlines.
Examine your beliefs to reduce conflict between what you believe and what your life is like.
Build healthy coping strategies
It is important that you identify your coping strategies. One way to do this is by recording the stressful event, your reaction, and how you cope in a stress journal. With this information, you can work to change unhealthy coping strategies into healthy ones-those that help you focus on the positive and what you can change or control in your life.
Lifestyle
Some behaviors and lifestyle choices affect your stress level. They may not cause stress directly, but they can interfere with the ways your body seeks relief from stress. Try to:
Balance personal, work, and family needs and obligations.
Have a sense of purpose in life.
Get enough sleep, since your body recovers from the stresses of the day while you are sleeping.
Eat a balanced diet for a nutritional defense against stress.
Get moderate exercise throughout the week.
Limit your consumption of alcohol.
Don’t smoke.
Social support
Social support is a major factor in how we experience stress. Social support is the positive support you receive from family, friends, and the community. It is the knowledge that you are cared for, loved, esteemed, and valued. More and more research indicates a strong relationship between social support and better mental and physical health.
Changing thinking
When an event triggers negative thoughts, you may experience fear, insecurity, anxiety, depression, rage, guilt, and a sense of worthlessness or powerlessness. These emotions trigger the body’s stress, just as an actual threat does. Dealing with your negative thoughts and how you see things can help reduce stress.
.Learn how important it can be to your mental health to just occasionally Take the Day Off from work and just play for the day, doing relaxing hobby and recreational activities.
Thought-stopping helps you stop a negative thought to help eliminate stress.
Disproving irrational thoughts helps you to avoid exaggerating the negative thought, anticipating the worst, and interpreting an event incorrectly.
Problem solving helps you identify all aspects of a stressful event and find ways to deal with it.
Changing your communication style helps you communicate in a way that makes your views known without making others feel put down, hostile, or intimidated. This reduces the stress that comes from poor communication. Use the assertiveness ladder to improve your communication style.
. Learn to meditate or use other tools to help you relax your thinking so that you can be more easy-going in your approach to daily life and problem solving.
“Have One Week, Will Relax” Your 7 days program to Stress management
They say there’s more than one way to skin a cat. The same goes when you start tearing your hair out with all the frustration, grief, anxiety, and yes, stress. It’s a state of mental conditioning that is like taking that bitter pill down your throat, causing you to lose your sense of self, and worse your sanity. Just thinking about it can drive anyone off the edge.
And they say that the proactive ones are already living off the edge.
As one stressed-out person to another, I know how it feels, and believe me there are many variants when it comes to stress. Coping with life, and carrying the problems that may or may not belong to you can scratch away the little joy and happiness that you can carry once you head out that door.
You can’t blame them for being like that; they have their own reasons, so much like we have our reasons to allow stress to weigh us down. They say that stress is all in the mind, well, what’s bugging you anyway?
There are several ways to manage stress, and eventually remove it out of your life one of these days. So I’ll try to divide it into a seven-day course for you and I promise it’s not going to be too taxing on the body, as well as on the mind.
1. Acknowledge stress is good
Make stress your friend! Based on the body’s natural “fight or flight” response, that burst of energy will enhance your performance at the right moment. I’ve yet to see a top sportsman totally relaxed before a big competition. Use stress wisely to push yourself that little bit harder when it counts most.
2. Avoid stress sneezers
Stressed people sneeze stress germs indiscriminately and before you know it, you are infected too!
Protect yourself by recognizing stress in others and limiting your contact with them. Or if you’ve got the inclination, play stress doctor and teach them how to better manage themselves.
3. Learn from the best
When people around are losing their head, who keeps calm? What are they doing differently? What is their attitude? What language do they use? Are they trained and experienced?
Figure it out from afar or sit them down for a chat. Learn from the best stress managers and copy what they do.
4. Practice socially acceptable heavy breathing
This is something I’ve learned from a gym instructor: You can trick your body into relaxing by using heavy breathing. Breathe in slowly for a count of 7 then breathe out for a count of 11. Repeat the 7-11 breathing until your heart rate slows down, your sweaty palms dry off and things start to feel more normal.
5. Give stressful thoughts the red light
It is possible to tangle yourself up in a stress knot all by yourself. “If this happens, then that might happen and then we’re all up the creek!” Most of these things never happen, so why waste all that energy worrying needlessly?
Give stress thought-trains the red light and stop them in their tracks. Okay so it might go wrong – how likely is that, and what can you do to prevent it?
6. Know your trigger points and hot spots
Presentations, interviews, meetings, giving difficult feedback, tight deadlines . My heart rate is cranking up just writing these down!
Make your own list of stress trigger points or hot spots. Be specific. Is it only presentations to a certain audience that get you worked up? Does one project cause more stress than another? Did you drink too much coffee?
Knowing what causes you stress is powerful information, as you can take action to make it less stressful. Do you need to learn some new skills? Do you need extra resources? Do you need to switch to decaf?
7. Burn the candle at one end Lack of sleep, poor diet and no exercise wreaks havoc on our body and mind. Kind of obvious, but worth mentioning as it’s often ignored as a stress management technique. Listen to your mother and don’t burn the candle at both ends!
When Your Coworkers Stress You OutWhat can you do when a coworker stresses you out? It can be tough to have to do your job and have to deal with a coworker that gives you a difficult time. As a result, here are some suggestions on how to deal with your coworkers.
Wait and see what happens. Sometimes, people have a stressful week and they might take it out on others. Instead of getting upset, wait and see if this person will stop causing problems. In the meantime, be patient and be kind to the other person. Give it a week or two of Stress management to see what happens.
Talk to the person who is giving you a hard time. Explain to the person what the problem is and ask him or her for some suggestions on solving the problem. Sometimes, your coworker might not realize what they are doing. Ask them nicely if they can stop whatever it is they are doing to you.
Talk to the boss if you have to. If the coworker continues to give you problems, then talk to your supervisor about the situation. Sometimes, the supervisor might have to step in and do something. You do not want to get into the habit of complaining to your boss so chose your battles carefully.
Be flexible. There will always be somebody at work that will give you a hard time. It could be a bad boss, lazy coworkers, or people that you just do not like. Learn to work with one another and do not complain about every little thing. Learn to go with the flow.
Dealing with difficult coworkers can be stressful and is something that most people have to deal with at their jobs. If you have to, you can always talk to your Human Resources Department to see what they suggest you do. In summary, do not let your coworkers get to you.
About The Author: Stan Popovich is the author of “A Layman’s Guide to Managing Fear an easy to read book that presents a overview of techniques that are effective in managing persistent fears and anxieties. For additional information go to: http://www.managingfear.com
Back to Top of free self help books and personal development articles page Back to self help books and articles Home Page ===============================================================
Self help books for Stress management happiness & personal development resources, free self help ebooks and Stress management self help articles listed for your convenient self help books for happiness personal development search in the free self help books and articles subjects of self image, self help relationships tips, self help ebook download resources for happiness, being happy self help emotion management, panic attack self help, self help for low self esteem, Stress management self help famous quotes, anxiety self help resources, Stress management happiness quotations, motivational self improvement, stress management self help books, motivational articles, Stress management tips and depression self help books, Stress management articles and resources. |