Why is everybody so stressed? What causes it? Do you think you also feel lots of stress and want to find a way out? Stress is your body’s way of responding to a situation and causes mental or emotional strain or tension to you. When you feel stress, your body reacts to it by secreting hormones known as adrenaline and cortisol through the body. Little bit of stress is known as acute stress and it considered good as it keeps you active and alert, but too much stress known as chronic stress can have detrimental effects on your physical and mental well being. It can develop chronic disease in you.
Before discuss on how to manage stress, let’s check causes.
What Causes Stress?
There are various reasons that can cause stress. Identifying the source of stress can be helping you manage it. Stress can affect your body as well as your mind. People with too much stress can become tired, sick, fail to concentrate or think clearly. Sometimes, it can ever lead to mental breakdowns.
Some of the common sources of stress are:
Survival Stress:
This is caused when you are afraid that somebody or someone might physically hurt you. Your body will respond to it through burst of hormones to cope up with the situation.
Internal Stress:
This is the stress we can say people make themselves. Situations do arise in life about which you may feel stressed. But the situations are such that you can’t do much about or can’t control it.
Environmental Stress:
This is the stress caused by things around you such as noise, work pressure, family problem, outside noise etc.
Fatigue and Overwork:
It can be caused by too much work at your job. It can build up over time and can take toll on your body. You might find it hard to deal with this type of stress.
Now, let’s check ways to manage stress.
Stress Management
You might feel that you can’t do anything about stress and it is an integral part of your life. But it is not so, you can have much control over stress than you might think. You have to learn to stress management. It is all about taking control of thoughts, emotions, lifestyle, and the way you deal with the situation. Through proper efforts on stress management, you can reduce stress and gain control over life. There are several techniques to control stress. What technique will work for depends on your situation; it can vary for individuals too. You can try some of them and fight what is better for you. Focus on what relieves you and practice it consistently. Some of the techniques are discussed below.
Manage Stress with Regular Exercise
You make exercise a part of your daily life. You can take exercise such as aerobics, running, swimming, tai chi, cycling, dancing etc. You can learn some relaxing exercise. Choose exercises that you can enjoy and your physical conditions support it. Adding some rhythmic breathing techniques can work wonder. Exercise releases endorphins that make you feel good and elevate your mood and serves as a valuable distraction to your worries.
Do it regularly and try to stick some time schedule. To get maximum benefits, you should exercise for 30 minutes or more. It will not only relieve from negative thoughts but overwhelming stress also.
Avoid Unnecessary Stress
When you have some predictable stress, you can avoid them to some extent. Suppose you commute to work, meet with a boss and it is causing stress, you can either change the situation or change your reaction to stressmanagement.
You can follow the strategy of avoid, alert, adapt and accept. In your personal life or professional life, if you know that you can’t take more than what you can handle, you learn to say “no”. If some person is causing stress to you, you can stay away from the person or end the relationship. If some environmental factors cause stress, keep yourself away from it. Accept the situation you can’t change. Don’t try to control uncontrollable. Set some time for relaxation.
Do Meditation
Meditation is the best choice to reduce stress. It is a breathing technique and you have to breathe naturally focusing on your inhalation and exhalation. If meditation is done in a right way over a long period of time, you will find yourself stress free, calm and at peace. You can handle any situation well. Practice of meditation controls your thoughts and you see yourself transformed to more positive state of mind. Meditation offers you lots of physical as well as mental benefits.
Beginners find it hard to meditate. You can learn the basics under some guidance and start with 2-3 minutes meditation. To start with, you can use a dim light or a candle that can help you concentrate. You can lengthen the practice slowly.
Adopt a Healthy Lifestyle
Healthy lifestyle is a need of the time. It helps you cope with time. It can include:
Eat a healthy diet:
Body needs nutrition and balancing of all the vital minerals and vitamins. Well nourished bodies can cope up stress better. Take healthy breakfast in the morning, it will keep your energy up. Take healthy food at regular intervals.
Reduce Sugar and Caffeine:
High amount of caffeine and sugar can lead to depleted energy level and low mood. You should take less amount of food such as chocolate, soft drinks, coffee, tea etc. You also should try to eliminate sugar from your diet. It will make you feel relaxed and you will have better slip.
No to Alcohol, cigarettes and drugs:
Many take alcohol, drugs or cigarettes as an escape to stress. You might find temporary relief but in a long run it can play havoc on you. You must have to stay away from all these.
Enough sleep:
You make sure you take enough sleep. You must take at least 7 hours sound sleep.
To conclude, you must have realized that stress can be managed with right technique and attitude towards life and you can live happy, stress free life!
More Related Queries:
- how to manage stress – activities/ strategies/ skills/ techniques
- stress management worksheets