Practical Ways to Manage Stress

Stress has become the most important root cause of diseases in our times. It harms our health, triggers diseases and makes life miserable in myriad ways. Stress in moderate doses is indispensable in our life, but too much of it is dangerous. Stress needs to be managed and put under control by learning what it is, what its symptoms are and what changes in behavior are required, to deal with it.

In our ancestral life, stress that stimulates over flow of hormones in blood stream worked as an indispensable biological mechanism to enable our ancestors to flee from predators, to fight with enemies and to cope up with the hostile environment. This legacy has transformed us into super responders to every stressful life situation around us without ourselves caring much in managing the way we react to the ever growing stress stimulants of the modern technological world.

Now we live in a fast paced, problem filled, complex life situation where a lot of stress stimulants erupt in succession in a manner we cannot deal with them easily. In the childhood years, almost all children are being trained to be over respondents to every stress sources. They have not been properly taught what to be ignored and what to be responded to, at all.

Stress is not a direct causative of disease, but it decreases immunity, build up disease proneness and bring about illness indirectly. Concentrating on stress management alone can reduce a wide range of stress induced illness from headache to ulcer to hyper tension.

The first practical step to manage stress is to identify symptoms of one's stress such as headache, insomnia, depression, changes in behavioral habits and so on. The stress symptoms may range from physical to physiological to behavioral ones. Then link the symptoms to its direct sources of stress like poor time management, improper eating, disorderly housekeeping etc and find out appropriate solutions by changing one's attitude, work habit or response pattern.

An effective way to manage stress is to opt for an attitude change or to choose a change in thought pattern. If we change the way we react to the causes, stress will not emerge as a villain. Viewing stress as something constructive rather than destructive is a step towards moving away from the problems of stress. But a certain amount of stress is inevitable for up-keep of normal health or attainment of competitive life goals in this globalised world. Stress, if properly channelized, can actually increase our performance in any competitive activity. Be ready to use stress as an impetus to achieve success. It stimulates one's faculties, helps discover one`s true potential and sharpen one's performance, if kept within manageable limits. So deal with stress by developing a stress tolerant attitude and by conditioning the brain to view it as a natural and positive response that can be channelized constructively.

Having committed engagement or deep involvement in any project that gives you pleasure can build your sense of self-worth. It can make you more positive and less negative in your approach towards stress environments. That would create a marked change in your approach towards stress stimulants. The basic idea is that if you cannot change in your situation suitably, make a change in your attitude towards that situation.

Always look at every stress environment as an exciting learning experience. Look at its positive aspects and ignore its negatives. Any undesired change in normal routines makes a lot of adjustment problems in many people. Even a shifting to a new living place can cause suicidal tendency in aged people. If you have a tendency to develop anxiety when normal routines are changed, purposefully practice doing something special every day so as to train yourself in self learning the habit of adjustment with ever facing changes, gradually. Facing the inevitable changes head on with boldness will definitely bring a better change accommodation habit in you.

If you build an attitude of exercising some sort of control over events or situations that generate stress, it would help you turn the harmful stress situation into a healthy one. Harmful stress is not an absolute product of any situation, but a result of one's attitude towards it. So what that is required is to change your attitude towards stress and stress stimulants. One's control over a situation is related to ones involvement and commitment towards it. Being involved and remaining committed to your engagements can develop behavioral patterns that automatically put one in better control over it. It is always advisable to take every stress as an energizer that brings out your competitive potential or ability to deal with it. To be a good performer in an intense competition, you need a minimum amount of stress. There is no doubt that stress can be used as an effective input to brighten the best in ones qualities. For this, you should think so convincingly that you can transform any stressful situation into a positive one. Perceive every stressful event as a challenge that you can deal with and use it for your advantage. Do not hesitate to change the way we approach the problems that we face.

Poor work management and faulty time management are constant creators of stress. Inability to manage time at ones disposal for performing each role, among multitudes of roles, effectively is a stress factor. Learning scientific time management skill and practicing it appropriately would help organizing your activities so as to reduce stress.

Failure in work targets can be minimized by finding your best work time and utilizing it. To some it would be in the morning but to others it would be in the night. Always remember taking a break-out every few hours to plan further work ahead, so as to manage it without burn-outs. Never dwell on the unhappy events in the past. It would take away your energy unnecessarily, but you cannot do anything about it. When you confront any situation which you cannot cope up with or alter, set everything to avoid occurrence of such situations in future.

Work is always a dominant source of stress. Some simple strategic changes in modality of doing your work can relieve a lot of stress. Always find the easiest way to do a work to save time. A system approach or macroscopic viewing of components of work and finding an organic synergy among them can make your work easier. Charting work-flow in your major work related activities will be helpful in eliminating redundant work that indirectly leads to stress situations.

If you cannot eliminate job stress factors with all your efforts, it is better to try for an attitude change or behavior modification. Think that there cannot be any perfect job situation without problems, which exactly matches with ones job aspirations. So keep your expectations lower so as to avoid a mismatch with the job realities. Expectation always reduces joy.

Learning to say 'no' assertively is a sure medicine to reduce stress. If someone consistently causes stress in your life, limit the amount of time you spend with him or end that relationship strategically. If something or someone is bothering you perpetually, tell your feeling in an open but polite way to avoid unnecessary building up of resentment in you.

Everybody now agrees that deep relaxation can relieve tension and stress, but many do not know the practical ways to attain a state of deep relaxation. Proper food, proper exercise, proper rest, proper sleep, proper thinking, proper breathing etc are the right inputs for relaxation. Slight changes in all these aspects will make marked changes in your ability to deal with stress. When we relax, we exclude unconsciously, the stress accumulated in our body. Both stress and relaxation cannot exist simultaneously in a person.

Regular physical activity such as walking is an effective way to deal with stress. It helps one to regulate bad effect of stress hormones, alleviate depression, and get better sleep. Daily exercise, such as walking, swimming or athletics, improves digestion, physiological activities and overall mental well being.

Regular yoga practice can bring relaxation in your body. Yoga is nothing but scientific body postures. It gives energy, better health, flexible body and peace of mind to deal with stress. While doing yoga, do it with stomach not full, bowels clean and brain not clouded with thinking. Yoga engages one's mind with the body. It is a perfect solution for better health. It reduces diseases, enhances health and energizes life. Meditation, a sister component of yoga, is a means for deep relaxation, piece of mind and easy stress reduction. There are many streams of meditative techniques. Choose the right one that fits your lifestyle.

Adopt a humorous view towards life. Being able to laugh is the smartest way to reduce stress problems. Endorphin which is popularly called 'happy hormone' is released during laughter. The hormone reduces body pain as well. Laughter helps you mange stress easily.

In short, stress is not at all unmanageable problem but the result of your inability to use proper tools to deal with it properly.