It can seem difficult to control the stress in our lives. With so many obligations pending, whether, at work or home, it seems that we will never have time to relax in the desired way.
Due to the speed of social and technological transformations, today, many people end up getting lost amid constant innovations. In addition to being stressed, they are also fearful, worried, and afraid of possible replacements at work or not being able to keep up with the pace of the world.
7 Strategies to Manage Stress
Stress, in most cases, is stimulated by our behavior and attitude towards life events. Who is in control of your emotions, thoughts, and reactions to the world is only you. That is, you have the power to determine the type of situation that causes you stress.
For example, someone hits your car in traffic. The impact wasn’t hard enough to hurt him, but it dented a good part of the back of the vehicle. You can get out of the car and yell angrily at the other driver, or you can take a softer, more rational attitude, talking to the driver calmly because the worst is over.
Do you agree that the latter posture is less likely to upset your emotional state?
Being soft and compassionate doesn’t mean being weak or letting others walk all over you, but rather adopting a healthier attitude to reacting to life’s uncontrollable phenomena. That way, you can manage stress more efficiently.
To kick-start that attitude shift, we’ve put together powerful strategies to help you keep your stress under control.
1. Recognize What Causes Your Stress
Try to identify which situations increase your nervousness and stimulate your heart to beat faster. If these are situations you can avoid, do so. Now, if you have no way out, prepare in advance to face the impending stress.
You can breathe deeply to promote relaxation, have pleasant and pleasurable thoughts, and not identify with what is happening. In other words, don’t take anyone’s pain, not even your own. Try to live in the moment without thinking about how emotionally exhausted you will be later.
Many times throughout our lives we attach great importance to events or social impasses (fights, disagreements, arguments) that do not deserve so much attention. We waste energy dwelling on the past, worrying aimlessly about something we can’t change.
There are more advantageous ways to use your energy, such as looking for an effective solution to the problem.
2. Don’t Keep Your Problems Inside
Talk to people you trust about your feelings and anxieties. We keep negative emotions inside us because it is unpleasant to feel them. In order not to cause conflicts, we ignore that bad feeling inside us. But the truth is, he won’t go away.
It snuggles inside us and feeds on the negative emotions and thoughts we have about that situation or person. So, suddenly, it is externalized in the form of tantrums or even anxiety attacks.
Try to resolve your issues as quickly as possible. Use and abuse dialogue to restore tranquility within yourself and the other. If you don’t have someone to vent to, consider visiting a psychologist, who is an impartial person with knowledge of human behavior.
You can also cultivate a hobby as a way to release negative emotions and manage stress. Interesting activities such as writing, reading, playing an instrument, painting, building something, walking, among others, are important to keep our mental health up to date.
3. Learn to Delegate Priorities
One of the biggest consequences of today’s society is burnout or chronic stress. It usually manifests when we are overwhelmed in more than one area of our lives.
To prevent this from happening, develop a system for delegating priorities for each appointment. Don’t try to embrace everything at once, as this scenario never works out. Remember that old saying “slow go far” and do one thing at a time, prioritizing the activities with the greatest degree of urgency.
Using an agenda or notebook, or application to track the progress of your tasks, in addition to promoting organization, builds a broader view of what is happening in your life.
This form of visualization is much more beneficial than keeping the to-do list just in your mind, isn’t it?
By managing your priorities, you’ll soon see a big difference in your productivity. Undoubtedly, you will have more willingness and time to determine each activity in a satisfactory period.
4. Don’t Be So Demanding With Yourself
This strategy can intertwine with the other. If, for whatever reason, you can’t complete your tasks, don’t blame yourself. Stress acts as a gateway to negative feelings and thoughts, which can turn into mental disorders. That’s why the presence of stress and anxiety at the same time is so common.
Self-esteem is also affected by stress. Beliefs like “I’m not good enough” or “I don’t do anything right” are common in people who are stressed. To get rid of these negative affirmations, they put even more energy, effort, and feeling into what they do. That’s how they get to exhaustion.
Guilt about being wrong or not completing a task or not doing it with the desired whim doesn’t help at all. In addition to not being productive at all, it makes us unhappy, anxious, sad, and distressed.
Learn to forgive yourself when things don’t work out. We are all human and prone to mistakes. The bright side is that we can try again as many times as necessary. Be kind to yourself so you don’t feed the stress.
5. Exercise to Get Rid of Tension
Stress causes fatigue and muscle pain. When we are stressed, our body goes into a state of alert. Muscles are tense for as long as our brains judge them to be threatening. Subsequently, we experience pain, spasms, and even cramps in the strained limbs.
Exercise or physical activity is the perfect remedy for both fighting tension and managing stress.
The happiness hormones (dopamine, endorphin, serotonin ) produced during exercise bring several physical and mental health benefits. The hormone cortisol, responsible for the levels of stress in our body, for example, is reduced.
6. Do Therapy
Does therapy help manage stress? The answer is yes.
In therapy, you develop the ability to identify stressors and strategies to deal with them in a way that doesn’t affect your emotional state. As stress has psychological symptoms, in therapy it is possible to relieve them and regain the self-esteem, happiness, and peace of mind you felt before.
7. Leave Home
Leaving the comfort zone is scary but necessary. On weekends and holidays, don’t be trapped between the walls of your home and do something outdoors. It can be a walk around the neighborhood or touring the sights of your city. Anything to break the routine is fine!
If possible, plan to travel at some point during the year to disconnect from daily obligations. Make the most of your vacation to rest and recharge your batteries.