Stress Management Techniques

How to deal with stress? Apply stress management techniques! Have you ever felt overwhelmed sometimes of not having control over your stress level? I personally did and when dealing with stress I was also asking myself the question how I could enable myself to get all my work done without neglecting my responsibilities in my personal life.

Luckily I realized that I had a lot more control over my stress level than I thought. The following stress management techniques shall help you to manage and reduce mental pressure and enable you to live a balanced life, without stress and hectic.

Stress management definition:

Stress management is the ability to reduce stress successfully. Stress mangement is specially applied in the purpose of improving everyday functioning.

Stress management techniques #1: The emergence of stress

If you want to know how to deal with stress it can be very helpful to know that stress is an emotion that arises mostly because of your thoughts. Having control over your emotions and thoughts is the first step in dealing with stress.

Every individual is different, and so are the reasons that emerge stress. Therefore it is important to identify your personal sources of stress in order to get the knowledge on how to deal with stress effectively. I’m sure you’ll know a lot of obvious reasons that have caused stress, but a lot of sources for stress can only be found by digging deeper. You may know that the traffic jam causes a lot of stress to you in the early morning. But when having a closer look you´ll realize that the feeling of stress emerges because you always get up too late in the morning and therefore you have to hurry in order to be punctual.

Identify the reasons for stress in order to apply stress management techniques! You can only influence and control the level of stress by accepting the fact that the reason for feeling stressed lies within yourself. Dealing with stress is only possible by knowing the exact reasons that emerge mental pressure.

Methods to manage stress

A stress journal can be a powerful help to identify stressors in your job and personal life. Every time you feel stressed write the situation, the reason that caused the stress and your reaction into the stress journal. After doing this a while you will notice patterns that cause stress.

Stress management techniques #2: Learn to avoid stress

A lot of stress can be avoided with different methods:

• Avoid tension with distraction: The fact that your mental pressure can be controlled by distracting your mind is a very effective method when dealing with stress. Let´s say you feel a lot of pressure when being in a traffic jam. The common reasons that cause this mental pressure are thoughts about being unpunctual and the anger about the behavior of other drivers. As soon as you are able to distract your mind you are able to relief stress. Listen to one of your favorite CD’s or tune up the radio.
• Avoid mental pressure by clarifying yourself that a specific situation can’t be changed: Let’s get back to the traffic jam example from above. A lot of stress can be relieved when you accept the fact that you currently have no influence if you will be punctual or not. Your stress and anger won’t change this situation and are therefore not helpful.
• The significance of the word “no”: Your precious time is limited and you can’t feel responsible for your friends and colleagues whole the time. The more things you try to handle, the more pressure will be lasting on you.
• Stress caused by your environment: Many reasons for stress lie within your environment. If you feel angry about the behavior of politicians and anxious about current terroristic developments you shouldn’t turn off the TV. If you aren’t able to sleep after having watched a horror movie try to avoid these movies. Reduce the amount of time you argue with people about topics such as religion, politics, and crime, if these conversations cause you to feel angry.

Stress management techniques #3: Manage your time

The number one reason for being stressed out is the disability to manage time properly. As a consequence of this, you are able to reduce stress with effective methods to manage time. If you want to know how to deal with stress you should also consider applying these time management strategies.

Stress management techniques #4: Reframe stressful situations

Effective dealing with stress will often require from you to reframe specific situations that cause mental pressure. By doing so you are able to relief tension and turn stressful situations into more normal events.

How to deal with stress by reframing?

• Change your point of view. By viewing stressful situations from a more positive perspective you will be able to identify opportunities and chances to turn negative events into more positive ones.
• Evaluate the importance of specific situations. Do you remember yourself doing something really stupid when you were a child? Can you also remember how you felt that time? I’m sure that you can smile, or even laugh with your friends about that situation nowadays, whereas you would have wanted to disappear off the face of the earth that time. If something causes stress you should evaluate the importance of that situation in a month or a year. Will it still be that important to you? Is it worth all the mental pressure?

Stress management techniques #5: Relaxation

The most effective method to relief stress is to spend time with activities that allow you to reduce stress, nurture yourself and relax. Furthermore, it is very important to create a healthy balance between work and relaxation, as this allows you to handle stress more effective in the long term.

How do you unwind after a stressful day?

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