Stress Management...

Contents

Stress Management

At times we are all prone to suffer from stress. Often new environments and changed circumstances can bring about stress and feelings of inadequacy.

Stress for some is quite difficult to combat, but dealing with stressful situations and finding ways to cope can alleviate problems and perhaps ward off future 'stress zones'.

Strategies for dealing with stress:

(You may like to asterisk the ones that are particularly relevant/useful for you.)

Talk it out. Share your worry with someone else, go halves on it. It's amazing how much better you feel if you can talk to somebody.
Write it out. Try writing on a piece of paper and then cutting it to size. If a worry goes round and round in your mind it seems much bigger than it is when you have actually written it down in words on paper.
Laugh it off. Dissolve it with humour. Let's face it, it's more difficult to be worried if you're laughing.
Shrug it off. Try raising your shoulders and then dropping them; relax yourself. This works because often when you are worried the tension goes straight to your neck and your shoulders and you find yourself with hunched shoulders.
Breathe it through. Breathe slowly from your abdomen and calm yourself. The more worried you become, the words your breathing gets, and the worse your breathing gets the more tense you feel. If you start to control your breathing by breathing slowly and easily, that will make you feel much better.
Balance it. Count your blessings and be thankful because, no matter how bad your situation at the moment, there must be something good in your life and it's easy to focus on the negatives rather than some of the positives. Try balancing it with some of the positive things that are going on. Add up the possible good consequences of your situation.
List practical options. Don't just sit there and worry about it. Worrying is not going to solve the problem at all. Weigh up the situation, make a decision and act. Do something about it.
Distance it. See the situation from five years ago and the, if you can, project yourself five years forward. Once you can see your problem, from behind and from in front, you sometimes get a completely different perspective on it.
Delay it. Find a time, perhaps first thing in the morning or last thing at night, when you are going to sit down and do nothing except worry about this problem. When you have worried about it for 15 minutes say, "Right, that's the end of it, I've worried about it enough, I've given it sufficient time for today, I'm not going to think about it again."
Work it off. Do something physical. Go and Clear your head. Too many of us are sedentary: we drive to work (or hop on a bus), sit in a desk, come home and sit in front of the television. We never actually do any exercise and if you're worried you are tense. Walk the dog, cut logs, take up aerobics, anything like that where you are doing something physical because it will help you.
Win through it. Close your eyes and instead of imagining the worst, see yourself winning, see yourself beating the problem and imagine yourself coming through it.
Cancel it. Think positive thoughts; neutralize the negative.
Exaggerate it. Imagine the very worst that can happen and then ask yourself 'how likely is that'? The funny thing is, often when you've imagined your worry as the very worst that can happen, when you actually get back to the worry in reality, it seems far smaller that it was originally.
Hold it. Say to yourself 'Stop, pause'. When you pause, take a afresh look because often you spend your time worrying about a situation, but never think about anything else. Sometimes if you take a break from worrying about it - if you go and do something else - you think about something else; when you go back to it afterwards you'll suddenly see a completely different solution, which had not occurred to you before.
Escape it. Notice something nice around you and get into the present. Live in the present. Don't spend your entire life filled with remorse or guilt about what has happened in the past and don't worry about the future, because in the process you miss the most important time of all - the present. You can spend your life filled with remorse about what's happened in the past and worrying about what hasn't happened in the future and in the process forget to live.
Transfer it. Make it somebody else's problem, at least until you are stronger. Consult others that can help you, for example - ask an accountant or somebody else to sort out your financial problems, at least until you are strong enough to deal with it yourself.
Reverse it. Do the very opposite and see how it feels.
Welcome it. Do the opposite and see how that feels.
Pincer it. Think like a doer and act like a thinker.

20 points to help you cope with stress:

1. Work off the stress with physical activity.	2. Talk to a person you trust.
3. Learn to accept what you cannot change.	4. Avoid self-medication (coffee, etc.).
5. Get enough rest/sleep.	6. Give yourself time for play.
7. Do something for someone.	8. Do one thing at a time.
9. Agree with someone.	10. Manage your time better by using a system.
11. Plan ahead.	12. Don't carry on when you are ill.
13. Develop a hobby.	14. Remember that the answer lies in yourself.
15. Eat and exercise sensibly.	16. Use a stress reduction cassette.
17. Don't be afraid to say no.	18. Do something about tiredness.
19. Delegate responsibility.	20. Be a realist about perfectionism.