Stress Management
 

 

There is no doubt about it; the world is a difficult place to live. Making a living, raising a family, and negotiating relationships are difficult but necessary tasks for all people - and these sources of stress are just the normal everyday ones. Abuse, violence, chaos, disease, misfortune and other 'out of the ordinary' sorts of situations can and do add additional layers of stress to our lives. It's no wonder that many people become tense, burned out and looking for means of escape.

Though life is often unavoidably difficult, there are effective ways to manage how much we become affected by stress. We'll explore some stress management methods in this article, but first, we'll start by defining what stress is.

The Nature Of Stress

When we talk about stress, really we are often talking about how stress affects us in body mind and spirit. Stress can be defined then as the reaction we have to difficult, demanding or challenging events. Our bodies and minds have been designed with a 'fight or flight' reflex that helps to orient and become alert when we are faced with challenging or dangerous events. Our attention gets narrowed towards such events, and our brain instructs our bodies to prepare for possible physical action such as confronting the event physically (e.g., 'fight') or running away from the source of the danger (e.g., 'flight'). Muscular tension, increased heart rate, and higher concentrations of blood sugars and hormones are involved in this process.

Our body's stress response is really designed for the people we once were; less sophisticated hunter-gatherer type tribes people whose major sources of stress are where the next meal will come from and how to avoid predators. The stressors faced by most of us today are less physical and concrete than those faced by our ancestors; We worry instead about the threat of being laid off from work, of how to keep our children from becoming drug addicts, and about what to do if terrorists attack. Where our ancestors could deal with their stress reactions through direct physical activity (e.g., hunting for food, running away from an attacker), our own threats are less tangible and larger-scale and we often are unable to find anyone to attack or run away from. Even when we can, for example, attack someone as a way of discharging our tension, we often don't because we don't want to be sued or arrested for breaking the law. Because we are often unable to discharge our activation we end up experiencing this activated physical and mental state a lot of the time so that it ceases to be just occassional 'acute stress' and becomes instead 'chronic stress'.

Stressful Events
Breakup of intimate romantic relationships, friendships
Death of a family member or friend
Economic hardships
Racism and Discrimination
Poor Health
Assaults on physical safety
Birth or Adoption
Relationship transitions (marriage, moving away from home)
Promotion or Demotion at work

 

Take the Stress Test to calculate your level of Stress

The table above lists a number of serious stressful events that people experience, often more than one at a time. It's important to note that a given event doesn't have to be negative in tone to be stressful; Any significantly challenging event, even positive ones like weddings, can create stress.

Where acute stress is healthy and very important to our well being, chronic stress is unhealthy. A great number of diseases (physical and mental both) are either brought on in part or made worse by people being chronically stressed out. Chronic stress also makes it more difficult for us to handle our relationships well.

Coping With Stress

People try many ways, both positive and negative, to lessen their stress levels. Dysfunctional negative and unhealthy methods of coping include:

  • Addictions (alcohol, drugs, sex, gambling, etc.)
  • Smoking
  • Over-eating
  • Being Perfectionistic
    •

These methods are considered dysfunctional because, over time, they end up making the situation worse for people rather than making it better. Drinking as a means of stress reduction works in the short term because alcohol is a powerful muscle and attention relaxer. Repeated use of alcohol ends up causing 'tolerance' which means that people have to drink more and more to get the same effect. The end result is addiction to alcohol (a very serious health and social risk) which only adds stress to the drinker's life.

There are many positive and 'functional' methods of coping with stress:

  • Relaxation/Meditation - Cultivating interior stillness and calmness through meditation and relaxation techniques such as massage therapy, and progressive muscle relaxation.
     
  • Exercise - Regular physical exertion of any intensity (a gentle 30 minute walk, a Yoga or Pilates class, an hour long strenuous free-weight workout, etc.) helps discharge muscle tension and build strength, resilience and energy.
     
  • Healthy Diet - Eating healthy whole foods and avoiding sugary and fattening treats helps keep the body's internal rhythms more balanced.
     
  • Socialization And Supportive Conversation - Many people are able to relax and to feel part of something larger than themselves by sharing their concerns with trusted others. This can take the form of talking with friends and family, psychotherapy or counseling, or prayer.
     
  • Assertive Communication - Some stress is caused by not getting what you want from other people. Asking for what you want in a direct but polite way is the best method for getting what you want, and thereby reducing stress.
     
  • Time Management - Some stress is caused by poor organization. Learning how to manage appointments, to say 'no' to requests you can't get done, to organize records, and to use memory enhancement tools (like alarm clocks and 'palm pilots') can make a big difference.
     
  • Asking For Assistance - Whatever it is that you are dealing with right now, other people have dealt with it before. Seeking out their counsel when you don't know what to do is often a good way to avoid reinventing the wheel.

The big problem with healthy coping strategies is that they often don't make one feel better immediately; they only really work after one makes a commitment to practicing them repeatedly over time. It takes some faith and a certain amount of discipline to make it possible for these strategies to work.

Good General Advice For Managing Stress:

"Make the time to practice one or more healthy coping strategies on a regular basis. You won't have time to fit it in at first but do it anyway. Over time your practice will yield results and you'll find you want to make the time to continue your practice."

References:

Lets Get Started :  Basic Information

                                NIOSH Stress At Work Program

 

Stress-Reduction Techniques

Relaxation techniques are one of the most common approaches to stress reduction. These include meditation, progressive muscle relaxation, visualization and breathing exercises. Most are easy to learn. Often you need longer periods of practice when learning new approaches to stress reduction, and eventually it becomes a conditioned response.

Practice The "Relaxation Response" And Similar Techniques

Recognizing that some people who practice meditation are capable of reducing their heart rate, blood pressure and oxygen consumption, Harvard University physician Herbert Benson set out several decades ago to understand how they do so. As a result, he developed and popularized a type of relaxation response, a simple practice that focuses on the qualities in meditation that create a sense of relaxation and stress reduction.

Here's how to do it: Every day, plan to spend some time at rest (not asleep). Sit someplace comfortable, close your eyes and relax your muscles. Then focus on your breathing, making it very regular, and continuously repeat one word. You can repeat the word aloud or in your mind. But it should be either a simple word such as "relax" or "easy", a religious word or phrase, or a brief phrase that has no meaning — such as the "om" used in transcendental meditation — or one that simply does not make you think. Then just continue to breathe regularly, with your muscles relaxed. Relaxation is a skill that requires regular practice. It is not helpful to try it for the first time when under enormous stress.

Learn Progressive Muscle Relaxation

This technique helps you focus on each muscle and become familiar with the sensation of relaxing your entire body. You can start from your head and work your way to your toes. Tense your facial muscles by biting down and furrowing your brow. Hold the tension for five to 10 seconds, then quickly release it. Next, tense your shoulder muscles by shrugging your shoulders and tucking in your chin. Hold the tension for five to 10 seconds, then release it. After that, tense your arm muscles by making a fist. Hold the tension for five to 10 seconds, then quickly release it. And so on. Simply continue to tighten a muscle and release it until you have worked all the way down your body. Mentally imagine the tension evaporating as you release the tension in each muscle. Focus on the warmth and heaviness of the body parts as they relax.

Do Visualization

Visualizing a pleasant place is a good way to remove yourself mentally from a stressful situation. To do this, sit or lie someplace comfortable and close your eyes. Practice the progressive muscle relaxation exercise. Allow whatever thoughts you have to pass through your mind without actually "thinking" about them. Breathe slowly and deeply until you feel relaxed. Imagine you are someplace that makes you feel good and relaxed. This might be someplace in nature, such as the ocean's edge or the woods, or it might be more specific, such as a spot by the ocean where you have spent many restful vacations. It also might be an image of a beautiful place that you have never visited, such as the Himalayan mountains. Focus on all five senses — what you would see, feel, hear, taste and smell. Continue to visualize yourself there for five to 10 minutes. Then gradually return your focus to the room you are in and end the visualization.

Practice Relaxed Breathing Exercises

Take a deep breath in and out. Did you feel your chest expand and contract? Did your shoulders go up as you drew air into your lungs? This is the way many adults breathe. But to breathe more efficiently — and in a way that promotes relaxation — we should look to the way we breathe while asleep.

Typically, when in a relaxed sleeping state, we breathe from our diaphragm, the muscle between the abdomen and the chest. The chest does not obviously move in and out, and the shoulders do not move up and down. Instead, the abdomen rises with each breath we inhale and lowers with each breath we exhale. It is both more effortless and more efficient than the typical waking approach to breathing — and, as a result, more relaxing.

How can you practice relaxed breathing?

Lie on your back on a bed or recliner. Place your feet slightly apart and lightly rest one hand on your abdomen, just near your navel. Rest your other hand on your chest. Inhale through your nose and exhale through your mouth. Calmly exhale most of the air in your lungs. With each breath you take, focus on your breathing and recognize which hand is moving.

As you slowly count to four, gently inhale, slightly distending your abdomen to make it rise about one inch. Imagine warm air flowing into your lungs and to all parts of your body. Pause for one second. Then as you slowly count to four, gently exhale, letting your abdomen slowly fall and your diaphragm relax upward. Pause for another second. Repeat this process five to 10 times. When you feel familiar with it, you can practice relaxed breathing while seated and, then, while standing.

Write About Your Stress

The Journal of the American Medical Association revealed that writing about stressful experiences can do even more than that: It can help reduce the symptoms of common diseases, such as asthma and rheumatoid arthritis.

In the study, titled "Effects of Writing About Stressful Experiences on Symptom Reduction in Patients With Asthma or Rheumatoid Arthritis," one group of patients was asked to write about their most stressful life experience for 20 minutes a day over three consecutive days. Another group was asked to spend an equal amount of time writing about their plans for the day. The results:

  • Forty-seven percent of patients who wrote about their stressful experiences showed what physicians determined to be "clinically relevant improvement" in their conditions four months later.
     
  • Only 24 percent of the second group showed a similar improvement.

"Although it may be difficult to believe that a brief writing exercise can meaningfully affect health, this study replicates in a chronically ill sample what a burgeoning literature indicates in healthy individuals," writes Joshua M. Smyth, Ph.D., in the Department of Psychology at North Dakota State University, and his coauthors. This growing research has revealed that writing about one's thoughts and feelings can lead to:

  • Improvements in immune functioning
  • Fewer visits to the doctor
  • An increased sense of well-being

Commenting on the value of writing about stressful experiences as a stress-reduction technique, David Spiegel, M.D., in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University, wrote, "Ventilation of negative emotion, even just to an unknown reader, seems to have helped these patients acknowledge, bear, and put into perspective their distress." In other words, "it is not simply mind over matter, but it is clear that mind matters."

The most common experiences written about by subjects of this study were the death of a loved one, relationship difficulties, a serious problem affecting someone close to them and involvement in or witness to a car wreck or other disaster.

Deflate The Danger Of Your Fears

The next time you feel yourself in the grip of a stressful situation, encourage yourself to look closely at your thoughts to see whether the situation merits as much stress as you feel. Ask yourself these questions:

  • What is the worst possible outcome that can develop from the situation?
  • Is it likely that the worst possible outcome will occur? If so, how likely is it?
  • How would such an outcome change your life?
  • Is there anything else you can do to influence the result, or have you done all that is possible?

Asking yourself these questions can help free you from stress you cannot avoid or control, or can at least help to diminish it.

Remove Stressors

Are you are the kind of person who says "Sure!" but feels a knot in your stomach when a boss or colleague asks you to take on another project? Do you know you already have more responsibilities than you can comfortably handle? Then it may be time to set some limits for yourself.

Determine what you can realistically do, and simply stop promising more than you can reasonably handle. Be polite when you do. Just say, "No. With the current responsibilities I have, I cannot take on more at this time." Be open to observations about your work and if people observe that you seem more burdened than average by the workload, it is important to accept that viewpoint without getting angry or self-critical and figure out what the feedback means.

Manage Your Time

The more you think ahead about how to manage activities or control your time, the less stress you will experience. Or as one expert put it, "Knowing what is happening is preferable to being in the dark, having a strategy or defense ready is preferable to being unprepared and being able to avoid or terminate a stressor is better than sitting there and suffering."

One of the easiest ways to manage your time is by thinking about the demands or priorities you have and in what order you wish to address them. Some practical ways to take control of your situation is to write a list of items that need to be addressed, schedule time to work on the items you listed and organize the list and schedule by priority or necessity. Developing a plan or strategy to follow may help you focus on the issues that are most important to you and therefore, help to control the amount of stress you feel about these issues.

Maintain A Healthy Diet

If you're like many people, you probably have your favorite comfort food that you reach for when you're stressed. It might be ice cream, potato chips or a juicy hamburger. Whatever it is, chances are it's relatively high in fat, sugar or salt — in other words, from a health perspective, your comfort food may have a bad influence on your health.

Several studies suggest that maintaining a good diet may help reduce the stress you feel. It is terribly difficult to give up a comforting treat, but the treat may backfire, making you feel worse. A balanced nutritious diet and a reduced amount of comfort may result in you feeling more — no less — comfortable.

Exercise

After more than 1,000 studies, experts agree that exercise can reduce your stress. For maximum effect, try an aerobic exercise (such as running, swimming or brisk walking) that increases your heart rate for 20 minutes or more. If you can't do that, even a 10-minute walk can help. Yoga and nonaerobic movement such as stretching also can reduce stress by inducing a calmer, meditationlike state.

One reason exercise helps reduce stress is because it distracts you from whatever it is that is causing stress. It also helps you eliminate excess energy, which can stem from and contribute to stress. Exercise has a calming effect and can lead to decreased emotional distress and better concentration. And it makes you feel more capable of handling challenges, such as tackling the cause of your stress.

Exercise also helps counter possible diseases that are exacerbated by chronic stress, such as coronary artery disease.

As with healthy eating, it is very difficult to maintain an exercise routine when you are depressed. Nonetheless, exercise can help you handle stress and is good for your general health. Being aware of the benefits of exercise may provide the motivation you need to stay physically active.

Socialize

Because we are social creatures by nature, we need other people, particularly during stressful times. Having supportive friends, family members and colleagues is one of the most significant ways to reduce stress.

Discussing your difficulties with someone you trust helps relieve tension and may also help you begin to solve your problems. Or you may prefer to participate in a larger social activity, such as a sports team, a spiritual group or a group that gathers around a common interest in a hobby or some other pursuit.

Many people use happy hour as a way to reduce stress. Although having one glass of wine with dinner may be helpful, excessive alcohol consumption does not help reduce stress and can make it worse. Using happy hour simply to be with friends can help lessen your stress. However, some social situations may not be beneficial. Situations that make you feel uncomfortable — where you cannot relax and enjoy yourself — may be harmful and increase your stress.

Seek Therapy

If you've tried numerous stress-reduction techniques but continue to feel more stress than is comfortable, you might want to talk to a therapist about:

  • How to cope with stressful conditions with less difficulty
  • How to better handle conflicts, manage anger or simply communicate with other people
  • How to resolve some of the problems that are causing you stress

Or you might want to talk to a therapist who can meet with you and your spouse, child or co-worker if the relationship is a stressful one.

One way that therapists help people better handle — or even prevent — stress is to educate you about the sources of your stress and how to manage it. The therapist can teach you about stress and reactions to stress, with an emphasis on how your thoughts about the situation can influence your stress level and how, consequently, changing your thoughts can alter your experience of stress.

Next, the therapist teaches you coping skills, such as cognitive restructuring, a technique that seeks to change negative thoughts and beliefs and encourage positive ones. Typically, the therapist works with you to examine and change the statements you make to yourself about your expectations and how you evaluate a situation for yourself.

Finally, the therapist works with you as you apply coping skills to stressful situations. Initially, the therapist will use imagery or role playing so that when stress actually occurs, you will have an idea about what to expect and what to do to manage its ill effects.

Therapists also can help you cope with anger by heightening your awareness of anger and teaching you a variety of methods for expressing it constructively. (See treatment. )

In addition, therapists can help you work with other people to handle stressful marital, family and work-related conflicts. Family therapists, for example, can work with you and other family members to help you deal with a particularly rebellious adolescent, a family member's emotional problems or other issues. Although not actually seeking to resolve a problem for you, the therapist will try to help you understand and address it more effectively.

Marriage counselors, meanwhile, can help couples address problems that sometimes arise with major changes in a marriage, such as the birth of a child, the loss of parents or evolving sexual needs. Counselors who address work-related conflicts can help you address the common communication problems that underlie tensions between colleagues.



 

Last updated July 31, 2003