Studies have shown the effects stress has on the body. Our health can suffer greatly from stress including anxiety, depression, headaches, insomnia, heart attacks and diabetes. Stress can make it nearly impossible to think clearly and handle even the simplest task.
Stress And Your Well Being
How you deal with stress is very important when it comes to managing your overall well being. When you break it down, the way you operate and how you go about relaxing matter when it comes to your stress triggers. You cannot avoid stress. You can however, find ways to reduce or avoid your negative reactions to stress.
Awareness of how your body reacts to stress
Understanding how your body reacts to stress can help you identify low-level stress.
During a stressful situation do you find yourself…
- Beginning to breathe faster?
- Can you feel your heart pounding out of your chest? Palpitations? Chest pain?
- With a headache or can you feel pressure in your head?
- Clenching or tightening certain parts of your body?
Stress is the main reaction to the “flight or fight” response. The blood starts pumping, Cortisol is being pushed through our body and telling you to run for your life or stay and fight. Hundreds of years ago when we were cavemen and being chased by saber-toothed tigers, this was extremely helpful. But now that we no longer need to fear for our lives from wild animals bigger than our house, these reactions are causing you more harm than good.
Reducing Stress
Now that you understand how your body reacts to stress, you can start to implement new techniques into your daily routine to reduce your stress.
Manage your time better
Managing your commitments, learning to prioritize what by importance and urgency, and delegating the rest will help reduce your stress. The great side effect of this is also that you will become more productive and increase your performance.
Create healthy coping strategies
Start by logging each time you are stressed, how you reacted and what you did to dope with that stress. Review what you found and use this information to change unhealthy habits into more positive ones. For example you could trade in that smoking habit for a breathing technique. That is all you are doing when you smoke cigarettes anyway, you inhale and exhale. So try it without all the cancer causing chemicals.
Select better lifestyle choices
While some choices in your life may not directly cause stress, they can certainly interfere with the way you seek relief from stress. Have a more balanced life between work and home. Eat better and exercise on a schedule. Sleep is another important one, create a schedule and get at least 5 hours of sleep every night.
Find Support
Having the support of your friends and family plays a major role in how we experience stress. Research indicates there is a link between your social support and your physical and mental heath.
Manage Mindset
Stress can trigger a number of different emotions in you causing negative thoughts. These thoughts trigger stress the same way a physical outside threat does. To start, you need to be aware of the emotion causing the trigger. Once you acknowledge the emotion, ask what it is doing for you. Is it helping you in any way? Mostly likely that is a no, and all you need to do is throw it away.
Figure out what is causing your stress so you can begin to do something about it. Much like anything you do, practice is the key to overcoming your stress. What are some of the techniques you use to overcome stress? Tell me below!
