Stress Management
Healthy ways to manage stress
It is important to find ways to prevent stressful incidents and limit negative reactions to stress. Identify your coping strategies. Start by recording a stressful event, your reaction and how you coped (or not) by describing the incident in a stress journal. With this information, you can work change unhealthy coping strategies into healthy ones. Always focus on the positive and what you can change or control in your life.
Don’t let stress rule your life
How to deal with stress by managing your time more efficiently:
-Save time by focusing and concentrating on the task at hand, delegate and schedule time for yourself.
-For a month or longer, keep a record of how you spend your time, including work, family, and leisure time. This will show you if you are wasting time without realising.
-Prioritize how you spend your time by rating tasks by importance and urgency. Spend more time on activities that are important and meaningful to you.
-Learn to say NO without feeling guilty. Manage your commitments by not over- or under committing.
-Stop procrastinating by using a day/week planner. Breaking large projects into smaller ones and set short- , mid- and long-term deadlines.
-Get rid of limiting beliefs – this way you will reduce conflict between what you believe and what your life is like.
Effective Time Management
Effective time management can free you to spend more time with your family and friends and allow you to increase your performance and productivity. Time management is a very effective way to reduce stress.
How to deal with stress by adapting your lifestyle
Certain behaviours and lifestyle choices affect your stress levels. Your lifestyle may not cause stress directly, but it can interfere with the ways your body seeks relief from stress. Try to:
-Balance personal, work, and family needs and obligations.
-Get enough sleep, since your body recovers from the stresses of the day while you are sleeping.
-Eat a balanced diet for a nutritional defence against stress.
-Get moderate exercise throughout the week.
Limit your consumption of caffeine and alcohol.
-Don’t smoke.
Lifestyle changes help manage stress
How to deal with stress by developing an extensive support network
The strength of your support network is a major factor in how we handle stress. Social support is the positive support you receive from family, friends, and the community. Knowing that you are cared for, loved, esteemed, and valued dramatically reduces your stress levels. More and more research indicate a strong relationship between social support and mental and physical health.
Make time for family and friends. Keep in touch and offer support when needed. Get involved in community/charity projects.
Support is so important
How to deal with stress with flexible thinking
When an event/idea causes stress, you may experience fear, insecurity, anxiety, depression, rage, guilt, and a sense of worthlessness, failure and powerlessness. These emotions trigger the body’s stress response, even if the threat is imaginary.
-Deliberate thought-stopping helps eliminate stress.
-Reframing an incident or seeing it from another point of view reduces stress
-Recognising and avoiding irrational/catastrophic thoughts helps you to avoid exaggeration, anticipating the worst, and interpreting an event incorrectly.
-Problem solving helps you identify all aspects of a stressful event and find ways to deal with it.
-Evaluating and improving your communication style helps you communicate in a way that makes your views known without making others feel uncomfortable, hostile, or intimidated. This reduces the stress that comes from poor communication.
How stress affects all aspects of our lives
It can be difficult to implement the steps above. Take it one step at a time, do not try to introduce several steps at the same time. If you feel overwhelmed, seek help early. Increase your knowledge and defense against stress by reading up about the subject so that you will recognize harmful symptoms early. Other possible options are to engage the services of an experienced stress management consultant to help you identify the cause of your escalating stress and develop strategies to manage it. You can even combine a stress management course with a relaxing holiday.
Many ways to be stress FREE!
For those who are prepared to take some action and deal with the cause of their stress, the rewards can be life-saving.
This article is hopping around the following Blog Hops:
Homestead Barn Hop, Wildcrafting Wednesday, From the Farm Fridays, Simple Saturdays Blog Hop, Simple Life Sunday Blog Hop.
Copyright:
This article may be contributed to third-party sites, but it is COPYRIGHTED, and it may not be USED in any form or shared without my written permission. If you are interested in this article or any of Simply Living Simply articles, please contact Kat Yorba; Author and owner of Simply Living Simply directly for republishing information.
Affiliate:
Many of my blog posts contain affiliate links. Purchasing through an affiliate link does NOT increase the price you pay but allows me to keep blogging and sharing what I learn with you. It's a bit like leaving a tip for a service and I very much appreciate it!
Medical Disclaimer:
Nothing in this post is to be construed as medical advice, simply a sharing of things that have worked for me & my family. If you have any symptoms of serious illness, taking medication, pregnant or nursing, or have never worked with herbal materials or essential oils before, please consider consulting a medical professional before use. I am unable to offer advise for your particular medical situation; please ask your Doctor, Nurse Practitioner or Naturopath for further guidance. The statements made here have not been approved by the Food & Drug Administration. These statements are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent disease. This notice is required by the Federal Food, Drug & Cosmetic Act.
About Simply Living Simply
[…] This article was written by Kat at Simply-Living-Simply and can be viewed here. […]