Stress is a short-term physiological response that aids us in the face of danger – which is hardly a suitable state in which to live or even regularly spend time. Indeed, too much stress is known to make us vulnerable to ill health. To eliminate harmful stress from our lives, we must learn how to put our anxieties in perspective and, above all, how to relax.
It is impossible to eliminate all stress from daily life, but we can reduce its effects. When stressed, many of us are attracted to various forms of escapism – notably alcohol and cigarettes, which, of course, bring serious problems of their own. A far more appropriate response is to draw upon relaxation techniques, including not only such practices as meditation
but also various aspects of positive thinking that owe more to pragmatic common sense than to Eastern traditions. The best solutions will differ from one individual to another and will usually be found by personal experiment.
It is important to realize that spending time resetting priorities, as well as fulfilling leisure interests or even just sitting quietly watching the world go by, are activities that are far from being fruitless or self-indulgent: they are vital keys to our well-being. If you suffer from stress and take no steps to discover these keys, mental anxiety can translate into physical tension, and after a while, your health will begin to suffer.
Five Great Ways To Beat Workload Stress
Work stresses tend most often to come from workload problems, from feeling insecure or ill-equipped, from work politics, or inadequate delegation. The first stage in laying such demons to rest is to step back and gain some perspective on the issues in the context of life as a whole and then to start working on practical solutions to the problems – taking them one at a time. Short-term measures will get you out of a crisis, but they need to be followed by a longer-term review to address the underlying causes of your stress and to make lasting changes.
- Set yourself realistic targets in both the short and the long term. Do not feel that you have to achieve all these targets to retain self-esteem. Congratulate yourself on your successes. Do not flail yourself for your failures.
- Create within your schedule time for review and reflection – if possible, have review sessions away from the place where schedule pressures are most acute. Do not get bogged down in detail when what is needed is a fresh look at how things are done.
- Make your health a priority. The body requires adequate sleep and nutrition to function effectively. Cultivate methods that encourage quality sleep: a hot bath, a milky drink – whatever you find works best for you. Never overlook the fact that physical exercise, as well as family and social life, are vital for emotional and physical well-being.
- Relaxation is essential. The conditioned fight-or-flight response can act as an obstacle to reducing stress because the idea of relaxation appears threatening. But you are not letting your £Uard down by opting to relax – in fact, relaxation is the key to regaining calm. Everyone has their way of relaxing, so try different approaches that you can readily fit into your lifestyle. Breathing stretching exercises and meditation are worth considering, as is the Alexander technique.
- Monitor your use of time and ensure that you are getting the balance right between work and play. Do not neglect holidays or regular leisure commitments. Think of these, if it helps, as ways to refresh your energies for both work and domestic responsibilities. Do not fall into the trap of seeing yourself as indispensable, defending a position against all odds.
Following this five-point plan will help you feel that you have taken charge of your life. It will assist in bolstering feelings of mastery and self-worth, and these in themselves will help to reduce stress.
Acceptance and control
When life is not going our way, we might find ourselves using up a great deal of energy in wishing that things were otherwise, perhaps spending energy directing blame towards other people or fate. It is self-evident that we cannot change what is beyond our control, only what is within it. And what cannot be changed must be accepted. Living according to these facts requires mature, realistic thinking, as well as an accurate assessment of the factors in life that we can influence. If the difficulty of selling a house stresses us, there is a way through the labyrinth: we can conjure a buyer out of nowhere nor make the kitchen or garden bigger, but we can be patient and, in the meantime, enjoy the friendship of our neighbors while we still have it. Issues that only time can resolve must not be allowed to dominate our entire mental landscape.
CATASTROPHISING
Psychologists use the term ‘catastrophizing’ to describe a tendency to feel that a situation is disastrous when viewed by more objective standards; it is, in fact, merely negative or unlucky. A psychotherapist will often tackle this syndrome by working on a person’s coping skills – the rational ways that are available to us all to deal with life’s commonplace anxieties. Catastrophizing works by ‘snowballing ‘ problems – two or three difficulties, each readily soluble, may appear insurmountable when grouped. One approach is to train the ‘patient’ to separate problems into their parts and deal with each part individually. Making simple, verifiable statements about the situation can help in this: ‘I am sick, but the doctor has said my illness will not affect my lifestyle ‘; ‘I will not see my children for two months, but then we will be spending a two-week vacation together.’
