COPING WITH STRESS

Stress is an uneasy experience which affects our health in a negative way. The simplest way of coping up with stress would be modifying or removing its source, which is not always possible. However there are some techniques which decrease your stress level significantly. Successful coping with stress is dependent on many factors. A person’s perspective of control on the situation, his personality, availability of support from friends and family and social circle are some very important factors which play a crucial role in the moderation of stress. Resilience of a person also makes him more or less susceptible to stress. More resilience, tolerance and optimism are some individual qualities which help a person to handle stress effectively. Under a stressful situation a person can utilize many strategies which focus on taking steps to alleviate or modify stress. Let me explain to you about them.

1. Management of body reactions
When you are stress your muscles feel tightened and heart rate increases. You can feel tension building up in your body and mind as well. Now here in this condition, relaxing the body may help to a great extent. Do this by the following ways:
a. Exercise: This can range from anything like swimming or running, yoga etc.

b. Meditation: this is a spiritual and scientific way of balancing your intense emotions. Meditation promotes clarity of thoughts and improves concentration and the power to think and act rationally.

2. Modifying effective behavior by the following methods:
a. Slowing down. Try to do things in the natural and relaxed pace. Trying to do things in a hurry and worry makes us make mistakes which in turn increase stress even more.
b. Organize. Set your priorities and manage your schedule so that you can get things done in time with minimal confusion and time lag.
c. Accepting and identifying one’s limits and abilities. Set up realistic expectations and goals for self. Don’t take too much pressure.

3. Seek Social support. A close and healthy relationship with our friends and family keeps us emotionally stable and happy. Talking and sharing about problems with close ones gives us inner strength and guidance.

4. Practicing mindfulness. Whatever activity you do during the day, may it be work, eating or even drinking a glass of water, do it mindfully. This helps us in refraining from negative and intrusive thoughts and also helps us in completing the activity for maximum benefit.

5. Being Optimistic.
By having a positive outlook towards life, we seek opportunities even in difficulties. It becomes easier to find a way out of difficult phases of life. Along with this acceptance also helps a long way.

6. Revaluating Goals. Many people work so hard to achieve their goals that one day they reach the burnout point and reach to the point of a breakdown. This is not a good thing as we need to be healthy and free enough to reap the benefits of our success. So we need to identify our limits and restructure our expectations and be little gentle on ourselves.

7. So the next time you feel tensed and stressed, remember to take long breaths, count to ten and think about following the above mentioned techniques. Hope they will help!

© 2017 Nitika Mehra