Stress management is an active and continuous process of controlling the way you react to common stressors present in everyday life.  

The main objective of stress management is to progressively revamp your thought patterns and lifestyle so you will no longer suffer from chronic, toxic stress on a daily basis.

Like other major endeavors, stress management is not without its own set of challenges. That’s why it’s important that you adequately prepare yourself for this important commitment because if you don’t, you’re going to end up being disappointed with the results.

How can you consistently succeed in stress management?

Here are some expert tips that will help demolish the obstacles to successful stress management:

1. Record Your Stressors – Each person has his own unique set of stressors. Stressors can be any of the following: situations, actions, events, general circumstances, objects, people, tasks, chores and work-related obligations.

To make things more organized, I would advise you to create a stress management journal.

What does a stress management journal look like?

One part of your journal should be separated and devoted specifically for recording stressors. Each page should have three columns with the following headings: time/date, stressor, stress level (1-10).

Evaluating your stress level is of paramount importance. When a stressor is rated a “1”, it means that you are only mildly annoyed for a brief period of time.

When you rate an item as a “10” that means that you experience not only mental signs of stress but also physical signs of stress such as a racing heart rate, cold hands and feet, etc.

Is it challenging to maintain a stress management journal?

Bear in mind that a stress management journal should not be difficult to maintain. If recording and journaling stresses you out, it’s possible that you are simply overdoing it.

You do not have to record every little stressor that comes your way – you only have to record the ones that you remember at the end of the day.

Some people can write on their journals every few hours; the majority of people cannot. Write only when it’s convenient for you but you have to write on your stress management journal every day.

2. Acknowledge Your Personal Beliefs & Values –

The battle against stress would be much easier if you came to terms with your personal beliefs and value system.

If you want to overcome negative beliefs and old values that don’t support your current goals, you have to identify them first. Below are some common beliefs and values that can directly impair your ability to manage stress:

1. “I have more important things to do than manage stress”
2. “Stress management won’t bring food to the table, my work does”

iii. “I have no time left for this sort of thing”

1. “I’d rather sleep than try to manage stress”
2. “I’m a hopeless case!”
3. “I’m not very good at learning new things”

vii. “How will I know if this will work?”

viii. “Stress management is just not ‘my thing’”

1. “I think it’s tedious and boring”
2. “I don’t have the energy to think about it”

3. Take the First Baby Steps –

Stress management isn’t just a vague concept – it’s a whole set of special skills that will allow you to evade or moderate the stress response so you will be healthier, happier and more productive.

How long will it take before you master stress management?

Stress management has spawned a whole industry of mentors and coaches because it’s not something that can be learned overnight.

With these facts in mind, it logically follows that if you want to learn how to manage stress, you have to muster the courage to take the first few baby steps to achieve your goals.

Managing chronic stress doesn’t require a lot of time.

• You can accomplish a lot of things within a 20-30 minute time-frame. If 20 minutes sounds overwhelming, try limiting your stress management sessions to 10-15 minutes.
• 10-15 minutes should give you enough time to think about the stressors you encountered for that day and how you reacted to the stressors. Self-analysis is your most important tool in managing stress.
• You have to be honest with yourself though. You must avoid justifying habitual, negative responses to stressors as this will impede personal breakthroughs.
• You must make it a point to identify harmful thoughts and behaviors so you can modify them. Behavioral modification, in order to be successful, must be gradual and you must be consistent in enforcing new behavior and rewarding yourself when you succeed in doing so.

How does stress harm both the body and the mind?

For many years now, medical doctors have been warning people of the dangers of poor stress management.

Many people still believe that stress doesn’t affect the body and it’s “just a state of mind”. What the majority of stress individuals do not know is that the body’s natural stress response is mainly a physiological event.

This means that the effects of stress have never been limited to our minds. When a person is stressed, his whole body experiences it, too. So the idea that stress is essentially harmless because it’s somehow limited to our imagination is actually a dangerous belief.

Why? Because a person who experiences chronic stress for many, many years has a much higher risk of making health conditions such as high blood pressure worse. So if you want to be physically healthier, you have to understand how stress actually affects the body.

How does stress come about?

The modern stress model gives us a simple and clear explanation of how physiological stress is roused:

1^st Phase: Mental and Emotional Triggers are Engaged. A person perceives an event, situation, action or idea as negative and stressful.

2^nd Phase: Psychological Stress Engaged. If a person does not arrest his emotions and negative thinking, the present situation causes psychological stress.

3^rd Phase: Physiological Stress or “Fight or Flight” Response: Unmitigated psychological stress often leads to actual, physiological stress.

When the instinctual “fight or flight” response comes into play, a person feels an immediate surge of adrenaline, which temporarily increases a person’s speed, strength and stamina.

A person’s breathing rate and pulse rate also increase in preparation for sudden, intense physical activity (e.g. running away from a real, physical danger).

***

Stress normally abates when the perceived threat or danger finally passes. Thousands of years ago, the instinctual “fight or flight” response was extremely useful for our hunter-gatherer ancestors as they had to battle wild animals and each other in pre-modern society.

Scientists believe that the stress adaptation came about because our ancestors were almost always exposed to threatening or dangerous situations.

 What are the signs that a person is experiencing stress?

Below are some common physical symptoms that a person is experiencing stress:

1. Inexplicable exhaustion or fatigue
2. Acute headaches that have a tendency to disrupt work or chores at home
3. Shallow chest breathing
4. Increased heart rate even when the person is not performing strenuous or challenging physical activities
5. Minor muscular pain
6. Twitches
7. Facial tics
8. Hand and arm tremors
9. A general feeling of nervousness and anxiety
10. Insomnia
11. Oversleeping
12. Inexplicable perspiring of the hands and feet
13. Turning to different substances such as caffeine, alcohol, nicotine and even recreational drugs

The list of symptoms doesn’t stop there. Here is a breakdown of the mental symptoms associated with moderate to extreme stress:

1. Short temper
2. Feeling angry all the time
3. Inexplicable mood swings
4. Feeling of isolation and helplessness
5. Short term memory problems
6. General decrease in work productivity
7. Lowered sexual desire
8. Distracted thinking

Why do people experience psychological stress?

The psychological signs of stress often manifest when a person has been under stress for a long period of time. These signs come about because the mind is trying to escape the stressful situation however it can.

This is one of the main reasons why stressed individuals are often less productive in the office.

Their minds are so sick of the prolonged stress response that their own thought patterns are preventing them from focusing on the things they have to do.

The same thing happens to university students who are overwhelmed with the nature and volume of work they have to complete to pass different course subjects.

How severe are stress-related symptoms in the general population?

In the United States alone, it is estimated that 90% of all physician visits are associated with symptoms related to chronic stress. It has also been estimated that on a monthly basis, 400 million people take medication to ease these symptoms.

Of course, we know now that medicating a stress-related symptom is a futile effort because you’re not addressing the main cause of the symptom – you’re just padding the symptom itself.

Now, it should be noted that the symptoms we discussed earlier may also be genuine signs of other health conditions (and not just stress). Consulting with your physician is still your best option if you experience symptoms such as racing heart rate or persistent headaches.