The first part of our current series on acing the art of stress management, we talked about three important guidelines:

First, you have to become familiar with the actual stressors that are causing you feel chronically stressed on a daily basis. This can be accomplished through regular journaling.

Second, you have to identify the negative beliefs and values that you may have. These beliefs and values may be stopping you from successfully managing your stress. This can be done through consistent self-analysis.

Third, you also have to accept the fact that not everything can be done in one day or one week. Stress management is actually a lifelong endeavor which will help create better beliefs, behaviors and thought patterns.

Today’s discussion will center on some additional guidelines which you can also use to improve your handling of stress management. You can find a few more essential guidelines below:

1.Try One or Try Them All – The fact of the matter is that there is no “perfect formula” for fight stress. I personally believe that stress dissipates more quickly through deep tissue massage because I really feel relaxed and happy after a good massage. But that’s just me; deep tissue massage may not be as effective for you.

This is why it’s so important for people to seek out different methods of stress management.

• Do not limit yourself to only 1 or 2 techniques.
• If something doesn’t work for you, it doesn’t mean that you do not have the capacity to manage your stress.
• It just means that you haven’t found the right combination of techniques to bring you to your desired level of relaxation and happiness.

2. Assemble Your Army, One by One – Managing stress is literally a battle against bad habits and a myriad of stressors. What do you need to succeed in any battle?

Your personal anti-stress army, of course!

• This personal army of yours will be composed of different relaxation techniques and behavioral modifications which you will learn as you progress with your stress management efforts.
• The techniques which you will be using must fit the genetics of your lifestyle and way of life. If a technique just doesn’t fit your lifestyle, it won’t work. Learn to adjust and discard techniques that do not conform to what you feel is the right way to remedy stress in your life.

3. Keep Practicing! – Like I’ve said before, stress management is essentially a collection of different skills that will enable you to effectively combat stress before it makes you permanently sick.

If you want full mastery of a specific skill, you must be willing to practice it until it becomes second nature.

This guideline may seem easy in comparison to my other reminders but in reality, it’s one of the most challenging to carry out.

Why? Because old habits die hard. For example, it can be very difficult for a person to listen more during an argument because the old habit was to outdo the other person in a screaming match.

Apart from learning new skills, effective stress management will also require you to change your attitudes and behaviors toward your stressors. In the previous blog post, I recommended that you start writing on a stress management journal.

Your stress management journal is more than just a laundry list of things to do.

• It’s actually a special picture of how you think and behave in response to different situations.
• You need a source of special insight if you want to discover your true self and reinvent it so you won’t be so stressed anymore.

4. Don’t Forget “Me” Time – In order to carry out your plans to conquer stress, you have to create space in your daily schedule for stress management. Now, I know that many stressed individuals feel that there isn’t enough time in a whole day for everything that needs to be done.

• However, I would like to point out that the statement “I wish there were 2 more hours in my day” is more of a state of mind than reality.
• The reality is that 12-18 hours of waking time is sufficient for most groups of tasks. There’s also enough time for relaxation within this time-frame.

If you cannot fit everything that you need to do within this amount of time that simply means that you have poor time management skills.

Evaluate how much time you spend on your different activities and try to create more balance within your day.

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.

Background:

Back in the sixties and seventies, people dreamt of a time when they could kick back and relax more because modern technology was finally there to help with tiresome tasks like cleaning the house. Politicians and community leaders and the media convinced us that life was getting better. And many of us we were convinced!  People looked forward to more and more wonderful inventions that made life easier and essentially, happier.

Yes, many of us we were on the ‘happy’ bandwagon.

Fast forward to the era of the eBay, i Phones,  Playstations, Apps and hand held computers of all sorts that connects us to the Internet in a heartbeat.

We are experiencing more advanced technology than all of the previous decades combined. Thanks to globalized trade and endless technological innovations, we can now enjoy the many benefits of the Internet- 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Any ordinary laptop or PC that was assembled around the year 2012, would be at least 1,000,000 times more efficient than the computer that launched the Apollo rocket to the moon.

We are literally living the dream, Or are we?

So the question now is: why are we still stressed?  Or more importantly: why are we even more stressed than our predecessors? Are we managing?

And will we feel and think less stressed in the years to come?

Sociologists, psychologists and modern day economists have all tried to determine at which juncture our era has become completely and almost inextricably associated with stress!

The studies that tackle the “stress puzzle” are complex in their entirety. However, I have taken the liberty of summarizing some of the most important findings.

The Roots of Stress

1. Less Leisure Time – Many people often associate stress with having to deal with childcare and taking care of the household.

However, if we were to compare the amount of time that people spend taking care of their homes and families now with the amount of time spent doing the same things back in the 1910’s, we would arrive at pretty much the same average number of hours per week: 52 hours.

The reason for this is that we are now spending more time on additional activities such as shopping for the daily household goods- checking out the things we see on TV. Those must haves, at least according to the media. We are perhaps at the mercy of having to have ‘things’.

Kids want them, women want them, men want them – the neighbors have them! My friends and mates have “it”.  The stress of keeping up! Do people find these wanting activities pleasant and leisurely? Or…

So even if we have plenty of modern appliances to lessen the time needed to complete different tasks, the time that we could spend for leisure is now being consumed by additional, avoidable activities and chores.

2. Stressors Abound – In an ideal world, a person who continually feels stressed at work would be able to unwind and distress when he comes home.

There are some people who have managed to accomplish this feat. I am also certain that theses people are mostly extremely happy that they “cracked the code” and have less stressful experiences.

However, for 60% of adults, the scenario isn’t as bright and stress free. The present reality is that more than 50% of all adults in America and other countries experience the same level of stress both at home and at work.

So an ordinary working adult no longer experiences a reprieve from stress because both environments are deemed stressful. Stress is everywhere.

3. Harmful Societal Standards – It is no secret that modern society is still ruled by double standards, especially in the workplace. Competition in workplaces, bullying work environments, lack of equality, lack of appropriate leadership and culture and relationship building by managers, means many people are at risk of feeling, thinking, and behaving stressed!

Despite significant breakthroughs in the field of gender equality, many people still subscribe to the idea that a woman is less able than a man!  Why ARE men paid more than women for the same work? Why do men hold more senior positions than women? Why?

Are equal rights afforded to people of all races, religion and beliefs, disability, and sexual orientation!

These different standards are actually toxic in the workplace because it encourages aggressive competition rather than co-operation! People are not respected for their skill, abilities and talent!   Does this make the workplace a frustrating and stressful place for both males, females and all the different groups?

4. Chronic Overwork – More than 25% of all adult workers complain of not having enough time in a day to finish everything they have to do.

To compensate for the scarcity of time, many adults resort to overworking. Unpaid work hours are increasing around the world.  Does this leads to a “burn out”?  It is difficult to recover from burn out if people don`t have the skills and time to reduce stress levels. What to do?

5. Fragmentation – The present divorce rate in the United States, as an example, is a staggering 50%. This means that a significant percentage of the entire American population is comprised of single-parent families with only 1 main earner. Stressor?

This reality is forcing many single parents (mostly females) have to work twice as hard and longer hours just to keep up with the daily expenses of their families.

Obviously this situation is extremely stressful because….  leisure time is almost nonexistent!  All other free time from work, if any, is diverted to taking care of the children and the household.