We all know that intense experiences have serious emotional and even physical consequences. So why are they so difficult to manage?
Researchers from Yale University (USA) know the answer. They discovered Bill Hathaway. Even In The Healthy, Stress Causes Brain To Shrink, Yale Study Shows that stress reduces the volume of gray matter in the areas of the brain responsible for self-control.
Thus, each emotional shock, suppressing the ability to control stress, aggravates subsequent shocks. It turns out to be a kind of vicious circle.
But there is no need to be discouraged. You can reverse this effect and manage stress if you make it a priority. The sooner you begin to effectively manage your emotions, the easier it will be to avoid the harm of nervous tension in the future.
The best weapon against stress is the ability to choose one thought over another.
William James
American psychologist
Fortunately, the brain's plasticity allows it to rewire and repair damaged areas as we change behavior. That is, by properly relieving tension, we train the brain to resist stress more effectively.
These seven strategies will help you restore your brain and cope with stress.
Disconnect
Thanks to technology, we can always stay connected. It seems as if it should be so. But enjoying peace of mind in your free time is extremely difficult if at any moment an email can change your train of thought.
Regular shutdowns help you control your stress levels and rest. Being in the access zone around the clock, you are only exposed to an inexhaustible stream of stress factors. But if you force yourself to go offline or even turn off your phone, you will allow your head and body to relax.
Studies have shown that simply not checking email on the weekend can help reduce stress.
If you can't ignore work contacts on weekday evenings, then what about the weekends? Choose the right time and protect yourself from business. By incorporating these mental recharges into your weekly schedule, you will be surprised at how refreshing and stress-relieving these breaks are.
If you are worried about negative consequences, try to start by switching off only when the likelihood of someone contacting you is minimal. For example, on Sunday morning. As you begin to get used to such measures, gradually increase the time spent away from technology.
How to overcome stress
Various techniques can tell you how to manage stress.
"Avoidance" Every person should learn to avoid stressful situations as much as possible. To do this you need:
- Avoid talking about topics that are unpleasant to you. If you know that certain topics might upset you, such as politics, then simply don't bring them up.
- Learn to control the world that surrounds you: don’t watch programs that make you feel irritated, don’t play annoying music, don’t play games that make you nervous.
- Do not communicate with people who are unpleasant to you and cause negative emotions.
- Don't overload yourself with a lot of things to do. Do only what is really important at the moment.
- Get used to saying no. In any business, strictly adhere to your principles.
By regularly applying even these simple rules, you can reduce the number of stressful situations.
"Change". There are situations that cannot be avoided. In this case, you need to use them for your own purposes. To prevent this problem from arising again, you need to adopt the following rules:
- Be clear about your priorities. Do not give in to provocation, do what is important to you. You shouldn’t adapt to other people’s opinions or try to please others.
- If you want someone to change their behavior, you need to be willing to change yourself. Compromise is the main point of conflict-free relationships.
- There is no need to accumulate negative emotions in yourself, if something does not suit you, learn to speak about it directly, but tactfully and respectfully.
- Don't put off until later what is important to you now.
"Adaptation". Sometimes the situation develops in such a way that it can neither be ignored nor changed; in this case, there is only one thing left - to change your attitude towards the situation that has arisen, that is, to adapt to it. In this case, stress management methods are aimed at looking at the situation from the outside or from a different angle:
- Think about your standards, if you belong to the category of perfectionists, decide whether you really need this whole problem in order to drive yourself into a framework that interferes with your life.
- Assess the situation. Maybe it's not that important. Stop worrying about her now. If the situation is important at the moment, then think that very little time will pass and it will cease to be relevant.
- Try to think about the positive as much as possible. Find at least 5 topics that will make you smile.
- Look for the positive in a problem. For example, if you are annoyed that you are stuck in a traffic jam, use the situation to your advantage: enjoy the music, relax, dream, and so on.
If you manage to change your attitude towards the negative situation that has arisen, it will burst like a soap bubble. Only the person himself makes it a problem, because of which one can fall into a depressed state.
Neutralize unfriendly people
Unpleasant personalities are frustrating, tiring, and stressful. You can manage your interactions with them by controlling your feelings. When you have to deal with such a person, approach the situation wisely. Take care of your emotions and don't let anger or frustration wreak havoc.
At the same time, consider the disagreeable person's point of view and motives to find a path to consensus. Even when everything goes downhill, you can tolerate such a person without letting him drive you crazy.
How does stress manifest at work?
First of all, it is worth talking about changes at the physiological level:
• Sleep disturbance occurs. • Frequent headaches bother me. • Memory problems are observed. • The overall tone of the body decreases. • The immune system begins to malfunction. • Appetite disappears, stomach problems appear.
If we talk about the emotional and psychological background, then a person under stress becomes inattentive, distracted, and irritable. You feel very tired or causeless melancholy, and there is no joy from your favorite activities and the results of your work. The feeling of anxiety and helplessness increases. Thus, immediate work on oneself and elimination of aggravating factors is required.
Don't hold grudges
They also cause stress. By simply remembering something to be offended about, you put your body into fight-or-flight mode—a survival mechanism that prepares the body to fight or run away from a threat. When danger is in front of you, this reaction saves lives. But if the threat has long passed, then stress maintained by memories only causes damage to the body and can have a destructive effect.
Researchers from Emory University (USA) have proven that prolonged emotional stress increases blood pressure and contributes to the development of heart disease. By holding onto resentment, you accumulate stress. People with high emotional intelligence avoid this state at all costs. By letting go of the grudge, you will not only feel better, but also improve your health.
Stress management at the organizational level
Stress management at the organizational level involves changing the organizational climate and anti-stress support for employees within the framework of special programs. Understanding the negative consequences of stress is of great importance at this level, because Only with its help can the organization’s management and HR specialists organize stress monitoring and develop measures to minimize, mitigate and prevent the consequences of stress factors.
Creating a favorable organizational climate is one of the primary tasks of effective stress management in an organization, because such a climate serves, perhaps, as the best prevention of stress in general.
If a stressful situation arises, the climate in the organization can either enhance its impact or transform negative reactions of staff into positive ones. Interestingly, difficult situations can have a beneficial effect on team cohesion and enhance its creative potential.
Based on this fact, the management of many organizations today is taking all measures to create an atmosphere of trust and respect for each other within their teams, and this applies not only to employees at the same levels - constructive relationships are also built between managers and subordinates.
However, creating the right favorable climate is not an easy task, and “little things” that seem insignificant at first glance play a huge role in solving it. Therefore, to achieve this goal it is customary to use special methods:
- organizing a feedback system using corporate communications (website, mail, press);
- involving employees in making important decisions for the organization (reorganization of the structure, refinement of the technological process, etc.);
- the use of team and project forms of labor organization.
Today, great hopes are also placed on corporate events aimed at uniting the organization and strengthening the corporate spirit, but this approach is no longer something innovative - rather, it can be called standard. Therefore, experts warn that when using it you may encounter all sorts of difficulties and troubles.
Yes, you can organize a lot of interesting and fun holidays for employees, but at the same time do not have an established feedback system that allows management to have an idea of the needs of the staff and the staff to understand the real business tasks that the organization poses. Such a policy will only lead to employees turning into consumers of entertainment and salaries who do not take any responsibility for what happens in the company.
The example is, of course, particular, but it perfectly highlights the impossibility of creating a favorable climate using standard schematic approaches. Moreover, two important principles are not taken into account here:
- The principle of respect for the individual and granting him rights and responsibilities. People employed in the company must understand its main goals and objectives, be involved in its victories and achievements, and be aware of the reasons why certain decisions are made.
- The principle of developing measures to create a favorable corporate climate. At the same time, the mood, interests and needs of the staff should be studied. Understanding these features helps you choose the best methods to interact with employees by meeting their basic needs.
Methods for creating a favorable climate are described in specialized literature devoted to organizational climate research. With the right approach, a favorable climate can become an effective measure to prevent and mitigate stress factors, as well as a way of relaxation and recovery.
Another stress management factor at the organizational level should also be mentioned. It is to provide staff with greater responsibility for the results of their activities. But this factor will only act in conjunction with a clear distribution of functionality and workload, which makes it possible to prevent both insufficient workload and overload with work.
If employees decide for themselves what and how to do while working, the negative consequences of stress will decrease significantly. However, in practice this is very difficult to achieve, although there are still some ways. For example, scheduled meetings to discuss tasks with each specific department.
The redistribution of responsibilities is no less important. Of course, this is not always possible, but managers involved in stress management should always keep this issue in mind. And to solve it, you can use a variety of work situations, for example, the dismissal of one of the employees.
Upon dismissal, a workplace is freed up, and this can easily be used as an occasion to revise job descriptions and work assignments in order to make other jobs more interesting for the rest of the staff, as well as to optimize the workload. In this case, various methods of job analysis are used, such as expert assessment, timekeeping, photography of the working day, etc.
Another great way to prevent stress in the workplace is to implement flexible working hours. It is possible to minimize stress loads and increase job satisfaction if you give at least some employees the opportunity to independently arrange their schedule, based on production needs and functionality.
In addition, a significant organizational factor that can mitigate stress at work is social support for employees provided by immediate managers and close-knit teams. Many researchers believe that they act as a buffer between people and stress.
It is important to note here that in order to provide social support, stress management managers should first of all master anti-stress programs. Today, many such programs are available in foreign companies. They include behavioral and cognitive methods of coping with stress, and their use has been shown to reduce stress, improve sleep and increase the body's resistance to stress at work.
A lot of research has been done on this topic. For example, an experiment was conducted in the Netherlands where 130 people took part. He showed that corporate programs to train staff in stress management methods not only reduce nervousness, but also lead to psychological comfort, increase self-confidence and even increase productivity. Moreover, this effect lasted for six months, after which it was necessary to simply apply anti-stress methods again.
To make such programs more effective, you can initially teach them to more sensitive employees - later they will help their less susceptible colleagues to learn to cope with stress. And the accompanying positive impact of this approach is expressed in significant cost savings on the development and implementation of stress management programs, as well as in increasing the status of employees who train other people.
It is worth mentioning one more anti-stress factor - these are fitness programs provided to employees by organizations - they help improve physical health. But this is not their only purpose, because moderate physical activity is known to have a beneficial effect on the psyche (read more about this in the article “Preventing stress and developing stress resistance”).
However, these programs differ in an important nuance - responsibility for attending classes, maintaining a routine and maintaining a healthy lifestyle lies with the employees themselves. While it is still possible to track people's attendance at fitness programs, it is not possible to force them to attend them. But speaking more objectively, introducing stress management methods into an organization and training staff in them is several times cheaper than organizing a fitness program.
Therefore, such means of reducing the impact of stress as seminars, master classes and trainings, where employees can learn relaxation techniques and behavior change methods, master business communication skills and useful behavior techniques in conflict situations, are still considered more effective.
As you can see, there are quite a lot of ways to manage stress at the organizational level, but this information is still more useful for managers and executives than for ordinary employees who simply go to work every day and perform the functions assigned to them. At the personal level, the benefits will be much greater if individual stress management measures are applied.
Practice meditation
Self-mindfulness is a simple, research-backed form of meditation that can help you control recalcitrant thoughts and actions. People who practice it concentrate better even when they are not meditating. This technique is great for dealing with stress because it suppresses the feeling of being out of control.
Self-awareness prevents you from spontaneously switching between thoughts, which helps you refrain from negative reasoning. This is a good way to cope with work life while remaining calm and productive.
How to identify sources of stress in your life?
Starting a stress journal
A stress journal will help you identify regular stress in your life and develop ways to manage and combat it. Every time you feel stressed, track it in your journal. If you keep a daily journal, you will begin to see patterns and common themes. Try to write down in your journal:
- What caused the stress (take a guess if you're not sure).
- How you felt physically and emotionally.
- Your response.
- What stress management techniques have you used to feel better?
This will help identify sources of stress, such as changing jobs, moving, or losing a loved one. Identifying sources of daily stress can be more challenging. The problem is that when you are stressed, you may not be aware of your own thoughts, feelings and behavior. To identify the true sources of stress, pay attention to your habits and justifications for dealing with stress:
- You explain the stress as temporary, although you can’t remember the last time you took a break.
- You define stress as an integral part of your work, home life, or as part of your personality: “I have a very nervous personality.”
- You blame other people or external events for your stress and think this is completely normal.
Until you accept responsibility for the role you play in life, your stress levels will remain beyond your control.
How to help yourself cope with stress?
Think about the ways you manage stress in your life. A stress journal will help you determine what your coping strategies are. They may be healthy or unhealthy, useful or unproductive. Unfortunately, many people only make their problem worse by coping with stress.
Unhealthy stress management strategies
These coping strategies may temporarily reduce stress, but cause more damage in the long term:
- Smoking.
- Alcohol abuse.
- Wrong nutrition.
- Spending several hours in a row in front of a computer or TV.
- Breakdown of social relationships.
- Using pills or medications to calm down and relax.
- Avoiding problem solving.
- Taking it out on others (outbursts of anger, physical violence).
Keep things in perspective
The reason for our worries often lies in a distorted perception of events. Before you waste a lot of time analyzing your boss's instructions from the last meeting, take a minute to see the whole picture. You can resort to this method when the level of anxiety does not correspond to the real reasons for it.
If you find yourself thinking superficially, then try to rethink the situation. The best way to get rid of this line of thinking is to list the things that actually went wrong. Most likely, you will count one or two points and not bury the whole idea.
To stay calm, it is important to understand that feelings often distort the situation, and the scale of the problem may not be as significant as it seems.
Learning healthy ways to deal with stress
If your methods of coping with stress are not helping your emotional and physical health, then it's time to find healthy ways to manage stress. No one method works the same for everyone or in every situation, so experiment with different methods and strategies. Focus on what makes you feel calm and in control.
Stress Management Strategy #1: Movement
Physical activity plays a key role in reducing stress and preventing its effects. You don't have to be an athlete or spend hours in the gym to experience the benefits, because almost any type of physical activity can help relieve stress and burn off anger, tension, and frustration. Physical activity can increase the release of endorphins, which will improve your mood and make you feel good. You can start small and build up your fitness level gradually. Short bursts of activity that raise your heart rate will help relieve stress and give you more energy and optimism. Here are some simple ways:
- Dance to the music.
- Take your dog for a walk.
- At home or at work, use the stairs rather than the elevator.
- Leave your car in the furthest parking spot and walk the rest of the way.
- Support each other in training.
- Play outdoor games with your children.
Once you get into the habit of being physically active, try incorporating regular exercise into your daily schedule. Activities that require continuous movement are particularly effective in relieving tension. Walking, running, swimming, dancing, cycling and aerobic classes are good choices. Choose an activity that you enjoy and try to stick to it. Instead of continuing to focus on negative thoughts while you exercise, make a conscious effort to focus on your body and physical sensations. Adding this mindfulness element to your workout will help you break out of the cycle of negative emotions and quell stress. Focus on coordinating your breathing with your movements, or try to notice how your skin feels the air or sunlight on it. Getting negative thoughts out of your head and paying attention to physical sensations is a surefire way to avoid trauma memories. Once you develop these habits, it will be easier for you to learn other stress management techniques.
Use your support system
Trying to do everything yourself is tempting, but ineffective. To stay calm and productive, you need to admit your weaknesses and ask for help when you need it. In other words, if the situation becomes too difficult, you need to engage your support system.
Everyone has people in their life who are ready to cover and support them in difficult times. Find such people in your environment and turn to them for advice or help when needed.
Even just talking about your worries can reduce anxiety and change your perspective on the situation. In most cases, other people see a solution that you do not see, because their perception of the problem is free of unnecessary emotions. Asking for help will reduce your anxiety and strengthen your relationships with those you rely on.
The strategies listed may seem simple. But when stress clouds your mind, they will be difficult to apply. Get over yourself when your head starts spinning and you will reap the benefits of disciplined stress management.
Make Positive Personal Choices
Maintaining a manageable stress level is a goal you want to achieve. We understand that the topic of stress can seem large and complex. However, it really comes down to making some simple, positive choices about how we think and how we behave.
To start, consider diet and exercise. This is a big topic, but just remember that you don't have to be a nutritionist or a marathon runner for long-term success in improving your diet and exercise. In fact, pursuing big goals too quickly can cause rapid relapse.
Start small. Choose one or two small goals for the year. They can be as simple as giving up one type of food or cutting down a certain amount of calories. Plan for hour-long walks a couple of times a week. Your chances of success with this approach are increased because they are easier to stick to, which means your chances of improving them in the future are also increased.
Next comes what we call visualization of the result. Make it a habit to spend a few minutes alone, quietly visualizing yourself achieving your goal. Think of yourself doing exactly what you're trying to achieve, like a movie in your head that you can use to track your daily behavior.
You ask yourself how what you are doing is helping or, conversely, moving you away from achieving your goal. To start, focus on one goal, but once you get the hang of it quickly, you can freely focus on multiple results.
Another stress management approach is to engage in fun and socially stimulating activities. You can watch a movie or read a book, take up a hobby, go out with friends, or become a volunteer. Choose things that you know will make you happy and a little relaxed. When you spend a little time making interesting and real connections, you experience positive emotions, positive thoughts, and gain the perspective you need.
Lastly, take time to be grateful. Stress often causes us to focus a huge portion of our attention on the negative things in our lives, which makes us forget to focus on the good. It is important to take inventory of what we have to be grateful for from time to time.
We described this process a little in the article “21 Strategies for Becoming Positive at Work and in Life.” The bottom line is that you take a daily inventory of what you are grateful for that day.
Conclusion
To improve your approach to stress management, you need to focus and start taking small steps. You can start by doing the following three things:
- Choose one person or task that is a trigger for you. Decide now how you will change the way you interact in the future to stay safe and healthy.
- Make one change to your diet or your workout routine.
- Choose some positive stimulant for yourself. This could be calling a good friend once a week, going to the cinema or other activities. Find time to do this regularly.
Only when you realize that you are ultimately in charge of your life can you begin to make positive changes. Every small positive change begins to reduce the stress you experience. None of us ever completely get rid of stress, but with the right efforts, including the tips we've covered, you can certainly get rid of the main triggers of your stress.
What else is interesting to read?
10 Basic Change Management Models
February 16, 2020
Change management is a proven methodology used to help...
17929
How to tell your boss you're leaving
May 27, 2020
When you're about to announce your departure from a company, you're probably tempted to proudly and...
17784
How to identify your strengths and talents for career development
November 29, 2018
Are you on the right track for your career growth? Or do you just want to do something...
17597
21 Strategies for Becoming Positive at Work and in Life
June 30, 2019
From this article you will learn what positivity is and how it benefits us. The main thing is that you will learn 21...
9774
Working with a difficult manager. Practical solution to the problem
March 24, 2019
Over the course of your career, you may have 10 or more different employers, and...
6977
