Stress Management

Stress is a state of imbalance and harmony in the mind and body.  It is the outcome of perceived threat - of either physical harm to the body or imagined threats processed in the brain.

It is often good to have some stress, indeed this can be healthy as it enhances creativity, provides motivation to take action and succeed and creates a feel good factor and sense of achievement.  This type of stress is called “eustress”.  However, when a person feels bad about the pressure that they have they are said to suffer “distress” and this produces poor performance, reduces creativity and can have a negative effect on health and relationships.  It is the management of this type of stress that is discussed here.

The effects of stress on an individual are well documented.  Symptoms can manifest themselves in a variety of ways - physical, behavioural and psychological.  Physical signs could be an inability to sleep, poor skin condition or more serious illness including cancer.  Behavioural patterns include damaging habits such as smoking, drinking alcohol, taking illegal drugs or being irrational, rushing around or the “ostrich syndrome” - burying the head in the sand.  Psychological symptoms include depression, anxiety, self-doubt, obsessions/compulsions and worry.  As well as impacting on the individual, stress will effect interpersonal relationships, professional responses and responsibilities and therefore impact on business structures and organisations.

It is natural and expected that we will all suffer from stress at some time in our lives.  The problems arise when that stress is not managed and becomes a long term issue.  Learn to identify your own stress symptoms and as soon as you see them becoming prevalent in your daily activities, take action to reduce the cause pronto.

• Anger and/or hostility.
• Perfectionism, usually driven from a fear of failure and unreal expectations.
• Time orientation - excessive and unnecessary time urgency; deadlines; feel guilty when not busy.
• Disappointment - intense disappointment with self and others usually as a result of unrealistic expectations.
• Burnout.
• Underachievement, failing to live up to own internal expectations; lack of realistic goal setting.
• Tension - insufficient time to ones self, not taking time out, always feel under pressure.

First Steps to Stress Management:
Know your enemy.  Write a list of all the things that are causing you to feel stressed at the moment.  Some things are probably obvious, so jot them down.  You might find it useful to use the following table to flush out some of the everyday, niggling things that you are putting up with.  What are the key things that come to mind for each of the following?

Which of the things that you have identified are hassles and which are major life events?  Which can you change and which are beyond your control?  Which are external forces and which are as a result of your response/pattern of thinking?

Choose your strategy: you can fight it, flee it or flow with it!  In a nutshell, there are 4 basic techniques you can use to reduce the impact of your stressors-

Change your stressors
Get away from your stressors
Change your thinking
Reduce the effects of stress  

Decide on one thing that you can change to reduce the impact for each of your stressors.  Can you change it? Can you change your thinking towards it? Decide on one step which you can take for each and plan to implement it over the next week.

Change your stressors
If something is so bad that you cannot find any way to handle the stress it creates, that it probably isn’t for you and you should remove it from your life.  Of course, you will look for a way of resolving the stressor first, so if for example the demands from your boss are causing you stress you should ask for a meeting and discuss this with him/her, ensuring that the discussion is kept solution based and that you keep to the facts.  If there is no way of resolving the issue to your mutual satisfaction, then maybe it is time to look for an alternative way of earning a living.

Get away from your stressors
What can you do about it?  If you have a long commute to work that stresses you, can you negotiate to work some days from home?  If your child’s music irritates you, can you buy him some headphones?  If there is a certain time when it’s very rowdy at home, perhaps you could use this as an opportune time to go out for some exercise?  Do you absolutely have to do all the things that you do?  Can you pay someone to do the things that you don’t enjoy?  As well as removing a task that you dislike, this will release more time to do things that you do enjoy!

Change your thinking
One of the ways of handling your stressors is to change your thinking; however that can be easier said than done.  In its simplest form, this means identifying what stresses you and finding a way to reduce the impact.  For example, the time consumed by a long commute each day could be used to read (books or audio books), relax to music or plan for the next day.

What if your stressor is a person?  You can diminish the impact that they have on your life by picturing them very small, with a Mickey Mouse voice or a bright red nose.  Making light of something that used to worry you will ease the burden and enable you to take it more lightly.

Stressors can be internal or external.  Internal stress is a result of the way that you think about and respond to things which happen to you. How many of the things that you worry about actually happen?  Whilst I am in favour of a bit of forward planning to pre-empt difficulties, I would challenge if there is any point in spending time and energy worrying about things that probably won’t ever happen.  How many hours/days/weeks have you spent in the past worrying unnecessarily? Believe in yourself that you will handle whatever happens and then put your worry out of your mind! 

If something unpleasant happens, you CAN control your response to it.  There are as many different responses to an event as there are people to experience it!  You can choose to see it as a problem or you can look for ways to benefit from the situation.  Changing your thinking is a key role of NLP and we could therefore explore this in detail in a coaching session.

Reduce the effects of stress
Ensure that you set aside time to relax and recuperate.  Find ways that will help you to soothe your mind and your body - taking a bath, go for a walk, have a massage, take time to meditate, listening to soft, quiet music, prepare a nourishing meal - or whatever works well for you. 

Other popular ways of reducing the effects of stress:
Eat properly
Exercise
Smile!
Remember happy times
Hypnosis
Sport/hobbies
Deep breathing
Massage/aromatherapy
Acupuncture

It is particularly important at times of stress to make sure that you take good care of yourself.  Experiment with different methods to help increase your ability to relax.

Coping techniques

Complete the following table:

If you found it difficult to complete this table initially, don’t worry; keep coming back to it as you find ways to make your life more relaxed and enjoyable.  Ensure that you make time for these activities in your daily life.

Resolving stress can be a big challenge - I know this from personal experience.  Sometimes it seems impossible to find the solution when you are completely immersed in a stressed state.  Life Coaching will help you to resolve your immediate issue and learn to look for your individual “early warning signs” that stress is affecting you in the future.

Please God grant me the serenity to accept those things which I cannot change, courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference

The Serenity Prayer