Stress management and you

Stress and the modern lifestyle sadly go hand in hand, and there is precious little you can do to circumvent that one fact. Your worries are not going to vanish overnight, you won’t magically be able to time travel and get more errands run during the day and your responsibilities as an adult to yourself and your loved ones is not going to change in an instant. But fret not, because even in the midst of all this doom and gloom there is always hope. There are still factors within your control that you can use to leverage or de-leverage stress, however you look at it.

The human body is like a machine, and like with any machine you must assume full control in order to get maximum value out of it. Your thoughts, your emotions, your immediate and extended environment and what you make of it are all parts of this machine, a part of your life. And meeting this challenge head on is the best way to tackle it. Stress stems from many things, and the key is to identify those elements that you find most stressful. This is easier said than done because causes of stress can be both overt and covert. It’s easy to look beyond your own thoughts, your own feelings and your own behavioral causes. There are the easy ones and those that are harder to root out.

Take for example a problematic relationship. You might deem the relationship itself as a cause of stress, but the real cause is a lack of time needed to maintain said relationship, a lack of time brought on by you failing to meet work deadlines due to your own procrastination. Thus, there is more here than meets the eye.

To identify stress, and what causes it, look at your own habits and reasons first. Perhaps you are too dismissive of stressful situations, putting them down as temporary when instead they could be symptomatic of something deeper. Your “nervous energy” that characterizes you might not be a characteristic at all, it could be a result of situations you have allowed to spiral out of control. Do you externalize your angst about the stress you have, or do you consider part and parcel of your daily life? Learn to accept responsibility for your own role and do everything you can to limit or cut out stress to a level more tolerable and within control.

A good way to do this is to run a stress journal that lists repetitive stressors in your life and, more importantly, the manner in which you deal with them. Each time you feel stress overcoming you, make a note of it in your journal. Maintaining a daily log will allow you to see patterns and thematic stressors become clearer. In particular, note:

• The cause of stress (hypothesise if necessary, but don’t dramatise).
• Your feelings, both physical and emotional.
• Your response.
• How you made yourself feel better.

Just as everyone is unique, no two people have the same response to stress, and there is no singular solution to managing it. Feel free to experiment with different techniques and strategies and see what works for you, but remember that at all times your focus must remain on what makes you feel calm and in control of your situation and your environment.

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