A huge part of dealing with stressful situations and managing to be able to regain your state of calm when things start to go off course is recognizing what an impending stressful situation looks like. Of course, this isn’t always going to be possible as some stressful situations in your life may be genuinely out of the blue, but for the most part, you will at least be able to notice when your stress levels begin to rise.
Noticing Your Stress
When you are starting to feel stressed out, you will notice your stress levels rising. You may feel nervous, agitated, sweaty, faint, or you may start to get a headache. Understanding the physical symptoms which you experience when you are stressed is key to noticing when your stress levels are rising, recognizing stressful situations, and getting everything back under control.
One of the worst mistakes that you can make is to try and ignore your stress and hope that it will go away – this will not work. In order to best manage and get control over the stressful thoughts and emotions, it’s absolutely essential to accept them before attempting to deal with them. Once you have noticed a stressful thought, it is easier pin down the cause of your stress in your attempt to deal with it.
How to Manage Stressful Thoughts
However important the ability to notice stressful and anxious thoughts may be, it’s a useless skill if you do not know how to deal with and manage these thoughts once you have dealt with them. There are a multitude of different ways in which you could deal with stressful and worrisome thoughts and feelings, and it is really down to you finding out which coping techniques and methods work well for you.
Some common coping techniques include:
Breathing techniques;
Taking a break;
Listening to music;
Going outside;
Taking a walk;
Switching off your phone and other connected devices;
Talking to somebody you trust, or
Eating a healthy snack.
Of course, these are all different techniques, and whilst some may work
great for others, they may not be what suits you. You may also find your
own personal coping techniques which are not listed here. In the end,
dealing with stressful thoughts, feelings and situations is all down to
finding what works best for you and applying it when these situations
arise.
Finding Your Techniques
When it comes to discovering which relaxation techniques for dealing
with stress work well for you, it is absolutely vital to have patience
with yourself. If you have never used any anxiety-busting or
stress-busting techniques before, it can often take a while for you to
discover which ones actually make a difference to you as compared to
those which don’t work at all.
The key here is to try not to be disheartened if a certain technique
doesn’t work for you – it’s OK, you can just try another one. You also
need to be aware of the fact that relaxation and stress-busting
techniques not work-ing when you try them could make you feel even more
stressed. However, once you have figured out what works well for you and
know exactly when and how to use it, you will have made a huge step in
controlling your stress levels and encouraging a life which is calm and
collected.
Finding Your Stressors
We all have things in our lives that stress us out more than others.
Understanding what causes you to feel the most stressed out is
absolutely vital to taking control of your life and your stress levels.
When you’re stressed about something but not quite sure why, it can make
you feel even more stressed – some people end up in situations where
they are stressing about their own levels of stress, further
intensifying the condition.
Being able to pinpoint your stressors in life not only means that it is
easier for you to know what to avoid in order to keep stress at bay, but
it can also help you stay in control as you will be able to better
prepare ahead for most situations which include your particular
stressors. Discovering what stresses you out the most is all about being
to-tally honest with yourself.When you are feeling particularly
anxious, you should ask yourself what it is that you are worried about.
Sometimes, you may find that small things which would not usually worry
you are stressing you out if this is happening, you need to understand
that it is usually the result of a knock-on-effect from other stressors,
perhaps over an extended period of time. It can be helpful to enlist
the services of a therapist when dealing with your stressors, especially
if you suffer from a lot of stress which is related to a traumatic past
experience.
Being In Control
The key to a life which is calm and has minimal stress is to be in
control of it at all times. Staying in control not only means being on
top of thing such as your diet, finances, and lifestyle, but also your
own thought processes and energy. Staying in control of your own mind by
making sure that your body and mind is getting the right nutrition,
adequate exercise, and little harm from bad lifestyle habits is
absolutely important when it comes to achieving a life which is calm and
relatively stress-free.
Understanding how to harness your thoughts is one of the main goals of
managing stress and anxiety. Rather than allowing your thoughts to run
away with you, being in control – both physically and mentally – means
that you can catch stressful thoughts when they first appear and use a
range of techniques to deal with them efficiently.
