- Consider If Stress Has Become Your Identity ➞
- Identify and Replace Poor Habits That Cause Stress ➞
- Try Stress-Reducing Therapies to See What Works ➞
- Stop Relying on Addictions to Soothe Your Stress ➞
- Find Ways to Feel Good When Stress Arises ➞
(Photo by Artem Kovalev/Unsplash)
Stress is a normal part of life, but this belief (and fact) can often cause people to accept and ignore their stress until it begins doing real damage to their health, emotional well-being, relationships and more.
You’ll probably face many stressful situations over the course of your life, and some may be harder to resolve than others. It’s crucial to be able to learn how to handle stress at any given moment.
Being able to confront and handle stress – both low levels and increased doses – will improve your quality of life overall. Being overly stressed can wreak havoc on your health to the point you’ll be making doctors’ visits, trying to figure out why you’re suffering so much.
Consider If Stress Has Become Your Identity
Some people’s lives revolve around stress so much that it’s all they think, talk, and post about 24/7. Stress is all over the place – social media, workplaces, casual conversations, emails, their own minds, etc.
The world can sometimes seem to ooze stress, and for some people, they thrive on it. Many people have a daily routine where their entire day is run off of stress. It’s like caffeine in some cases.
It raises cortisol levels, supplying energy directly to the body. When cortisol starts coursing through your body, you’re on high alert, ready to take on whatever needs to be handled.
This is good in small doses, but when your body and mind are on non-stop high alert, the rest of your health and emotional sanity suffer. You can’t sleep or eat (or maybe you eat too much).
You never get to come down off of that high level of alertness, so eventually, you start suffering from extreme irritability and fatigue. Everyone needs to be able to calm themselves down during stressful situations.
Stress is also contagious to some degree. Maybe stress from the rest of the world has rubbed off on you. Think about your routine and your conversations and analyze whether or not your life revolves around stress.
Maybe all of the content you’re consuming is stressful news. Maybe all of your casual conversations revolve around stressful current events, and stressful things going on in your life or someone else’s life.
If this is the case for you, then stress has become a part of your identity. Your stress can begin infecting others, and can hamper your ability to have a good relationship with those around you.
You might start noticing people feeling tense around you – or avoiding you altogether. This could include coworkers, friends, and family – including your own spouse or children.
Recognizing that stress is a major part of your life and your identity can make you feel better. If you’ve realized that this is causing problems in your relationships, happiness, or even health, you can feel better knowing that you’ve identified the problem.
You can start to weed out these issues by focusing on more positive things rather than all of the stressful things that are going on around the world. Doing this will help repair your happiness, your health, and the relationships with those you care about.
Identify and Replace Poor Habits That Cause Stress
Many people unknowingly participate in many habits that could be causing stress. These habits are harmful to your lifestyle and should be replaced as soon as you recognize them.
One habit that many people take part in is negative thinking. Negative thoughts usually occur when a person is feeling unhappy. Stress can cause these unpleasant emotions, and can lead to more and more negativity.
After a habit of negative thinking has been developing over a period of time, it may be difficult to stop suddenly. To stop thinking negatively, divert your attention from your mind. Focus on only what is going on around you at that very moment.
Don’t allow your mind to wander off onto a negative train of thought. Don’t let yourself start to worry about the future, or anything that isn’t directly affecting you at that moment.
Another habit people engage in is shallow breathing. This one is caused by a lot of stress or anxiety in a person’s life. Shallow breathing is usually something that’s not recognized by the person doing it.
Stress to your mind also causes stress to your body. Your breathing patterns change when you’re under stress, and you begin to take shorter, shallower breaths. Shallow breathing actually adds more stress, continuing the cycle until it’s become harmful to your health.
This is why, when someone is stressed or anxious, they’re usually told to take a deep breath – because it interrupts that cycle of shallow breathing. Deep breathing sends a message to your brain to calm down, which is why it’s good to do this in times of stress.
Lacking communication skills is also a bad habit that occurs with stress. People tend to not want to rock the boat whenever there’s an issue. When you’re in a situation where there’s a problem, but there seems to be no good way to solve it, that can become stressful quickly.
To overcome this, prioritize your need to communicate. Don’t be afraid to let someone know if there is an issue that needs to be resolved. They could possibly feel the same way.
Another bad habit caused by stress is not participating in self-care. Self-care is extremely important for managing stress. Self-care includes exercise, diet, sleep, and anything else you need to nourish your body and mind.
Make sure to set aside time to take care of yourself. Start a plan to slowly get yourself back on track to participating in enough self-care. During this time, make sure you also work on letting go of negative thoughts.
Lots of people lash out at others and become easily angry when they’re stressed. This can happen when someone tries to ask about or point out the stressors in a person’s life.
To stop lashing out at those around you, try communicating how you are feeling to those people. If you need space, tell them that. If you need them to stop asking about stressors in your life, tell them that. You need to be able to set boundaries to ensure that these emotional outbursts caused by stress can be contained.
Try Stress-Reducing Therapies to See What Works
Some people may not feel equipped to alleviate their own stress. Others may feel that they don’t even know where to start. Some may prefer going to professionals rather than relying on their own ability.
There are many stress-reducing therapy options available for those who want to seek professional help with stress. Emotional freedom technique (EFT) is a stress relieving practice that involves tapping on acupuncture points on the body. EFT has been shown to reduce anxiety, stress, and depression.
Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) is a practice that deals with resolving trauma related stress. EMDR is done by reliving the trauma while the therapist guides your eye movement.
EMDR is said to work because reliving traumatic experiences is usually less unsettling when your attention is elsewhere. This makes it easier to handle when the events are being relived without the therapy.
Self-hypnosis is practiced by absorbing your mind into your body and what you feel around you, without distractions. While in this state of relaxation and self-awareness, make positive remarks to yourself regarding your goals and positive outlook. Self-hypnosis helps relieve stress, anxiety, and can stop bad habits.
Visualization is a technique used to relieve stress by using mental imagery to put your mind at ease. You start this practice by eliminating all distractions, and closing your eyes to visualize something relaxing.
Many people like to visualize being at a beach or in a field. Try to think about what’s around you in the mental imagery – the sound of the wind, the warm sunshine, the smell of rain, etc.
Whatever relaxes you, use it! Use your imagination to visualize whatever brings you peace. Meditation is one of the more common stress relieving practices. To start meditating, sit down in a place you know you’ll be comfortable.
Then, focus on breathing. Take deep breaths if you’d like, or normal ones. This is also helpful for those who tend to have shallow breathing patterns when stressed. Let your mind only focus on breathing.
Don’t think about anything else, as this could spiral into stress. If you notice your mind beginning to wander, bring your attention back to your breathing. Once you feel ready to end your meditation, feel free to do so.
Guided imagery is like visualization for those who would prefer direction on what to think about. This is good for anyone who gets distracted by their thoughts too easily, or for those who can’t think about what to visualize.
During guided imagery, there will be a leader who tells you what to envision, and gives you pointers on things to imagine. Guided imagery relieves stress in the same way that visualization does, and gives less of an opportunity for the mind to wander.
Deep breathing is one of the most used techniques in stress relief. The parasympathetic nervous system is triggered by deep breathing, which helps bring a sense of calm to the mind and the body.
Stop Relying on Addictions to Soothe Your Stress
Stress is a huge factor in why many people become addicted to things. When some people become stressed, they turn to some sort of addiction to ease their mind. Lots of people abuse substances because it temporarily relieves the feelings of stress and anxiety.
But when the high wears off, all of those feelings come back. Then, more of the substance is used. This is how addiction can start. Relying on addictions for stress relief may seem like it works temporarily, but in the long run, it is doing way more harm than good.
People get addicted to all kinds of things – alcohol, smoking, drug use, food binges, reckless driving, etc. Relying on one thing to ease your stress, no matter what it is, is dangerous to your physical and mental health.
Let’s say someone is addicted to alcohol, and they don’t have any around. This can send someone into a spiral of stress and sometimes even rage. Becoming so reliant on something for your mental stability that you can’t function without it is extremely harmful.
Addiction causes stress to the body because a lot of addictions include substances like drugs or alcohol that harm and add stress to your physical health. Harm and stress to your physical health means harm and stress to your mental health, and vice versa.
Start to rely on only yourself to relieve your stress, and not anything else. Slowly let yourself break away from external reliance. There are many resources to stop addiction, online and in person. Don’t let your stress snowball with addiction any more than it needs to.
Find Ways to Feel Good When Stress Arises
One of the best ways to relieve stress is to make yourself feel happy. Many tasks that make people happy also happen to be things that relieve stress. Being happy releases chemicals like dopamine and endorphins, which reduce stress.
One thing you can do to make yourself happy and reduce stress is to exercise. Exercising releases endorphins, which reduces stress. Many people also find joy in exercising when seeing the physical changes in fitness. Exercise also helps you sleep better, which is another way to reduce stress.
Picking up a hobby is another feel-good thing you can do to reduce stress. Hobbies are fun forms of self-care that you can indulge in to relax or allow your mind to take a break. Allowing yourself to take part in something that makes you happy will release dopamine and reduce stress.
You can also volunteer to reduce stress. Making yourself and others happy will reduce stress for everyone involved. Try doing something like a canned food drive or donating to an animal shelter. You can even join a volunteer group for some type partnership if you’d like.
Doing something nice for others is another feel-good stress relief activity. Maybe you know someone in your life who is also stressed. Try to do something for them that you know would help them out. Maybe you could volunteer to babysit their kids for a night, or to bring them dinner. Doing something kind for someone else can reduce your stress and theirs.
One of the most important things to do now is to learn how to be at peace with stress. Life is full of ups and downs. Stress will come and go. Remain persistent and remind yourself that you’ve made it through all of the stress you’ve gone through before.
Stop letting stress control your life, and allow yourself to acknowledge it and deal with it according to the situation. Don’t be afraid to do what’s best for you, when you need it in order to reduce stress.