How do you deal with stress? Suggestions...
We can be exposed to a lot of stressful situations during the day, sometimes for reasons beyond our control, just to feel like a more successful, more productive, more accepted person. Just as burning the candle from both ends to get more light will solve our problem in the short term, but it will consume the candle quickly in the long run, just as putting ourselves under too much stress in order to get better can cause us to burn out very quickly without realizing it. Stress management offers practical tips on how to manage our stress response in healthy ways in the face of difficult life events and situations we cannot control.
You must have come across the allegory of the frog sitting in a pot on the fire somewhere. If the frog falls into a pot of boiling water, it will realize that this is a dangerous situation for itself and will immediately try to escape. However, when water enters the pot while it is not yet warm, it will continue to stay in the pot without being aware of the danger that awaits it, that is, the water is getting hotter, even though it faces the same danger.
Does this scenario sound familiar to you? To be more specific, have there been times when you didn't just accept the little pressures from your environment and just say no to the smallest thing anyway, and eventually you experienced that even the smallest things got too much and you couldn't handle it?
Don't worry, you are not alone. Today, one in three people struggle with anxiety, depression and the devastating effects of stress, which are directly related to chronic stress. Well, when everything is so obvious and chronic stress is so central to our lives, isn't there a way to 'turn down the heat'?
It seems that the stress factors, which have doubled in our lives with the pandemic period, will continue to exist as a threat to our mental and physical health both in the current time period and at least in the near future.
Therefore, we need to research very well how we can cope with stress, how we can manage our stress response in the face of situations we cannot control, and how we can prevent stress from becoming 'chronic' and learn how to integrate it into our lives.
Is stress a manageable response?
The three basic steps of stress management are to be able to recognize certain stress factors, to analyze their causes after noticing them, and to take action after analyzing them to minimize the effects of these factors on both our physical and mental health. There are hundreds of different methods and tools that have been scientifically proven to be effective in dealing with stress, known as the response of our body to the difficult experiences that we encounter in life and that we cannot control.
Meditation, yoga and exercise are among the most popular stress management techniques that we have heard of in recent years. However, just as everyone's stress response to different situations may be different, our mechanisms for coping with stress may also be unique to us. Therefore, while preparing our recommendations, we have chosen to prepare a comprehensive list of different approaches, where you can choose the ones that are most suitable for your lifestyle, habits and coping mechanisms, although not all of them are suitable for you.
But first, we would like to make one thing clear: Our goal is not to lead a completely stress-free life. Stress is a natural and instinctive reaction that we all experience from time to time and is essential for our survival. Therefore, while applying our recommendations, your primary goal is not to completely get rid of stress by adopting a hostile approach to stress; Learning how to balance your body and mind in situations of intense stress.
Points to consider about stress management
Before examining different stress management techniques, you need to consider these 7 factors determined by the American Psychological Association that you should pay attention to when applying all techniques:
1. Understand your stress mechanism
Everyone's stress response and perception of various life events can be very different from each other. Understanding what stress means to you and what processes take place in your body and mind when you react to stress will guide you to understand which technique will benefit you.
2. Analyze your sources of stress well
Stress, as we mentioned in detail before, does not arise spontaneously. For the stress response to occur, a situation perceived as a threat must be experienced. Understanding what is a potential trigger for you in your business life, in your relationship with your family, in your communication with your partner or in your daily life experiences other than these situations will also allow you to control these situations as much as possible.
3. Learn to recognize stress signals
Because we all experience the stress process differently, you must learn to sense specific signals from your body and mind in times of stress. When you are stressed, follow body signals very well, such as not being able to tolerate even the smallest mistakes, headaches, nausea, diarrhea or constipation.
4. Review your methods of coping with stress
Stress is an instinctive reaction that is with us from the first moment we are born, although we are not aware of it, we develop many different strategies to cope with it throughout our lives. Try to understand how you calm yourself down when you are stressed and what is good for you. You may discover that some of your coping mechanisms are healthy, while others may reduce your stress but harm your body and mind in other ways.
5. Look for healthy ways to deal with stress
Gaining insight into what your current unhealthy coping behaviors are will be a great opportunity to replace them with healthy options. For example, if your current behavior is to overeat when you're stressed, you might instead meditate or contact friends who you think can support you with your situation.
6. Make self-care your priority
When we take time for ourselves, we put our own well-being and health ahead of everything else and everyone else. Although this may seem like a very selfish point of view at first glance, the announcement that you have to put on your own oxygen mask before your child on the plane also applies to self-care. In order to be able to help others, nurture and support others around you, you must first be well. The simplest things that support your well-being, such as adequate sleep, a healthy diet, and exercise, may be the self-care practices you often neglect the most.
7. Get professional help if you need it
Sometimes, no matter how hard you try, you may not get effective results from your effort. The support of your friends, family or yourself may not be enough, or you may not have such a social support mechanism in your life. At this point, working on the above 6 items and getting support from a mental health professional in developing healthy coping mechanisms will make numerous contributions to your life.
Healthy stress management techniques
After these 7 suggestions about stress management that you should pay attention to, you can start to apply the most suitable stress method techniques that we have prepared for you. We will analyze our recommendations under three separate headings: behavior-focused techniques, emotion-focused techniques, and acceptance-focused techniques.
Behavior-focused stress management techniques
Behavior-oriented stress management techniques, as the name suggests, can offer effective solutions especially for those who have difficulty in taking the first step and who want to get away from stressful situations quickly.
Look assertive and confident
Clear and effective communication is the key to appearing confident and assertive. When our self-confidence is high, it becomes much easier to tell other people what we want or need. In addition, we can easily express why we are uncomfortable. The key to effective self-confidence in managing stress is to be able to continue to empathize with others while demonstrating your confidence with determination. Once you have identified what message you want to convey to the other person, you can take proactive steps to change the stressful situation.get away from the noises
Getting away from technological tools, screens and notifications is one of the most effective things you can do to get away from stress. Set a quiet time for yourself each day. When you start practicing this every day and make it a routine, you may realize that many of your responsibilities that you think you need to do and that you think you need to do are not as important as you exaggerate. Remember that recharging is a very effective way to deal with stress.
Learn how to manage time
As long as you allow it, days will consume you, not days. When you don't realize this, you may feel that the minutes are flying out of your palm and you can't keep up with anything. However, when you prioritize and put your responsibilities in order and you see the ones you complete disappear one by one from your to-do list, you will feel that your life is less stressful and more enjoyable.
Set your limits
Boundaries consist of rules that we create for ourselves internally, that are not imposed on us from the outside. The boundaries we set for ourselves determine what behaviors we accept and don't accept, how much time and space we need away from others, and what our priorities are.
It is very important to be able to set healthy boundaries in order to lead a stress-free life. We respect ourselves when we have healthy boundaries, and we make our boundaries clear to others so that other people respect those boundaries as well.
Get out of the folds of your minds
Sometimes trying to ignore the thoughts that are competing with each other and trying to take over the focus of your mind may be the only and best technique you need. It's a fact that we all need a break sometimes. All of the activities that will take your attention away from your mind will help you focus on your mind and get rid of stress. Watch a movie, call a loved one, see a friend, go for a walk, or engage in any activity that distracts you from your mind.
Emotion-focused stress management techniques
Emotion-focused stress management techniques focus on changing how we perceive stressful situations, that is, how we relate to the negative and challenging situations we experience. As William James said: Our most powerful weapon against stress is our freedom to choose which thought to focus on!
Affirmations and visualization
It is scientifically proven that positive visualizations and affirmations enable us to experience positive emotions. So how do affirmations and positive visualizations do this? When you deliberately think about or visualize any positive experience in your mind, the brain perceives it as real. So he approaches these positive thoughts and images as if we were trying something really positive. Therefore, when we replace our negative thoughts with positive ones, the window through which we look at the world and the emotions we experience also turn into positive ones.
In the mid-1950s, psychologist Dr. Albert Ellis introduced cognitive restructuring, a technique he developed to understand negative emotions and challenge the false/stereotyped beliefs that cause them. Cognitive restructuring is one of the most fundamental components of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), and it basically aims to change thoughts, behaviors through thoughts, and emotions as a result of behaviors in different techniques and applications.
ABC Technique
The ABC technique, like cognitive restructuring, was developed by psychologist Dr. Although developed by Albert Ellis, the version used today was finalized by Martin Seligman. ABC letters basically represent three concepts: A-adversity (difficulty), that is, the stressful situation; B-beliefs (beliefs), ie our reaction to the challenging situation; C-consequences (consequences), that is, our behavior governed by our beliefs and all our experiences in the face of a challenging situation. This technique basically says that the more optimistic our beliefs in challenging situations, the more positive the emotions we will experience as a result. What are the consequences of your stereotypes in your belief system?
Acceptance and awareness focused stress management techniques
Acceptance and awareness-oriented stress management techniques offer an extremely effective roadmap for dealing with stressful situations that we cannot control.
Healthy eating and exercise
Effects of chronic stress on physical health: How does stress affect our body? In our article, we talked in detail about how chronic stress negatively affects our physical health as well as our mental health, and how it causes inflammation in all systems of the body. Therefore, one of the first steps to both avoiding stress and reducing the negative effects of chronic stress on our body is to take good care of our body. You must have heard the saying, “You are what you eat.” Eating with awareness, analyzing what you take into your body well, eating healthy; Reducing the consumption of addictive substances such as alcohol, processed sugar and caffeine as much as possible will help you cope with anxiety and stress.
Another proven way to reduce stress and prevent it from becoming chronic is exercise. Many scientific studies examining the relationship between exercise and mental health show that exercise acts as a natural antidepressant in reducing stress and symptoms of depression.
