The Best Ways To Cope With Stress: Seize Your Stress
The best way of defining stress is anything that can be a physical danger, or something that is perceived to be a danger to our physical or emotional health. If you are living, breathing, or working at this moment, you have stress. It is something you cannot avoid. Stress can be any demand that is placed on us either physically or emotionally and our response to that demand.
Finding ways to cope with the stress in your life will help you explore ways to cope with those stressors. Make a list of events in your life that are causing you stress. Have you moved recently, gone to a new job, or had a promotion? All of these may cause stress even if they are good events. After you have made your list, write down how you can relieve some of the stress on the list. You can choose how you respond to stress, you can respond negatively or positively. Unhealthy ways of coping with stress could involve drug or alcohol abuse, over-eating, self-imposed isolation, and procrastination in performing a task.
Healthier ways of coping with the stress is to exercise, have some time for yourself, balance the work you are doing with a little play time, and use a schedule to manage your time better.
Once you have identified your stressors and found ways of coping with them, the next step is to change your behavior patterns and responses. Recognize the ways you are reacting to the stress in your life. Realize there is some things you can change such as your thoughts and emotional responses to stress, and some stressors are out of your control. Begin changing your behavior to use healthy coping skills. Practice these new skills even if you don’t feel intense pressure on any given day. This will help prepare you for the times when you are overwhelmed with pressure, concerns, and stress.
Learn to recognize which relaxation techniques work best for you. Maybe you can cope with stress by going for a walk, reading a book for pleasure, or listening to soothing music. Meeting with friends is another way of positively coping with stress. Enjoy a good phone conversation, or write a letter or e-mail to a loved one or friend.
Listening to music can help you cope with stress. Listening to music before you go to bed can relax you and help you to fall asleep. I wouldn’t recommend rousing rock, or intense fiery music, instead, listen to soothing classical, or the sounds of the ocean. Other soothing sounds can help you relax and release stress before you go to bed.
Taking a warm bath may also aid you in relieving stress. Soaking in a hot bubble bath with scented salts added or candles burning around you and lighting is dimmed is a wonderful way to erase the stress and cares of the day. If you are feeling overwhelmed, a soak in the tub may ease you enough to successfully cope with the stress of the day.
