Effective Stress Management:
Don’t Let the Pressure Get the Best of You!
You are frustrated that there aren't enough hours in a day for you to take care of all your work, family and social responsibilities and that there is no time left over for you? You keep working harder, but accomplish less? You know that if you exercised and ate healthy you would feel better, but you just can't find the time, and when you do, you are so fatigued that you just want to sleep or "veg out" in front of he tv! Stop worrying! You are battling the same force that most of us are faced with on a daily basis: STRESS.
Since the only cure for stress is death, it is important to try to understand how this notorious concept may rule your life. Psychologists define stress as "a particular relationship between the person and the environment that is appraised by the person as taxing or exceeding his or her resources and endangering his or her well-being." In other words, you're stressed when you believe you're stressed. A specific situation can greatly affect one person while leaving another neutral. Each person's stress reaction is unique and highly personal.
Bill is a corporate sales representative. He has just been informed that he must make an important presentation in front of high level executives in a few minutes. His cognitive interpretation of this event is that if he screws up, he will be the joke of the company, and it could cost him his job. With this self-imposed pressure, Bill’s nervous system becomes activated. He has a sudden upsurge in adrenalin, his breathing is rapid and shallow, his heart is pumping faster, and his abdominal muscles tense up. As a result of both his negative thoughts and physical symptoms of discomfort, Bill’s behavior changes. He begins stuttering, has difficulty in organizing his thoughts, and bites his nails compulsively.
In this example, the situation of having to prepare for a presentation in a short time-span is fundamentally a neutral event. In fact, any life event that we experience is ALWAYS neutral. It is only after you attribute a judgement to the situation does it become positive or negative. As a result, your interpretation of the situation will determine how stressed you are.
It follows to say that the way in which you cope with stress is based on how you perceive your situation, your coping skills, and your ability to deal with your physical symptoms. Managing your stress effectively is therefore based on countering the three constituents of stress: thoughts/emotions, physical symptoms, and behavior.
Thoughts and emotions
Understanding your response to stress is the first step towards overcoming its destructive effects, and to living a more satisfying quality of life. To help you analyze your response to stress, keep a journal of the stressful situations you experience, how you feel, and what you are saying to yourself. With some practice, you will probably be able to recognize the association between the way you think and the way you feel. Every emotion is created by a thought or image of some form. After you recognize your "automatic thoughts" in various situations, you might want to experiment with challenging these thoughts and replacing them with more realistic statements. If your countering thoughts are strong enough, you will notice that your emotions also change as a result.
Physical symptoms
The human nervous system is quite primitive in that it is trained to react to an event as if it were a life or death situation. It creates what is known as the "fight-or-flight syndrome". In this alarm state, the body readies itself for battle against a potential prey or enemy, or for escape from a potential aggressor. What results is a number of physiological changes. These changes include increased perspiration, dilation of the pupils, increased heart rate, increased respiration rate, decreased blood flow to the peripheries (fingers and toes) paralled with an increased blood flow to the large muscle groups, and the release of cortisol and adrenalin into the bloodstream. This sudden alarm reaction is adaptive as it ensures the individual’s readiness for fighting or fleeing a life-threatening situation. Because our civilization has greatly changed since the times of our cavemen ancestors, we are rarely placed in situations in which we have to fight or flee. As a result, any situation that your mind perceives as being stressful, will generate the same alarm reaction as if your life were truly in danger. The problem is that you do not always react when we experience a stress reaction. Your body absorbs the impact of the physiological stress. After a period of repeated stress, certain tissues, organs, and entire body systems wear down. The increased vulnerability of the body allows for opportunistic infections and disease to set in.
In order to combat this phenomenon termed "exhaustion", certain physiologically calming exercises can be used to promote the "relaxation response". In this response, the body restores itself to a state of profound rest. Cultivating the relaxation response has been shown to counter the physiological effects of stress and promote many changes related to physical and mental well-being.
Many techniques can elicit this favorable relaxation response such as passive relaxation, progressive muscle relaxation, autogenic training, meditation, and yoga. Regular practice of one or several of these forms of relaxation can improve overall health and well-being, promote a stronger immune system, and improve the ability to counter the effects of stress.
Behaviour
Many techniques can be used to cope with stressful situations. Try to develop a variety of coping strategies, because what works in one situation may not work in another. Successful coping is the art of finding a balance between acceptance and action, of letting go and taking control. Believing that you can cope in a stressful situation lowers your stress levels.
Social support from family, friends, and professionals is beneficial. There is plenty of research evidence to suggest that those with supportive social networks are healthier, and cope with various stress more efficiently.
Being assertive refers to the ability of respecting and defending your rights, beliefs, values and desires as well as respecting those of others. When people are overly concerned with the needs of others at the expense of their own, they end up feeling frustrated, anxious, resentful, and depressed. Chronic patterns of this passive behavioral style is known to wreak havoc on the immune system. Conversely, having an aggressive behavior pattern, where getting you ahead is the priority at the expense of everyone else’s needs, is not any healthier. Aggressive people often feel frustrated, angry, and hostile. This pattern is often associated with heart disease. Learning to become assertive helps to keep us focused on maintaining a healthy balance between managing our own needs and those of others.
Stress accounts for an enormous amount of personal dissatisfaction, ill health, and billions of dollars lost annually in productivity and medical bills. Physicians claim that 85% of all medical complaints and problems are stress-related.
Stress management programs have succeeded in helping individuals develop more effective coping strategies to deal with their work and life stress. Investing time into a stress management program is therefore very productive in the long run. You can no longer afford to let stress dominate your life!
© Stephane Bensoussan, M.A., Holistic Psychologist, 2008
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