Surviving such a robotic and industrious life has become a tedious task for people of this age. Stress has taken over all the bliss and gratification in one’s life. It is one of the risk factors for many mental health conditions and it ultimately leads to depression among masses. Nearly, every second person has some kind of stress in his life, it could be related to studies, workplace, environment or even family. People are continuously looking for some hide out to escape the constant grind that is costing them their peace.
All of us at some point of our life experience different symptoms of stress that includes anxiety, headache or feeling depressed without any specific reason. Let’s get familiar with the science behind the stress and some stress resistance techniques to avoid it.
Why do we feel stressed?
According to normal human physiology, stress is body’s natural response to life threatening stimuli. It is an adrenaline rush or we can better say it “fight or flight” response when our body senses some danger or harmful signal. Sympathetic nervous system becomes active and hormones such as adrenaline and glucocorticoids are released in the body which result in increased heart rate, activation of sweat glands, high blood pressure and an increased breathing rate. This stress response is a coping mechanism of the body which gets back to normal once the threat is over. However, this is an acute response which is not designed to cope with the stressor of present day life, such as constant work load stress, anxieties to meet the deadlines and stress of not having enough money. All these psychosocial factors cause chronic stress, which impact your mental as well as physical health. According to research, stress has become a major contributing factor for diseases like hypertension, stroke, heart pathologies and diabetes.
How to manage stress?
Stress management has become a matter of great concern while living in a society where tolerance and forbearance are no where to be found. Educating people about stress management has become a need of the hour. But the question remains how to manage stress? Human beings are social animals and to live in social setups we have to experience a lot of negative vibes. To keep our self free from anxiety or stress we need to have a good control over our emotions and strong ability to ignore the factors that could be agitating. Following are some stress resistance techniques to cope with the stress.
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- Focus on solution, not the problem
One of the major causes of stress is to over think about a problem. When faced by a problem the best strategy to deal with it is to find the possible solution to it. Addressing a problem and looking for it’s solution could reduce the stress by more than 50%. Working on creating opportunities in the times when all you could see is darkness is the actual way to get a problem resolved rather than stressing over an issue.
- Do not internalise the stress
It is always a wise decision to discuss the matter that is causing stress with your closest people. Sometimes tolerating too much can be toxic as well. Internalizing the stress or hiding from the cause will take you no where instead it would start a chain of more stresses that could potentially harm your health.
- Meditation
Meditation is a proven technique to get rid of stresses of daily life. Meditation helps you regain your focus and prepare you to face the challenges. It’s all about sitting or lying comfortably in a quiet place and practice deep breathing for just a few minutes. It relaxes your mind and help you radiate positive energies. Yoga can be the one of the forms of meditation that can be practiced regularly.
- Mantras
It has been proven scientifically that your belief about yourself has an impact on your attitude towards your surroundings. Mantra is about talking positive words to yourself. If you tell yourself that you can achieve a certain goal, then you’ll definitely achieve it. Positivity comes from inside when you think brave you become brave and this is the key to deal with stress.
- Exercise regularly
Stress does not affect just your mental health, but it also causes muscles stiffness, limited range of motion in joints and decreased cardiac activity. Exercise is one of the best ways to cope up with the physical health problems due to health. Working out regularly for minimum of 30 minutes help you relax your sore muscles and gives you a sense of happiness.
- Diet
Eating too much processed and junk food on regular basis causes anxiety. To reduce symptoms of stress eat foods rich in vitamins, specially vitamin B12, vitamin C, omega 3 and omega 6 and magnesium. Diet has a major impact on mood, so eat foods that makes you feel contented.
- Make a “to do list”
Making a list of tasks to do in a day will help you manage time and you will be able to prioritize the tasks on the basis of their importance and urgency to do them. It will make you disciplined and you will avoid wasting time and resources on unnecessary things. At the end of the day by marking the tasks done during the day will give you a sense of achievement and a motivation to do better in the next day.
- Know your capacity
It is better for a person to know how well he can perform when assigned a task. One of the reasons of the stress is that people overburden themselves and it becomes a cause of a stress when they fail to meet the deadlines or do not perform well because the task wasn’t their cup of tea.
- Learn to ignore the negative behaviours
You will have to encounter negative behaviours everywhere in your surroundings. There are people who will demotivate you and tell you that you can’t do a certain thing. Then there are people who will continue to criticize you and never appreciate you for anything. The strength lies in ignoring all such people who could effect your progress and give you an undue stress.
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- Identify the cause of stress
It is important to know the cause of stress to manage stress effectively. Once you understand the reason of your stress, try to cope with it and don’t let it bother you again and again. Keep a practical approach and work on your weaknesses. Don’t let a factor become your weakness by making you anxious over and over again.
- Take regular breaks
Toxic productivity shouldn’t be encouraged at any level. Taking breaks from work can prove helpful in improving mental health. It rejoices and motivates a person to get back to work with a fresh mind. Enjoy short breaks with no stress and do activities that you enjoy it can be painting, writing, music or anything that makes you happy.
Conclusion
Stress has become a part of our daily life. It is not possible to avoid it completely, but to avoid its worst effects we should be adopting stress resistance techniques that can help us cope the stress. Living a happy and contented life doesn’t mean to have no stress, but it is about how well you manage the stress and the way you respond to the stressors.
