To reduce stress, you need to understand stress. Stress is the result of your perception of events. It is indicated by how you react to situations. What is stressful to you might not be stressful to someone else and vice versa. You are not born with more or fewer stress-prone genes than other people. In the end, it all amounts to attitude.
Stress is being implicated in an ever-increasing number of serious health problems. To learn how to unstress, you must understand how you wound up stressed in the first place.
The moment we encounter a tension-producing situation, our body chemically prepares to fight or flee. Your adrenal cortex secretes hormones which cause you to tense up. Your blood pressure rises and blood sugar is released for energy. Extra oxygen is delivered to your organs so you can use them in fighting off the danger. Clotting agents are increased in your blood in case you are wounded in the fight. Cholesterol and other fats are released to serve as a reserve energy supply. Many other biological changes also take place, all of which will allow your body to remain ready for action for the next two or three hours.
But of course you don’t fight and you don’t flee, and this Stone Age internal reaction, originally meant to protect you, becomes a serious menace to your health. So what can you do?
Well, you have a few options. You can keep the stress repressed and bottled up inside you. Of course this is sure to result in frustration, ulcers and worse health problems down the line. Or you can express your stress through sickness, apathy, anger, drinking, drugs, overeating or in any number of other undesirable ways. Or you can get rid of your stress according to a plan, and this chapter offers a complete stress reduction plan.
1. Consider your daily stress buttons.
Because stress is the result of constantly being ready to fight you have two ways of handling it. You can resolve all the conflicts in your life, or you can learn to live with them. To do either successfully you’ll have to change some viewpoints and behaviors that are an integral part of your personality. The best place to begin is with an exploration of your stress buttons.
In life, there are instances of tragedy and disruption that we expect to trigger stress, such as the sudden death of a loved one, a debilitating injury or illness, the loss of a job, and the overwhelm of moving or relocating. But the fact is, the daily hassles of life may have a greater stress effect than the larger misfortunes of life. Examples of these daily hassles would be worry about weight, losing or misplacing things, a major change in your routine, too much to do and not enough time to do it properly, feeling lonely, money worries, too many responsibilities, the children fighting, and pressure to perform well—in any area.
Make a list of all the stress factors in your life, and if the cause isn’t apparent, attempt to find it. What causes you to be agitated? What makes you angry? What frustrates you? When does that tension begin to creep in? Write down all the little things that affect your well-being. You must first identify your stress buttons before you can eliminate them.
If you become stressed every time you have a report or a deadline, maybe it goes back to a childhood incident. It could be something remote. Perhaps your fourth-grade teacher reprimanded and embarrassed you, which programmed an automatic anxiety response you are still carrying. Take the time to stop and think about the reasons for your anxiety. Sometimes just knowing the cause is enough to alleviate the effect.
2. Every time you become stressed,
mentally investigate your state of mind.
From this moment on, every time you feel stressed, mentally investigate your state of mind. Reality is what you have chosen reality to be for you and it is alterable through a change in viewpoint. So, ask yourself, “What would it take to eliminate the stress in this situation?” and next, ask yourself, “If I can’t change the people or circumstances, how can I change my viewpoint?” Examining how you can change your point of view reminds you that you have power in the situation.
It also might serve you to ask yourself if you had expectations of approval or control in regard to the stressful situation. Chances are you did. If so, the real problems may be with your expectations—expectations which are not your right. You don’t want to have to provide approval on demand, do you? It certainly isn’t your right to control others’ actions. So, how can you expect others to be the way you want them to be? In such a situation, your expectations are in conflict with what is. Remind yourself of that the next time you get upset.
3. Identify how you express your stress.
Many mental and emotional disorders, from anxiety to depression, can be triggered by stress. Even hair loss has been linked to stress. Asthma worsens in a stressful environment and the heart rate and rhythm can be disturbed. Digestion can be disrupted, causing numerous diseases. Menstrual disorders, impotence, and premature ejaculation have been traced to stress as have bladder problems. Muscular twitches and tics can result from stress and so can skin problems such as eczema and psoriasis. Researchers also believe that if stress is repressed long enough, it contributes to cancer.
Here are some of the primary ways we express stress. Do any of these fit you?
Tenseness, continual on-the-go activity, feeling incapable, excessive smoking, excessive drinking, excessive use of tranquilizers or marijuana, upset stomach, excess sleeping, unfocused thinking, driving your car aggressively, turning every game into an intense competition, inability to sleep or frequent waking during the night, loss of sexual interest, trying to do more than one thing at a time, nervous habits from tapping your fingers to swinging your foot, easy irritability, high blood pressure, frequent headaches, cold hands gritting your teeth, overeating or undereating.
Identify the ways in which you express your own stress. Notice that they disappear once you reduce your stress levels. Then congratulate yourself on your success.
4. Take action. Diffuse the
pressure situations in your life.
Plan out your day and refuse to be intimidated by what needs to be done. Even if you can’t accomplish everything, set priorities so that you accomplish each task in order of importance and deadline. Then do each job one part at a time.
If every time you have to meet a particular deadline you become stressed, start planning ahead a little better, so you don’t continually end up in a last minute panic. If family members drive you up the wall, learn some assertiveness training techniques to verbally stand up for your human rights without offending your relatives. If the crowd at the supermarket drives you crazy, do your shopping during the slack hours.
All this amounts to being more rational in your approach to life. Be more realistic about what you will encounter when you put yourself into potentially stressful situations. Often this alone is enough to start reducing your stress. Start doing something—anything, to deal with the problem.
If you can’t take direct action, what about indirect action? If your stress is coming from guilt or regret, you need to accept that you can’t change the past. But you can get busy, and keep busy, which will assist you to forget about the situation and the stress.
Also in regard to guilt, be aware that it is an absolutely absurd emotion because usually nothing can be done about it. If nothing can be done, let the past be a lesson as to how to handle the future, and let go of the guilt.
There a million things you can do to change your attitude and relieve stress. Start smiling at the people in your life, and laughing at yourself. Stop attempting to do more than one thing at a time. Spend 15 minutes doing nothing but listening to relaxing music. Consider meditation as an anti-stress technique. Play a game or sport to lose every once in a while. Do everything more slowly—walking, talking and eating. Go out and really observe a sunset, or a flower. Take a walk. Take your watch off for a week.