Are you walking down the aisle of stress and then towards depression? You MUST de-stress by trying out the best ways to reduce stress to uproot the causes?
Do you wish to manage stress effectively?
We hear you!
No wonder, you have been mindlessly chasing your packed-up schedule without reflecting upon where it’s going to end up—SUCCESS OR DEPRESSION?
Ignoring the headaches, mood swings, excessive anger issues, irritability, disturbed mind-set, disrupted thought process, desire for isolation, lack of energy and “STRESS” (a single-word for all the former terms) leads to depression and even suicidal thoughts
Lack of Stress Management and Impact on Health
In 2018, Mental Health Foundation1 conducted a research in UK on 4,169 people and found dramatically disturbing results: depression (51%), anxiety (61%), self-harm (16%), suicidal thoughts (32%), feeling of loneliness (37%), excessive unhealthy eating (46%), drinking (29%), and smoking (16%).
Unfortunately, the respondents aptly represents people from around the globe, who are falling into the trap of stress, anxiety and depression.
Here’s what continual responses lead you into:
- Cardiovascular diseases
- Strokes
- Digestive disorders
- Accelerated Aging Process
- Diabetes
- Obesity
- Headaches or Migraine
- Insomnia
- Anxiety
- Depression
- Destroyed relationships or social life
- Lack of focus, energy, and efficiency at workplace.
- Procrastination
- Suicidal thought or self-harm
Stress hits you physically, emotionally, and psychologically. You need to recognize the causes before jumping onto the conclusions. Therefore, it’s important to learn to manage stress effectively.
13 Best Ways to Manage Stress
Instead of covering some simple, short-term stress management strategies, we’ve gathered up the most effective tricks of self-management.
However, be patient and persevere because it takes 21 days to establish a new habit, and same goes for your mind-set.
- Stay Optimistic: Easier said than done, staying positive in a depressing, unfair, and negatively-minded people is impossible. To handle that, avoid, ignore, and overlook the ‘bad’ and focus on the ‘good’ on you. Instead, give a pat on your back by yourself quite often for fighting with the situation with bravery. Moreover, “engage your mind” with work, friends, and fun; and, most of all, your IDEA OF SUCCESS. Chase your dreams—something you enjoy doing—to free your mind and body from the tangles of society.
- Accept the Facts: Remember you don’t have control over the external situations and people. What’s the point of arguing? Calm your mind, take a deep breath and focus on what’s important for you. Accept your flaws and everyone else’s too. What cannot be changed can be ignored and avoided; so don’t let others control your life. When you become vulnerable to other’s emotional tricks on you, they play with your emotions freely. With stress management, you understand to differentiate between the right and wrong emotional responses and ways of emotional protection.
- De-stress Yourself: Anxiety and depression can be genetic; therefore, stress-management is essential. Join the nearest yoga class, meditative session or tai-chi, get a massage therapy, or try out deep breathing exercises (for only 10 minutes) to de-stress your mind. You can also take stress management courses or a Stress Management Certification to master the psychology of your mind. The activities are designed to work on your mental state and relax the tensed-up muscles. It breaks your “run and chase” routine at work and home.
- Start Moving: High levels of stress lead to increased release of cortisol in your body. To counter that, exercise and physical activity promotes the release of endorphin, which reduces your perception of pain. Moreover, exercise helps in balanced release of your hormones to kick out that irritability, mood swings, and anger. Why not kick start your active gym routine RIGHT NOW?
However, avoid putting physical stress on your body due to sudden excessive workout.
- Balanced Diet: Stress leads to binge eating or fasting for long durations. Healthy food provides essential vitamins and minerals to uplift your moods. Even a cup of green tea everyday reduces the release of cortisol, the stress hormone. Be mindful of your eating habits and research about your food to enjoy the taste of healthy foods more than unhealthy fats.
Unhealthy food, on the contrary, only provides an instant energy boost and, then, drains your entire energy. Therefore, you fail to complete your tasks efficiently at workplace. Ultimately, it leads to greater stress.
Bonus Tip: Fibers are the best long-term source of energy for you to utilize the entire day.
- Learn to Say ‘No’: Never over-burden yourself with excessive workload due to financial stress. Unnoticeable, the workload is leading you to more stress, anxiety, and depression. Therefore, define your limitations and learn to say NO to others.
- Socialize: Learn from children to live in the ‘moment’. Take time out to have some fun, play your favorite sport, go on a long drive, maintain a journal, and what not.
Socialize with like-minded friends and share your feelings with those who understand you. You might come across a really funny solution to your life’s stressful events. It happens a lot. When you reflect back, your mind works out to find an answer for you!
- Proper Sleep: Healthy sleeping habits are important to relax your mind and body. When you are asleep, it’s time for your body to recover itself. Instead, wake up every morning as if you have been blessed with a new life.
- Avoid Addictive Drugs: Resolving a problem by substituting it with another problem is not a real solution. Never give in to alcohol, drugs, or other compulsive behavior for stress reduction. As per studies2, it will affect your child’s response to stress at an early age too.
- Aromatherapy: Looking up for a natural solution for insomnia, stress, and depression? Try aromatherapy for once. Aromatherapy is a popular method to promote feelings of relaxation and calmness. Either by inhaling or topical applying the essential oils, you can alleviate stress, depression or anxiety. It can effectively stimulate the area of your mind that’s responsible for emotions. Scents naturally have quite an uplifting effect upon our mind.
Note: Consult the doctor before opting for an essential oils. Every essential oil has a different effect, so use the right oil in a right amount. Excessive oil may cause skin irritation or unsatisfactory effects.
- Connect with God: Sufiism or connecting with higher authority has helped thousands of people to stay relaxed and free of stress. It provides you with time to think about what matters the most: Life or Death! Success or a Constant State of Unhappiness!
- Breathing Exercises: In between your hectic work routine, take a break of 2 to 5 minutes and breathe deeply. It’ll clear up your mind and recharge your energy in a minute. It’s an instant de-stressor. Do it for 10 to 15 minutes every day.
- Ask for help: Consulting a psychologist or seeking social support is necessary if you are having suicidal thoughts. Mental health professionals can help you recognize the causes of stress and learn how to manage stress levels.
Why is it Important to Learn Stress Management?
Untamed stress or high level of stress is destructive to your well-being. Stress wreaks havoc to your psychological, emotional, and physical health and stability.
At your work place or at home, stress will make you feel:
- Drained
- Less creative
- Unfocussed
- Inefficient and ineffective
- Loaded with piles of work (yet being unable to do anything)
- Unhappy and anti-social.
On the contrary, manage stress effectively to break the “mindless” cycle, to find the way to be more content, happier, healthier, and productive.
You’d enjoy a balanced life to manage work and relationships. Stress management builds that resilience to work under pressure without an ounce of anxiety.
Yet, due to varying causes of stress, one strategy doesn’t fits everyone; therefore, experiment and find out YOUR BEST WAY OUT!
On top of that, stress management helps you to be self-aware and track the changes in your behavior under stress, anxiety, or depression. It helps your conquer your thoughts before it’s too late.
To be honest, there is no embarrassment in consulting a psychologist or taking up a stress management course.
Don’t have time to go out? Take up an online stress management course or I would suggest you to take Stress Management Certification.
How Will You Benefit From the Stress Management Course?
The course not only empowers you, but equips you with the knowledge to help others surrounding you. By taking up the course, you’d be able to:
- Take charge of your thoughts and emotions
- Improve self-awareness
- Stay active and up for even the most demanding activities
- Learn how to manage stress levels
- Learn hundreds of strategies, along with psychological basis, to manage stress effectively.
Final Verdict
Stress responses such as smoking, alcohol, weed, anger, etc. will only destroy your personal and professional life. Relying on addictive drugs or work stress is destroying your health every passing day.
You need to look back, reflect on your daily life to pinpoint the causes, and learn to kick them out of your life. If you are unsure of “HOW” to manage your stress, join some stress management sessions to learn the best ways to reduce stress.
Let us know in the comments about your experiences with stress management sessions.
Reference:
1https://www.mentalhealth.org.uk/statistics/mental-health-statistics-stress
2 https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/09/110920075518.htm
8 Comments
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Hi Gabor!
Stress management is incredibly important. It can make the difference between being a happy person, or a miserable one.
I’m glad you made this article about stress management in general, not just stress management at work.
I agree with the movement principle – “motion creates emotion”.
One of my favorite ways to limit stress is to think about what is in my control and what isn’t in my control. It’s important to focus on things you CAN control so you don’t freak out over petty things that you can’t change.
Diet and sleep are HUGE. Definitely two of the main things that a lot of people could benefit from improving. Humor is a great one too, although that goes along with socializing.
Have fun!
Ben
Stress doesn’t only affect us at work but all areas of life. That’s why I found it important to help people deal with managing stress as it can affect most of us in family life, relationships, finances…and so on. We all try to fight it, we all know how it feels to be overwhelmed occasionally, but to find the method that suits you can be challenging. As you said as well, healthy diet and sufficient sleep are key factors in managing stress. Having fun and laughing with friends are indeed essential too. Or sometimes a long conversation with your best friend who is always there to listen. But for people who are unable to manage stress there is always a course or a training to help them or in worse cases professional help is available and vital!
As a person who suffers constantly from stress, I am always looking for ways to avoid it or at least minimize it. Your article hit me hard. I have tried numerous things and so far my success has been limited. I have tried working out, eating healthier, focusing on the good things in my life, etc., but nothing has worked for me. What I found really helps me is traveling. However, I cannot do it as often as I would like due to time and money issues. But I am working hard to change that. In the meantime, I will try to follow other recommendations you provided. I guess there are no standard solutions.
I don’t know know how other people do it, but I have a hard time dealing with stress. Ever since I can remember, I stress over everything at school, at work, at home. I know I don’t have control over everything, but I can’t help it. I guess it’s part of my nature. And I hate it. Stress is real and only those who suffer from it know what it’s like. It’s not just a matter or taking it easy. It is rightly called the “health epidemic of the 21st century”.
It is important to learn how to cope with it because it’s not healthy at all. Thank you for providing articles like this. Keep up the good work!
This is exactly why it is so important to me to write about stress, as it involves most people. And sometimes all that these people need is a new idea, a new method that can direct them in the right direction – towards success! It is hard to read that you suffered from stress all your life, but I think you are already one step further than most people, because you found an activity, traveling, that helps you to relax and switch off! But sometimes we have to examine in ourselves what things cause stress in our lives and whether we are able to change those or not. Every little change to de-stress our every days can have a huge positive impact. I hope you will find a way to relieve stress with the help of the methods I listed in my post and I am very positive that with your hard-working attitude you also will be able to travel a lot more soon!
I really enjoyed reading this post in relation to stress and possible ways of alleviating it. But, when talking about stress, I think it is always important to explain that not all stress is negative. Stress is simply the body’s way of dealing with change or unexpected circumstances and it is how we deal with it that counts. Eustress is positive stress, which keeps the brain motivated and allows us to take chances, distress is negative stress, if not recognised and understood, leading to anxiety and possible depression.
I do think it is always important to have a measured approach when discussing any psychological issues and as a clinical psychotherapist and anxiety specialist, I constantly help people adopt a measured approach to their issues, by embracing them for what they are and that is not always what they seem.
Once again thank you for your blog and your dedication to this subject.
I’m pleased to hear that someone who is a specialist in this topic enjoyed reading my post! I really appreciate that you mentioned the positive stress as well and I agree that it is important to explain the difference between the positive and negative stress. In my post I focused on the negative stress as it affects almost everybody in different areas of life. I think most people recognize the harmful effects of stress in themselves, but not many can find a way to manage it. I try to give ideas to everyone who needs some guidance and hopefully help them to find the right method that works for them.
Dear Gabor
Thank you very much for your fantastic website. It is amazing that you show people where to start and what steps to make towards their healthy living and perfect body. I hope more people will know about your website and follow your guidance.
Kind regards,
Andrey
It is great to hear that you like my website! I try to cover all sorts of topics that can be relevant to a wider audience. Thanks for your support.