Six Suggestions For Dealing With Stress

Stress is a normal and regular part of life. In and of itself, there is nothing unusual or 'bad' about it. The secret is not hoping to avoid stress but learning techniques that are typically successful in dealing with stress. Here are six, time proven, suggestions.

Dealing With Stress, Suggestion One: First, it is important to understand the source of the stress. It isn't always obvious. You may need to keep a list of situations or times of day in which you feel stressed. Then, you can analyze those situations for the 'cause'. Do the feelings surface at work, at home, at school, with acquaintances, when alone, etc? Pinpoint the occasions and settings.

Dealing With Stress, Suggestion Two: Some stress is self-induced – pressures you put on yourself to achieve or be the best parent or wife or so on. An appropriate degree of such stress is called motivation or drive. Too much, or unrealistic levels can be debilitating. Ask yourself what the self-induced pressure is gaining you. List the places and the situations. Once you understand these basic functions, you are in a position to evaluate the worth of the pressures – the stress. It allows you to see areas you may be able to change or control. If you decide you must continue the way that things are, then you must step up and say you are willing to live with the stress in order to keep on the track you are requiring of yourself. Just make sure the end goal is truly worth it.

Dealing With Stress, Suggestion Three: Some stress is situational. It may be a negative or pressure-packed work place. It may be living in an uncertain, unpredictable, or fear producing home or work setting. Often this can be an easy form of stress to handle. Remove yourself from the situation. Sometimes, of course, that is not possible. Perhaps you can minimize the amount of time you spend in the stressful situation. It may even be possible to change the stressors in the situation. Often, dealing with stress can best be achieved by helping the source of the stress (a person, for example, or an inefficient organization plan) become a less stress producing element.

Dealing With Stress, Suggestion Four: Stress is often interpersonal – you find it difficult or unpleasant to have to deal with a certain person or group of people. If you can't just avoid that contact, you have a choice: Change them or change the way you let them effect you. Some people allow others to put them down, for example. Don't accept put downs. In you mind, turn a put down back onto its source: “He is so insecure he has to build himself up by putting others down. It's an obvious symptom of his problem not mine.”

Dealing With Stress, Suggestion Five: Some stress is related to our own capacities. Sometimes people get in over their heads and just don't have the skills necessary to handle what is required of them. They have a choice. Remove themselves from the activity they can't handle or obtain the necessary skills. When those skills involve additional training (like parenting, or math, or written English) it may be possible to fix themselves. If the problem is that they just don't have the mental capacity then the smartest move is to remove oneself. Everybody doesn’t have to be a genius. You are fine the way you are. The secret to dealing with stress may be to just find tasks you can more easily, successfully, and therefore more comfortably handle. Believe it or not our role in life is not to be perfect; it is to do the best with what we are able to muster.

Dealing With Stress, Suggestion Six: There are occasions when one's personal problems get in the way of being comfortable, producing stress. People who are fearful, hesitant, continually rude, have low self confidence or low self esteem may find most situations stressful. Dealing with stress caused by personal problems usually requires either appropriate counseling or working through a self improvement program on their own. If you find yourself in that situation you must take action and find help or life will continue to be filled with stress and unhappiness and, most likely, failure. Help is available if you will seriously search for it.

By: Tom Gnagey

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Tom Gnagey is an educator, psychologist, social philosopher, and writer. He has practiced clinical psychology for 30 years. For information about his successful, proven, self-help and personal growth program, Deep Mind Mastery, go to www.TomsBookNook.com or more specifically www.TomsBookNook.com/DMM.html