Managing Your Stress with Simple Techniques

Stress--noun [stres]:

1. special emphasis or significance attached to something
2. mental, emotional, or physical strain or tension

Stress is a daily factor in most, if not all, of our lives. Stress can provide benefits to an individual's life, being a source of motivation or a stimulant of the sympathetic nervous system, causing an individual to have a "fight or flight" response.

While positives can and do exist in relation to stress, its much more often known as a source of negative feelings like worry, panic, anxiety, depression, and even heart disease.

Avoiding stress whenever possible and learning how to manage the stress that's unavoidable is integral to leading a happy and healthy life. By following the available advice and strageties for dealing with stress, we can help eliminate and manage the things that damage our emotional and physical health.

It's important to first categorize stress as it pertains to internal and external factors. Internal factors include physical things (infections, illness, inflammations) or psychological (intense worry or fear). External factors include adverse physical conditions (pain, hot/cold temperatures) or stressful psychological environments.

Furthermore, A.D.A.M. online health content notes that stress can be chronic (long-term) or acute (short-term). Acute stress generally provokes the fight-or-flight response, where a situation is perceived as an immediate danger. Chronic stress generally refers to those perceived dangers or stresses that occur over time, such as ongoing work pressures or relational problems.

Managing Your Stress

As you begin learning ways to manage your stress, be sure to work at implementing them in your daily routine. Establish mental cues that help you remember how and why you're managing your stresses. Some of the ways to manage your stress include the following:

• Remove yourself from the stressful situation: Give yourself a break from the situation, if possible. Even if it's only for a moment, try to remove yourself from the situation.
• Don't overwhelm yourself: learn to take tasks one at a time; don't concentrate on the entire workload ahead of you.
• Work off stress: pick up an activity such as exercise, bicycling, or running. Physical activity not only relieves stress, but it's good for your overall health!
• Manage stress through meditation or relaxation techniques: meditation and relaxation can help you release your stress and anxiety and renew your feelings of ease.
  
• Use a Coach: ask for someone to assist you in giving perspective and resolving problems.
  

A host of ways to resolve stress exist and are available to you through the internet. For more information on stress symptoms, causes, complications, and treatment, visit the stress category of our A.D.A.M. Online Health Library.