Your Stress-Management Toolbox
If you feel there’s nothing you can do about stress, you’re far from alone. And, to be sure, there are many causes of stress we have little control over. The death of a love one, a job loss, commuting during rush hour… There’s a seemingly endless list of stress-inducing situations that can seem beyond our control, not to mention the ever-present stress presented by our work and family responsibilities.
However, you do have it within you to effectively cope with, manage, and even limit your stress!
What Is Stress Management?
We’re all unique individuals with different mental and emotional characters. We all face different types of stress in varying degrees. And we all handle the stressors we face differently. Accordingly, there’s no “one-size-fits-all” solution when it comes to managing stress.
Effective stress management is all about accepting responsibility and taking control of your thoughts, feelings, and behaviors, as well as how you deal with the many obstacles life throws in our paths.
Stress management is about learning healthier ways of coping with stress, including avoiding stressful situations when you can, altering the way you think about and react to stressful situations, accepting the things you can’t change, and implementing stress management tools to help you adapt to stress, including making the time to care for yourself, physically, mentally, and emotionally.
How Do You Currently Cope with Stress?
Before we dive into some of the many ways you can learn to effectively manage stress, it can be helpful to take a quick inventory of the ways you currently cope with stress. Is what you’re doing right now working? Are you making the healthiest choices when it comes to managing stress?
Unfortunately, more than a few common stress-coping mechanisms either reduce stress in the short term but increase it over the long-term or cause more problems than the stress they help reduce. For example, the following stress-coping methods all cause more harm than the stress they may help to reduce:
If you routinely employ any of the stress-coping methods above… If your methods of coping with stress aren’t contributing to your greater emotional and physical health, it’s time to find healthier ones.
Remember, no one stress management technique works for everyone or in every situation.
However, I have found the tools below to be extremely helpful in helping many of my clients learn to effectively manage the stress they face. Consider it my gift to you…
Your Stress-Management Toolbox
Effective stress-management needs to focus on relaxing both your mind and body, as well as make time for fun. Accordingly, I’ve broken up the following stress-management techniques into three sections (relaxing your mind, relaxing your body, and having fun). Feel free to mix and match the tools from each section until you find the ones that work best for you, but be sure to practice at least one from each category.
Tools to Help Relax Your Mind:
Of course, this is not an exhaustive list. There are numerous other techniques for calming your mind, such as self-hypnosis, music and art therapy, and so on. But, let’s move on to…
Tools to Help Relax Your Body:
Physical activity plays an important role in reducing and preventing the effects of stress. Fortunately, you don’t have to spend hours in a gym in order to learn to take better care of yourself as well as reduce the effects of stress. Just about any form of physical activity can help remove your frustrations, anger, and tension and relieve stress.
Again, this is not an exhaustive list. There are many other ways to take better care of your body and also help you reduce tension and stress, including biofeedback techniques, autogenic training, progressive muscle relaxation, yoga, and even aromatherapy. Last, but definitely not least, there are…
Tools to Help You Have More Fun:
While the following are not “tools,” per se, nurturing yourself and making the time to do the things that bring you joy is vital to reducing your stress and living a full and truly rewarding life. Consider:
Whatever it is you love to do, do it. Don’t get so caught up in the hustle and bustle of life that you forget to take care of your own needs. If you regularly make time for fun and relaxation, you’ll be in a better place to handle life’s stressors, and you’ll find much more joy in life. Nurturing yourself is a necessity, not a luxury!
The best way to manage your stress is to learn healthy coping strategies. So start putting these tools to work, today. Try one or two from each list until you find a few that work for you. Then practice them until they become habits you turn to when you feel stress.
And, remember, how you think can have a profound effect on your stress levels. Unfortunately, it’s all too easy to overlook how our own thoughts, feelings, and behaviors contribute to and exacerbate our stress.
If you need help acknowledging and accepting the responsibility for the role you play in creating or maintaining your stress levels, don’t hesitate to seek the help of a professional counselor or psychotherapist who specializes in anxiety and stress management.
Whether you need professional assistance or not, you do have it within you to exercise control over and effectively manage your stress. I hope these tools help you do just that!
However, you do have it within you to effectively cope with, manage, and even limit your stress!
What Is Stress Management?
We’re all unique individuals with different mental and emotional characters. We all face different types of stress in varying degrees. And we all handle the stressors we face differently. Accordingly, there’s no “one-size-fits-all” solution when it comes to managing stress.
Effective stress management is all about accepting responsibility and taking control of your thoughts, feelings, and behaviors, as well as how you deal with the many obstacles life throws in our paths.
Stress management is about learning healthier ways of coping with stress, including avoiding stressful situations when you can, altering the way you think about and react to stressful situations, accepting the things you can’t change, and implementing stress management tools to help you adapt to stress, including making the time to care for yourself, physically, mentally, and emotionally.
How Do You Currently Cope with Stress?
Before we dive into some of the many ways you can learn to effectively manage stress, it can be helpful to take a quick inventory of the ways you currently cope with stress. Is what you’re doing right now working? Are you making the healthiest choices when it comes to managing stress?
Unfortunately, more than a few common stress-coping mechanisms either reduce stress in the short term but increase it over the long-term or cause more problems than the stress they help reduce. For example, the following stress-coping methods all cause more harm than the stress they may help to reduce:
- Procrastinating
- Overworking
- Oversleeping
- Smoking
- Binge eating
- Drinking alcohol
- Taking pills to relax
- Zoning out for long periods of time
- Taking out your stress on others
- Withdrawing from friends and loved ones
If you routinely employ any of the stress-coping methods above… If your methods of coping with stress aren’t contributing to your greater emotional and physical health, it’s time to find healthier ones.
Remember, no one stress management technique works for everyone or in every situation.
However, I have found the tools below to be extremely helpful in helping many of my clients learn to effectively manage the stress they face. Consider it my gift to you…
Your Stress-Management Toolbox
Effective stress-management needs to focus on relaxing both your mind and body, as well as make time for fun. Accordingly, I’ve broken up the following stress-management techniques into three sections (relaxing your mind, relaxing your body, and having fun). Feel free to mix and match the tools from each section until you find the ones that work best for you, but be sure to practice at least one from each category.
Tools to Help Relax Your Mind:
- Writing – It comes as a surprise to most that simply spending 10 or 15 minutes a day writing about the stresses you face and how they make you feel can go a long way to reducing your stress, yet many of my clients have discovered precisely that. At the vary least, writing about the stress you experience on a day-to-day basis can help you determine the sources of your stress and how you’re currently coping with the stress you experience.
- Meditation – Paying attention to and focusing on your breathing and practicing even the simplest forms of meditation can help you relax your mind and achieve a sense of calm. One form of meditation that is particularly helpful when it comes to managing stress is known as mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR). “Mindfulness” is a process of purposefully paying attention to and focusing on whatever is happening in the moment (your thoughts, feelings, emotions, or surroundings) and this type of focusing can help you learn to help you calm both your mind and body.
- Guided Imagery – Similar to meditation, guided imagery is a process of imagining yourself in a setting that helps you feel calm and relaxed. Like MBSR, guided imagery can help you calm your mind and reduce your stress by exercising control over your thoughts and feelings. However, unlike MBSR, with guided imagery your focusing your conscious on something other than what you’re currently experiencing. MBSR and guided imagery can be considered mirror images of the same path leading to the same destination, and which one is more effective will be up to you. There are also countless books and audios that can help you practice both MBSR and guided imagery should you need them.
- Self-Expression – Talking, laughing, crying, and even expressing anger can help you cope with and reduce your stress. And your self-expression need not be limited to the verbal. In fact, creative expression through writing, music, painting, and so on, can go a long way to helping you self-calm. And, remember, while sharing your thoughts and feelings with friends and family members can help a great deal, if you have a difficult time doing so then seek out the help of a professional counselor. A professional counselor can not only help you get in touch with and express your thoughts and feelings but can also help you learn and practice tools such as mindfulness techniques and guided imagery.
Of course, this is not an exhaustive list. There are numerous other techniques for calming your mind, such as self-hypnosis, music and art therapy, and so on. But, let’s move on to…
Tools to Help Relax Your Body:
Physical activity plays an important role in reducing and preventing the effects of stress. Fortunately, you don’t have to spend hours in a gym in order to learn to take better care of yourself as well as reduce the effects of stress. Just about any form of physical activity can help remove your frustrations, anger, and tension and relieve stress.
- Exercise – Since just about any type of physical activity can help you manage and reduce stress, it should come as no surprise that regular exercise is one of the best ways to manage stress. This is true even if you’re starting small. Short, 10-minute bursts of activity that elevate your heart rate and make you break out into a sweat can help to relieve stress and give you more energy and optimism. Even simple stretching exercises and walking can help tremendously. Even better is to add an element of mindfulness to your exercise by consciously focusing on your body and the sensations you experience as you’re moving. Lastly, to their surprise, many of my clients have found that regular exercise makes it easier to put other stress management techniques to use (such as meditation and engaging socially).
- Massage – While it probably comes as little surprise, regular massage can be a great way to release built up tension and stress in your body, as well as calm yourself and prevent future stress from having as great an impact. Even simple massages, such as shoulder and neck massages, can help immensely. And, while you can see a professional massage therapist, you can just as easily have a friend or family member give you a massage. You can even give yourself a massage!
- Breathing Exercises – The way you breathe affects your whole body. As such, even simple breathing exercises such as roll breathing (also called abdominal breathing) and tactical breathing can help you learn to control your breathing, feel relaxed, and reduce your tension and stress.
- Adopt a Healthy Lifestyle – Eating a healthy, well-balanced diet, avoiding alcohol, cigarettes, caffeine, sugar, and other drugs, and getting a good night’s sleep, all help your body to be stronger and better able to cope with stress.
Again, this is not an exhaustive list. There are many other ways to take better care of your body and also help you reduce tension and stress, including biofeedback techniques, autogenic training, progressive muscle relaxation, yoga, and even aromatherapy. Last, but definitely not least, there are…
Tools to Help You Have More Fun:
While the following are not “tools,” per se, nurturing yourself and making the time to do the things that bring you joy is vital to reducing your stress and living a full and truly rewarding life. Consider:
- Spending time in nature (whether it’s in the forest, the mountains, or at the beach)
- Take a long bath or soak in a hut tub
- Go out with friends
- Practice creative arts (writing, painting, music, and so on)
- Read for pleasure
- Play with a pet
- Practice one or more hobbies
- Take up a sport (tennis, golf, swimming, rock climbing, etc.)
Whatever it is you love to do, do it. Don’t get so caught up in the hustle and bustle of life that you forget to take care of your own needs. If you regularly make time for fun and relaxation, you’ll be in a better place to handle life’s stressors, and you’ll find much more joy in life. Nurturing yourself is a necessity, not a luxury!
The best way to manage your stress is to learn healthy coping strategies. So start putting these tools to work, today. Try one or two from each list until you find a few that work for you. Then practice them until they become habits you turn to when you feel stress.
And, remember, how you think can have a profound effect on your stress levels. Unfortunately, it’s all too easy to overlook how our own thoughts, feelings, and behaviors contribute to and exacerbate our stress.
If you need help acknowledging and accepting the responsibility for the role you play in creating or maintaining your stress levels, don’t hesitate to seek the help of a professional counselor or psychotherapist who specializes in anxiety and stress management.
Whether you need professional assistance or not, you do have it within you to exercise control over and effectively manage your stress. I hope these tools help you do just that!
