What is Stress and How do you manage it

Stress is the body’s reaction to feeling under pressure, incapable or threatened by any situation. In such situations, your body produces stress hormones that lead to a fight or flight mode and activate the immune system. As a result, the body can show multiple physical signs such as;

• Headaches
• Migraines
• Body aches
• Chest pain
• Indigestion
• Heart palpitations
• Muscle tension
• Irregular breathing.

 

 While on an emotional level, a person can feel worried, sad, or panicked. If you notice such signs, you should not ignore them. Instead, pay attention to the root and help your body feel better.

 

Types of Stress

There are generally two categorize of stress, the first one is low-level stress, and the second is high-level stress.

1. Low-Level Stress: For example, a woman is expecting some guests to arrive in the evening, and she needs to have a clean house and prepared food while attending to her kid, and she finds herself in a stressful situation. The level of stress here is low, and, in such scenarios, the presence of stress leads to productivity and help you achieve the set goals for the day. In short, low-level stress can help a person in managing a day-to-day home or work life.
2. High-Level Stress: Here, a tragic incident in life can make one suffer from high-stress levels. One can witness the loss of someone dear, experience a terrible illness, go through a divorce, separation or work challenges. Such incidents affect one’s mental health rather on a broader level, and the stress in the result is also of high level. This is a destructive notion, and such an individual needs to manage it before it worsens or becomes long-term. Stress among the young generation has trebled over the past 30 years, and there is a dire need of spreading awareness of how they can manage it and recover from it.

How to Manage Stress?

 If you experience any physical and emotional signs of stress and anxiety, you can improvise your lifestyle a little to reduce these signs.

 

Be thankful

Sometimes, you can only focus on what’s going wrong, which puts all the good things happening on for granted train. That is indeed quite easy to do. Put a sticky note every day on your board which states good things brightening your day today. They can be simple as well as important. For example, write down

 1. Good friends

2. Having a home

3. Sunshine

If you pay some attention, you will see that you have every reason to be thankful to the people in your life and your health. Whenever you have any negative thought or feeling, recognize it and replace it with a better grateful emotion. Remind yourself of better and beautiful things. Keep challenging and channelling the negative vibes.

 

Be your Friend

You can be in a very difficult situation, and it can feel like every door in the world is closing on you. Be kind to yourself and treat yourself with kind and comforting words which you will use for your friend. It will give you an inside strength and reduce stress. If this trick doesn’t work and you feel like having more reassurance, talk to your friends. Talk to a reliable friend and let it out. It will fill the gaps and make you feel uplifted.

 

Take Some Time Out

 

It’s always important to take some time out for yourself. Make sure to treat yourself well. Go for a nice 20 minutes walk, and if you don’t want to step outside, do some online workout. There is plenty of yoga, Pilates, dance, exercise sessions available online, which require no special equipment and make you feel energetic and lively. After that, have a smoothie or a cup of your desired drink. Apart from exercise, you can also write a journal, do some mindful cooking, or do any activity which can elevate your mood. It can be a hot bath, hair massage, painting, and singing.

Know the Difference between Life and its Components

According to writer Ashfaq Ahmed in one of his books, “whatever is happening to you, either bad or good, is a single part of your life. It doesn’t define your whole life”. Every time you are stressed about something, remind yourself that it’s a fraction of your life events that are affecting your life, but it’s up to you to give that fraction power to rule you, to define you.

Imagine a kid standing near a window and feeling sad about a single dead play stick on it while he ignores the beautiful weather outside and butterflies in the garden. You will tell that kid to see the beauty of the world and not to let that sadness steal his joy. You, yourself, need not be that kid.

 

Attempt One of the Big Tasks

Poor management of a big assignment can lead a young student or worker to feel stressed. A study by Harvard Business Review recently in 2021 found out that people who put on the most important task as the first task of the day feel more productive. After completing that task, they go through their to-do list and complete them, too, relieving anxiety by finishing the most important already. You make a running to-do list for the day, highlight one important task, and attempt it first to run your day as smoothly as a lorry.

 

Give Yourself Credit

Once you finish one assigned task, sit back, close your eyes, and give yourself some credit. Tap on your shoulder for any homework you have done, a trip you completed, or a figure you have designed.

Seek a Professional Help

If there comes the point when self-help or friend’s help isn’t enough to cope with your mental ill-being, you are regulating your symptoms with self-medication in the form of drugs, or you have thoughts of self-harm. You should immediately seek medical help. Psychotherapy or talk therapy provides a safe setting where you will get no judgement for your thoughts, decisions, or life choices. There are many psychiatrists, doctors who are reachable even online.

There is no shame in getting help, as mental illness is as important as any physical illness. You at least owe this to yourself to get your physical and mental health treated right.

Written by; Saher Sania