Compartmentalize the types of stress according to priority

Some stressors do not actually need your most immediate attention. They can be put off for another hour or so. We don’t mean though that the best way to free your self from stress is to procrastinate. This, in fact, would make matters worse. This is just to suggest that knowing the level of priority you could attribute to one cause of stress can help you manage it better. Deal with them accordingly when it is time to deal with them. Otherwise, face your current priorities first.

Learn to say no

Taking unnecessary responsibilities and volunteering yourself to more tasks outside your own work are just two easy ways to make friends with more stressors. As early as now, you have to realize that you have your own limits. These are natural boundaries that you just cannot cross. One limit for example is that you cannot please everyone. So stop trying. Accept the fact that you just cannot do whatever other people ask you to do. If there is anything good that you can get from saying yes to everything, that is self-fulfillment. But then again, how would you feel this sense of fulfillment when you’re already too stressed out?

Don’t be reactive

Hold your tongue whenever necessary. Trouble sometimes crop up from too much multiplication of words. Before you can say something that you might regret later, oftentimes a root cause of stress, try to pause and reconsider what you are about to say.

Take an extra bath and take your time

Water can relax tired muscles and tired minds. It could also symbolically wash away your anxieties and stressors. At the end of the day, make it a habit to visit the bathroom and give yourself some pampering. Try to gently play with water or scribble something on the water’s surface. This is a sure recipe to release the tension in your mind and your body as well as unwinding yourself. If the symbolic power of this routine does not work for you, the least it can do is to cleanse your body, which in itself, helps relieve you from some discomforts.

Let your mind wander

Daydream, play with some thoughts, look out the window and watch the nature go along its daily business. All these simple things will help you commune with your self and with nature.

Under-eating or overeating. One of the obvious symptoms of stress is drastic change in eating pattern. Under-eating may lead to malnutrition which has several side effects including hunger and poor health, which in turn, worsen the effects of stress. Excessive eating on the other hand is equally dangerous especially when under stress. Eat a well-balanced diet instead. Start your day by eating good breakfast to keep your energy up, followed by nutritious meals throughout the day.

Sitting long hours in front of TV or computer. TV shows and computer activities stimulate your brain. That is the reason why you may find it more difficult to sleep at night after watching a movie or doing something on your computer. Prolonged hours in front of the television and computer also take away hours you can allot to other physical activities, making you feel weak and unhealthy, adding to stress.

Procrastinating. Do not wait for tomorrow if you can do it today. Procrastinating adds to stress especially if the tasks begin to pile up.

Excessive sleeping. Sleeping too much makes you feel tired. And if you are tired, you think irrationally because you are stressed out. Make sure that you get enough rest each day. Maintain a healthy sleeping pattern by sleeping and waking up at a specific time.

Smoking, drinking and drugs are easy escapes from stress, but the relief is temporary. Since you are just masking the problems, you are not really solving anything.

Not facing the problem by filling up every minute of the day. Staying busy the whole day may seem to be a good solution to solve stress. But the fact is, just like smoking, drinking and drugs, you are only masking the problem. So instead to moving on and feeling better, you are stuck on the same problem.

Withdrawing from friends, relatives and family. When you are undergoing a lot of stress, a support group can come in handy. However, staying away from everybody may lead to depression.

Taking out stress on others. Physical violence, angry outbursts, and lashing out are definitely unadvisable.

The body has a natural way of protecting itself. If the body senses that there is something wrong, it responds quickly by giving some signs that are uncomfortable, unnatural and even annoying. Again, this is a good thing since we can recognize that there is something wrong and we can respond to it accordingly. For example, we start to feel discomfort when we sit on a chair for a long time and so we change our sitting position. The body’s reaction to stressors is just the same. When we are stressed, our body releases a flood of stress hormones, including cortisol and adrenaline. These hormones give the body that boost so that we can get into action.

Our muscles tighten, heart pounds faster, breathing quickens, blood pressure increases and senses sharpen. These changes are the body’s defense mechanism to react by either “fight or flight” ?the stress response.

In practical terms, the stress response gives you the drive to study rather than watch television, helps you to be on your toes when delivering a speech or presentation, helps you to meet challenges, and gives you better focus to sink that game-winning free throw.

But in a certain level, stress begins to cause major damage to your mood, health, relationship, productivity, and even your quality of life.

Since the body cannot distinguish between psychological and physical threats, any stressor is interpreted as one and the same thing. So whether you are just stressed over a traffic jam, a deadline to beat, or an obnoxious boss, you respond just as strongly as if the situation is a matter of life and death. When you are constantly stressed, your body’s stress system remains active which is unhealthy and can cause serious health problems.

Chronic stress can have physiological, psychological and mental effects. It can lead to depression, obesity, sleep problems, digestive problems, autoimmune disease, eczema and other skin conditions, body pains, restlessness, mood swings, and heart problems.

Stress warnings include the following: agitation, poor judgment, constant worrying, inability to concentrate, sense of isolation and loneliness, general unhappiness, irritability, short temper, racing thoughts, and memory problem.

Maintain a healthy lifestyle (eat healthy and engage in regular exercise).

Your days may be filled with activities during the holiday season but that doesn’t mean that you can forego your usual, healthy lifestyle just because you become busier. Maintain a balanced diet and keep your exercise routine no matter how busy you are. Stress level can increase dramatically if eating habits and regular exercise are replaced by holiday activities. If you are not eating healthy foods and are not engaged in any exercise program, this is also a good time to start. Eating healthy foods reduce stress and help you feel and look better. Any exercise activity from as simple as brisk walking to a total body workout can combat health problems caused by additional activities for the holiday season.

Learn to say no

Though it is nice to do someone a favor, learning when to say no will not hurt at all. Believe it or not, people will understand if you decline to take on a certain task if you cannot do it at all.

Save money

During this hard and testing times, money, or the lack of it can cause a lot of stress. Look for different ways on dealing with this unnecessary stress such as looking for cheaper gifts, buying lesser gifts, making homemade gifts, reusing old decorations, and spending less on food. Whatever is needed to make the ends meet will be a big help.

Be positive and plan ahead

Stress is a negative state of mind, thus, fighting stress can be as simple as fighting negative thoughts. Do not entertain negative attitudes nor succumb to the stress that is presented by the current task. Finish one task at a time. Write down the things that you want to accomplish for a certain time period. A checklist will help you keep on track. The more organized you are, the less stressful it will be.

Seek help, professional help

Seasonal stress can have mild effects on a person but if you are plagued with symptoms such as anxiety, hopelessness, physical complaints, irritability, difficulty in breathing, eating and sleeping, than it is time to give the task to other person or if necessary, get a professional help.

- Set realistic goals. Forget about perfection. It will only frustrate you.

- Stop wasting your time regretting on things that didn’t happen. They have already passed and it is already too late to change anything. What you can do is to learn from your experiences and avoid, as much as possible, repeating the same mistakes.

- Do not worry about the things that may not happen. First, it doesn’t happen yet. Second, it may not even happen. Last, you cannot get anything good when you worry about the things that may not happen.

- Cramming is the best way to get cramped. At times it can be a necessary evil. But cramming as a habit creates constant stress and must be stopped.

- Do something fun for a change. If you are living in a constant stress, then it is about time to give yourself a break. Take a vacation. Go somewhere peaceful. Get a massage, a tattoo or a pet. Buy something for your house, for yourself and for your loved ones. Treat yourself. Invite your friends to a house party. The point is to have fun!

- Practice deep breathing exercises and other relaxation techniques.

- If you believe in prayers, pray. Read the Bible, the Koran, the Torah or anything that will calm your mind and spirit.

- Exercise daily and eat a well-balanced diet. Having a healthy body gives you more resistance to stress.

- Think positive. Everything can be seen as good or bad. You just have to take your pick, but if you want to pick something that will help you deal with stress better, then the former will do the trick.

- Talk to someone. A counselor, your parents or your good friends should be able to help you with your troubles.

- Organize everything. From simple daily activities to your goal in life, you should be able to set aside things you do not need and organize the things that matter to you.

- Manage your time wisely. You only got 24 hours in a day and 1/3 of it you spend asleep. So you only have about 16 to do something good for the day. Set your priorities and balance your time between work and play.

Make a list

If it works for Santa, it can work for you too. Get a piece of paper, divide it into columns, and list down per column everything you need to prepare for the holiday season. Divide your paper to as many columns as necessary, which would include gifts to buy, holiday activities, people or families to invite for the holidays, foods to prepare, etc.

Set realistic goals

In an effort to make this Christmas season better than the last, you might start thinking of unique ideas and activities that are beyond your capacity. Hold your horses. Your goals should be clear and attainable.

Start early

Christmas rush can be exciting at first, but if you are making it a habit, it can prove to be quite a headache. Since there is no rule that says shopping should be done a week or days before Christmas, you can always choose to start early. Put up holiday decorations in November, buy holiday gifts weeks in advance, and food for the holiday can be bought in advance as well.

Designate tasks

Things can be done easily if there are extra hands assisting you every step of the way. Ask every member of your family to do certain things, better yet, do things as a family. Make baking a family affair, schedule a date where you can all decorate the house, or invite some friends over to cook for Christmas dinner. After all, the spirit of the holiday season can be felt when activities are done as a family.

Get help

There is no need for you to wrap all the gifts for the holidays, bake the cake, cook the food and do all the decorations alone. You can do yourself a big favor if you hire the services of people who are experts in this work.

Enjoy

The holiday is all about enjoyment so while doing all the work, have fun, relax and enjoy how the festive season transforms your community. Drive around and see the displays and decorations of different houses and business establishments and you’ll feel less stressed.

When stress is not severe though, stress management could be done in simple and often just as effective ways that are fun, enjoyable and whose effects are longer lasting.

The buffer zone

Having a few good friends by your side with whom you enjoy similar activity and could have a good healthy laugh with, maintaining a good balanced diet, getting your daily exercise (that results often into a good night sleep) and good use of time at work is similar to creating sand bags around yourself that while stresses could occur, the effects are not actually as severe. Exercising daily for example makes you feel good about yourself that it fortifies you against many stressful conditions. A right and balanced diet keeps your health on top shape that you are not easily adversely affected by ordinary stresses while enjoying activity with friends disperses the effects of the stress. Making good use of your time at work and prioritizing jobs according to their category are oftentimes a prevention of stressful conditions from developing.

Attitude

Thought patterns govern daily interactions, negative thought patterns invite negativity that could start a cycle. A negative thought pattern results always in more stressful conditions that sooner affect the health and result in emotional stress that could in turn lead to illnesses that are psychosomatic. Not letting other people influence you that far prevents stressful conditions from developing more than it should. What is even worse is that it negatively affects the people around you that in time, could create stressful conditions for you. Wrong attitude in its entirety makes people ill. If you are bigger than your anger, you are bigger than your stress.

Dump them

As already mentioned, stresses occur, it could be enjoyable at times like riding a roller coaster or getting into a debate, and it could also be depleting and tiring. Enjoyable or not you have to rid it off your system. There are mental relief techniques that could be employed to manage your stress. Some of these stress relievers are self affirmations, imagery and visualizations. Often, imagining your stress as gone reduces its heavy hold on you.

On an internal level, we could prevent many stress inducing factors from occurring if we have made preparations for it in advance.

Internal stress on one hand could be better coped when we have been maintaining a healthy lifestyle.

Proper nutrition and diet enables our body to being more prepared an a lot more resilient in coping with ailments that are stress related. The immune system is one of the first functions in our body that are first affected by stress. When the body is healthy the person keeps on functioning even under stressful conditions.

Exercise daily. There is no substitute for a feeling of well being. That feeling alone enables us to cope very well even in some of the most adverse circumstances.

Rest and relax. A good night sleep and sufficient rest energizes the body, boosts the immune system and induce the replenishment of nutrients that are lost in everyday activities while relaxation induces clarity of perception.

External stress on the other hand is better coped by good habits and habit forming activities.

Time management. Often the demands of the job are such that the feeling alone of having insufficient time is very stressful enough. The paradox here is that people who made use of their time well are often those who could accommodate more activities. Conversely, people who have done little for the time allotted are those that are much pressed for time that are often the cause for being overwhelmed by stress.

Organizing skills. Clutter in the workspace also clutters the mind in fact; clutter alone could be overwhelming that it could tell the mind to give the effort up. Objective setting, prioritizing, periodical cleaning of the work space are often, even without additional external demands, are enough to create stress.

Attitudes. Negative behavior results to negative external reaction that often starts a destructive cycle. Being too big for problems and too noble for worries are excellent stress coping attributes.

While it is difficult or even impossible to eliminate stress for nine months straight, you can always limit your exposure to stress and lessen your body’s response to stress.

Take a time out: Accept the fact that while you currently can handle pretty well the demanding lifestyle and busy schedules, you may not be able to sustain it as pregnancy progresses. Thus, cut back on task and allow yourself to relax, sleep and rest. The most crucial period in pregnancy is during the first trimester. So if you can, take a leave from work the moment you know that you are pregnant or at least, be conscious of your physical and emotional limits.

Cut down on stressors: Work, chores and other daily tasks should be limited, if possible. Relationships in conflict can create unnecessary stress and must be cut down as well.

Take care of yourself: Stress can put tremendous pressure on your health and your health can increase your stress levels. While everyone is advised to get enough sleep everyday, stay physically active, and get good nutrition, maintaining a healthy lifestyle is especially important during pregnancy. Seek doctor’s help if you want to be guided with the right ways of caring for the self.

Do not overdo things: Expecting mothers worry too much about the color of the baby’s room, preparations for the baby shower, and other stuff that should be bought before the baby arrives. Preparations and anticipation can create a lot of stress. Try not to think too much of perfection. Set specific and realizable goals when preparing for motherhood.

Don’t worry about things you cannot control. Accept that you cannot do something about the weather, traffic, crowd, etc. So instead of worrying about them, which is totally unnecessary, work your way around in order to get the best out of each situation that is beyond your control. For example, read a book when it is raining or do not drive around town during rush hour.

Entertain only positive thoughts. While stress is not as simple as a state of mind, you can cut significant level of stress when you choose to be positive.

Preparing meals: It is not important if you are preparing sandwiches or a full-course meal; what is important is that you take the time to work together in the kitchen. Since kitchens are a casual environment, activities held here are more relaxed and conversation more open.

Blowing bubbles: This may sound as kid’s stuff but the fact is, parents can also benefit to the positive effects of this activities. It allows you to take your mind off of the things that are stressing you and it provides a break from daily activities.

Walking: An hour of walking in the park is a good workout. Making it a habit and you got yourself an exercise activity. Bring your kids and you can both enjoy the benefits of exercising. You can also bring your kids to the park and let them ride the bicycle or skates while you relax and just enjoy the fresh air.

Drawing: Kids love to draw because it is fun and you show try it as well. If you haven’t handled a paint brush for quite some time now, then today is a perfect day to do it. Bring out your artistic side with your kids and enjoy playing.

Telling bedtime stories: Fond memories of childhood are never complete without recalling those nights when our parents used read us stories before going to bed. As a parent, this is a great way to take your mind off your work and spend some time, even for a few minutes each night, with your children after a tiring day at work. And just like you, kids, when they grow up will surely remember those times when they get to fall to sleep with your voice in their ears.

Any activity that both you and your kid can enjoy is a great stress relief. But that’s not it. When shared by parents and kids, any activity is a great way to bond and create a closer relationship.