How to Manage Stress

In today’s competitive world, we have lot of pressure to do well and to do that within deadlines. This pursuit of deadlines has given us the gift of stress. Stress could be the result of increasing credit card bills, lot of pending assignments or demanding personal responsibilities. However, stress is not always bad. Some people even perform better under stress. But everybody must learn to manage or control the stress when elimination of stress is not an option in the modern world.

Trust me, stress can be controlled. You just have to believe that. Once you take control of your life, stress is manageable. You will have to do some analysis of your life and stress is under control. That’s it.

1. Identify the symptoms
2. Find out the root cause
3. Do not go for short term relief
4. Search for long term fixes
5. Manage stress

Let’s discuss these one by one.

Identify the symptoms of stress
There are many symptoms of stress. Some of the common symptoms are:

• Tension
• Hunger loss
• Weight loss/gain
• Headache
• Lack of sleep
• Anger
• Worry
• Lack of concentration
• Feeling numb

Find out the root cause
Next step one has to do is the find out the cause of stress. Sometimes, stress can be because of momentary things like arguments, illness, getting married, getting late for important meeting etc. There can be some causes for long term stress, like poverty, death of someone close to you, having problematic relationship with your boss or having non-suited assignment etc.

DO NOT GO FOR SHORT TERM RELIEF
I have highlighted this point in capital letters. Reason behind that is, some people go with alcohol, drugs and smoking etc to get some relief for short time. Please don’t opt for such options. They are not the fixes for stress. Even overeating or anger outburst on others is not a good option.

Search for long term fixes
There are some checkpoints you should consider while looking for fixes for stress.

1. Check whether you can do something to correct the situation. If yes, then no need to worry. Or if no, then worrying about the situation won’t help anyways.
2. Check whether you are taking stress for small things. Sometimes, we do that. Things which have small impact should better be ignored if they can’t be improved.
3. Check whether you have set unrealistic goals for yourself. Don’t over expect from yourself.
4. Check whether there is any other perspective to the situation. See the situation from outside, it might lessen the effect.
5. Check whether you are not able to say “no”. Taking every work on your shoulder is going to put you under pressure for sure.
6. Check whether your priorities are in order. Write down tasks in “Must to-do” to “should do” to “nice to do” to “it’s ok if not done” fashion.
7. Check whether you are managing your time properly. Important things procrastinated becomes urgent after sometime and give you stress.
8. Check whether you are ready to compromise. Compromise is a good option in some situations.
9. Are you not expressive about your problems? If you are facing some problems, share it with someone.
10. Check whether you are taking stress about things you can’t control. Better, focus on things which are under your control.

Manage the stress

1. Sleep properly.
2. Go for exercise, may be jogging or walking. Or indulge in any sport that you like. Or you may even choose to go for kickboxing kind of stuff to relieve yourself.
3. Spend some time with nature, visit a park or lake or hill near your area.
4. Play with your child and see him/her smiling. I do that often, personally tested method.
5. Talk to a friend or someone you love.
6. Appreciate music.
7. Watch some comedy movie.
8. Read some good books. Best companion ever.
9. Adopt a healthy lifestyle:

                        Eat healthy, avoid junk food.
                        Exercise regularly.
                        Avoid alcohol, drugs and smoking. Not just avoid it, cut them out of your life.
                        Follow “early to bed, early to rise”.