De-Stress

There are seasons we can be overwhelmed with stress. It may be that you have many things to do or everything seems to fall apart at once. There are different areas of stress such as financial, relationship, or work. There are also different degrees of stress. You may experience the low stress of simply having to juggle multiple responsibilities or you may encounter the severe stress of a major life event. Stress can eat away at your physical and mental health. When we don’t deal with our stress, it often balloons into larger issues with incredible consequences. There are a number of good strategies to help you to de-stress.

The first thing is perspective taking. You want to get an accurate sense of the situation. Are you letting everything stress you out, small and large or are you truly facing a difficult circumstance? When you are not in a good place emotionally, you can find yourself irritable and easily distressed. You need to take some time to really look at the circumstance to decide is this a mountain or a molehill.

Along with perspective taking, emotion-focused coping is helpful to many people in addressing feelings of sadness, disappointment, frustration, and anger. You want to find people and activities that help you relieve your feelings of distress. This may mean talking to a supportive friend, therapist, or minister. It may also mean reading a self-help book for inspiration. For some of you, emotional relief may be found in working out, writing, cooking, singing, listening to an encouraging speaker, or meditating.

In addition to emotion-focused coping, you will also need some problem-solving coping skills. You need to brainstorm about potential ways to address the issues. Weigh the pros and cons of each option. Begin to take action steps to improve your situation. The problem solving may involve a range of things including but not limited to: ending a relationship, seeking couples counseling, taking on an additional job, going back to school, creating a new budget, filing a complaint, setting boundaries, seeking professional help, or attempting to resolve a conflict by talking it over with the person involved.

Here are a few more strategies to help you de-stress:
• Set realistic goals.
• Reduce time with stressful people and stressful situations.
• Get rest.
• Set priorities by knowing what is really important to you.
• Deep breathing, visualizing, meditating, and/or prayer.
• Don’t turn to things that will make your situation worse: drugs, alcohol,
over-eating, casual high-risk sex, smoking, and caffeine.
• Learn to release and let go. Accept the fact that some circumstances
are outside of your realm of influence
• Practice better time management and money management.
• Change your attitude. Learn to shift your thinking and your focus to obtain greater peace of mind and clarity.

All of us face challenges. Take care of yourself before, during, and after the various storms of life, so you can maximize your mental and physical well-being.