What is Stress Management?

What is stress management? It seems that we are becoming more susceptible to increasing amounts of stress in our lives, and it is producing damaging effects on our physical, mental and emotional wellbeing.  So, how can we use it effectively to tame our unbridled schedules, smooth over our conflicts in relationships, and calm our anxieties about future life situations?  All of these aspects of life—organizing our time and environment, getting along with others, and worrying about the future—produce stress in our lives.  According to research and statistics, things don’t look like our life stressors will be diminishing any time soon.  Here are two answers to "What is stress management?" 

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"What is stress management?"  Transforming the stress in your life to improve your daily experiences and improve your ability to function productively.

• Assessing.  Identify your life stressors.  Stop and take some time to review your daily schedule and your relationships to see what is triggering negative stress reactions.  Make a list of those aspects that are triggering the symptoms of stress that you are experiencing.  You can’t change things until you have identified them.
• Reframing.  Can you take a difficult situation and consider it in a different way?  Reframing takes the same situation and gives it a different meaning. This different meaning allows you to take a different approach and provide for a different response.  Reframing is about changing perception by understanding something in another way.
• Strategizing.  Looking at things from a different perspective allows you to create a fresh approach to problem solving.  Developing a plan of action to handle the stress, lower the stress or eliminate the stress is always the goal of a stress management strategy.

"What is stress management?"  Finding a formula to handle the level of demands on you with the resources you have available.

• Devising an Action Plan.  By finding a strategy to address the demands on you with whatever resources you have at your disposal is a productive way to manage your stress.  Stress occurs when you feel overwhelmed and when you don’t feel you have a handle on things.  When you can find resources to lower, eliminate, or change the nature of your life stressors, you are productively employing stress management.  The first step is to create a strategy, or action plan, you can follow to successfully handle your stress.
• Implementing an Action Plan.  Once you have created your action plan, you can begin to follow your plan.  Plan your work and work your plan.  One step at a time allows you to begin moving forward and successfully addressing the life stressors accumulating in your life.
• Assessing and Modifying an Action Plan.  As you begin to work on stress management, you may find that certain aspects of your action plan are not effective.  Make the necessary changes as you see ways to improve your stress management.  Life is full of twists and turns.  No static plan can be effective with a continually evolving lifestyle.  Learning from the past to inform your future progress will provide you with lasting and positive stress management efforts.

 
Stress management is vital for your health and wellbeing.  Finding strategies that are comfortable for your personality, values, interests, and life situations can be found on the many pages of this website.

Stress Management Skills: Making Stress Productive

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