The Sun Will Rise Tomorrow - Managing Stress

Stress

Stress can be physical or psychological, it's a healthy reaction, it's meant to warn you that something is wrong and needs putting right.

You have a choice...
React to stress or deal with stress constructively. Focus on solutions and not the problem.

Solutions
If you can...Laugh it off, a simple but effective technique.
Learn to relax, through meditation, breathing, listening to calming music, walking in nature, get some fresh air.

Expend your negative tension through physical exercise.

Talk to a friend or family member - you'll be surprised how quickly your problems disappear when you share them with others.

Time Out - Distance yourself from situation if you can.

Self talk - Tell yourself...Everything in life will pass. The sun will rise tomorrow.

Remember you can control your actions but you can not control others, so don't hold onto unrealistic expectations.

Be assertive, avoid getting into stressful situations.

Techniques

Write everything down everything that is causing you stress, break it up into smaller problems that you can deal with easily.

Distraction - watch a movie, distract yourself from the situation causing stress, but remember, when the movie finishes, the problem will return, albeit in lesser effect.

Nobody likes feeling stressed or uncomfortable with the way they deal with situations. Picture a big red button in your mind, this button has "change"written on it, see yourself hitting this button when you want to change your reaction to a stressful situation.

Think of yourself in a helicopter, as you rise you see your timeline, think, how important this situation is to the rest of your life, is this going to last or will it pass. What is really important in my life.
Learn to accept that nothing in life stays the same, we're in a constant state of flux.

Mushroom effect - If a mushroom is picked from a plot of land, in time the remaining mushrooms occupy the space. Once you have solved your problem, don't look for another stressful situation to take the place of the old one. Some people will also grow into or feel the need to be in another stressful situation.

If you are not prepared to change your behaviour...nothing will change, you will remain stressed.

Anger and stress is easier to hold on to but are negative and will therefore attract negativity towards you.

When trying to solve your problems, start from where you are, i.e. don't just think of a stress free life in the future, ask yourself how are you going to achieve this, what steps do you need to take now to make this happen.

Use NLP techniques if you have the know how and picture yourself in the future and look back at how you dealt with the issue and if you're not happy with the associated feelings, think how you would have liked to deal with it and what outcomes you achieved.

Don't own other people's problems, you deal with yours, and let others deal with their own problems.

Remember - You are the source and solution. (How many fingers are pointing back at you when you point the finger of blame?) See How Many Fingers Are Pointing Back At You - www.hmfapbay.blogspot.com

Not making decisions is one of the commonest causes of stress on a day to day basis
Remember, stress comes from the consequence and not the decision making, i.e. when you are given a choice and there are no associated negative consequences, then there is no stress in the choice, however, if you are given a choice, lets say between two sweets, and one sweet has an ingredient that you are allergic to, the possible negative consequence is what will cause you tension and stress. Choose to stop suffering and then deal with the consequence

Learn how the mind works, and take control of it. Further reading and self development, consider "The Chimp Paradox" by Dr Steve Peters. Click on the link below.

The Chimp Paradox: The Mind Management Programme to Help You Achieve Success, Confidence and Happiness

ABC Model - Stress

The ABC Model - Stress

Our perceptions about events and our attitudes can contribute to our levels of stress. Thoughts Influence Feelings

Many of us are unaware that our thoughts play a large role in influencing how we feel. This is an important concept because we may not always be able to influence what happens to us but we do have a powerful influence in how we interpret what happens to us and how we deal with it. No matter what happens to us nobody can take this away from us.

"Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of human freedoms to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way." - Dr Viktor Frankl

Our thoughts have a very powerful effect on our feelings and therefore on the level of stress we encounter. Not everybody exposed to a challenging event will find it stressful, this can be down to how we deal with the potential, challenging stressors.

People often believe it is external events that cause us stress but this is not totally correct.

Psychologist Doctor Richard Lazarus says "stress resides neither in the situation nor in the person it depends on a transaction between the two." 

An individual's views, perception, beliefs and expectations play a large role in whether he/she thinks an event is stressful or not. 

A = Activating Event - (triggers that cause potential stress) 

Life event stressors - Death of a loved one, injury, accidents. 

Common stressors - Daily hassles, work, family, relationships.

B = Beliefs

We come into this world with no beliefs, opinions, views or perceptions. From the moment we can talk and listen we start to learn the opinions of our parents, our peers, school etc. We automatically start to use these beliefs as a template to interpret ourselves, other people and the world in general. The problem is that other people may not necessarily have the same template, views and beliefs as us. 

We use our beliefs to interpret what is happening to us. These beliefs may be accurate, possible, flexible and optimistic, these types of beliefs and thinking skills can help to reduce stress, however a lot of beliefs can be in the form of automatic negative thoughts and if they are rigid, negative, inflexible and pessimistic then this can exacerbate any stress we are under.

C = Consequences

Consequences refer to the feelings that occur as a consequence of our beliefs and self-talk in response to the activating event. The consequences can be in the form of stress, anxiety, depression, anger, irritability, aggression, fear, worry, and frustration etc. 

"We can't always influence what others may say or do to us - but we can influence how we react to it!"
Example

There are two people on a train that stops and is held up for 30 minutes. One of the people opens his brief case and gets on with some work and calmly waits until the train starts moving again. While the other person sits, fumes, thinks that it is disgusting and incompetent of the railway company, and that this state of affairs should not happen. The same stressor, yet two entirely different responses, one will trigger the release of stress hormones, the other response won't. 

Getting upset and angry didn't make the train move any faster, and it's the individual's beliefs, thoughts and perceptions that are the key.

It can be useful to break down an event such as the example above using the A+B=C equation:

A= Activating Event

In this case the delayed train is the activating event.

B= Beliefs

In the example the first person seems to have no fixed beliefs about whether trains should run on time or not he thinks "Yes, it's a pain, but getting upset won't make the train move any faster and luckily this doesn't happen every day, we shall be moving soon.

The second person however, believes "trains should always run on time and it's disgusting and incompetent of the railway company if they do not".

C= Consequences

The outcome for the two people in our example is that the first person does not get stressed, he gets out his work and in fact sees the delay as an opportunity to get some work done which otherwise he may not have had the time to do in the office or may have had to take home to do, so he has positive consequences to his beliefs about the activating event.

The second person however has become very stressed, feeling very upset, very angry, his response has triggered his fight/flight response but it has not made the train move any faster and he will probably continue to feel angry and upset long after the train has resumed and got him to his destination; he has not been able to use the time effectively and will probably have difficulty being efficient in his work later in the day because of this stress response during the train journey.

Many stressful events that happen to us can be looked at in this way using the A+B=C equation to help us see how what we thought and believed about a situation led to the way we felt and the level of stress we experienced.

Changing our self-talk to a less rigid, less pessimistic, more positive, thinking style will help us cope more effectively and make us more able to deal with the challenges we encounter. 

What,s the Problem

There's a lot out there to help people solve their problems, so what's the problem ? Why the need for another blog and what's different about this one. Let me ask you a rhetorical question, there's huge seas and rivers all over the world so why do we need droplets of rain?

Well for starters this blog like my other blogs has evolved out of my own life experiences in my work, training, research and personal life. I've tried to collate the information related to this subject into one place so others can also use this blog as a resource to develop their own learning.