Table of Contents
What is Stress?
In today’s scenario, everything is changing so fast, new technology being used, People today have a vision and purpose in their life, as there is a change in society accordingly there living style, moral value, expectation, and responsibilities also affected drastically by changes in all around and these expectations bought certain risk in their life and where there is a risk there is stress, if there is no risk there is no stress.
Let’s understand with some forms of day to day stress
Forms of Stress in our day to day life:-
- A new employee has to take stress for a long time association, he has to understand the organization culture, roles & responsibilities of his job, if he is not taking stress he may lose his job.
- If an employee is looking for a promotion at work he has to take stress or doing the things better than his colleague then only he can receive his promotion.
- One has to take stress for buying a new house or a new car, if he is not able to buy.
- An athlete gets stress before his performance helps his to perform better.
- A businessman has to take stress to fight with the cut-throat competition.
- A father has to take stress for the marriage of his son or daughter otherwise, he will not be able do so.
- A student has to take stress for doing well in exam; otherwise, it will be very difficult for him to clear the exam.
- While driving a car a driver has to take stress for smooth and safe driving and this continuous process adds value to his perfection.
- The stress a doctor gets before doing a surgery help him to save the life of his patient.
So, we can understand that stress can be caused by both good or bad experience, whenever people feel stress by anything going around them, their mind responds by releasing a chemical into the blood, these chemical gives people power and strength for how to react to the particular situation.
Usually, there is an expectation of some kind of risk or threat. If there is no risk…there is no stress. The perception of risk is usually forces you to be involved in the long thinking process, to identify the resources you have to meet the demand and realizing that you do not have enough resources to adequately meet the demands, This is the main feature of stress.
Effects of Stress
- Stress is a common problem that affects almost all of us at some point in our lives. Learning to identify when you are under stress, what is stressing you, and different ways of coping with stress can greatly improve both your mental and physical well-being.
- Therefore stress is the body’s response to a particular demand or threat, what can be a response, there is an approach called “fight or flight” response and has been with us for millions of years. The stress response helped our early forefathers escape from danger.
- The “fight or flight” approach helps us escape from danger. Most of the time in human history, danger came in the form of surprise, When faced with this danger a person had two options for survival, attack (fight) or run away (flight).
Although these are two different ways of responding to a situation, they both require the physical response resulting in certain a psychological effect like:-
- Increasing heart rate,
- Increasing breathing rate,
- Increasing blood pressure,
- Increasing muscle tension,
- Increasing blood flow to the brain, lungs, heart, and muscles
Causes of Stress
Lack of willingness of taking risk;
- Lack of faith in himself
- Lack of planning
- Lack of priority management
- Lack of continuous efforts
- Habits of taking short cuts
- Lack of Learning from Past experience
- Unable to utilize opportunities
- Habits of giving excuses
- Lack of knowledge
Process of Managing Stress
In the process of managing your stress, the first things you should know your signs of stress. Although there are more than hundreds of signs of stress, but it is not necessary that each person experience all of them.
FIRST STEP :
Identify your signs of stress : The signs of stress can be defined into various categories for different people there can be different signs of stress, if you want to get rid of it just identify your signs of stress, below are few examples of signs of stress.
Physical sign : Physical sign are the symptoms that can be measured by your own examination and these signs effects you directly, below are some signs for your ready references.
- Increased heart rate.
- Dry mouth
- Muscle aches, stiffness or pain (especially in the neck, shoulders, back)
- High blood pressure
- Frequent colds or flu
- Worsening of an existing illness (asthma, skin rashes etc.)
- Chest pains
- Headaches
- Indigestion
- Constipation
- Stomach cramps
- Sweating
- Fatigue
- Weight gain or loss
Behavioral signs :
- Increased smoking
- Drinking, drug use
- Yelling
- Swearing
- Aggression (Abusing, fighting)
- Changes in eating habits (increase or decrease)
- Changes in sleeping habits (increase or decrease)
- Nervousness (nail biting, fidgeting, pacing etc.)
Mental signs :
- Difficulty concentrating
- Decreased memory
- Difficulty making decisions
- Mind going blank or mind racing
- Confusion
- Loss of sense of humor
- Decreased libido
- Inattentiveness
- Bad dreams
Emotional Signs :
- Anxiety
- Anger
- Irritability
- Impatience
- Short temper
- Frustration
- Worry and Fear
SECOND STEP :
Identify the stressor : After knowing that you are stressed, the next step is to identify the stressor. A demand or a situation that causes stress is called a “stressor”. Some people can easily point out the cause of their stress, whereas some people find it difficult. Below are some tips to identifying the situation or demand that is causing your stress. Note down your stressor.
Stress is usually related to change, so look for changes in your life.
You can minimize the stress-related changes by looking back at when the symptoms appeared. If you noticed having problems sleeping two weeks ago, then look at the changes in your life that took place two weeks ago or around.
You can take the help of your near ones or well wisher those who know you, ma y be one of the best resource to identify your stress. Ask them for their opinion to point out the stressor.
Below is the list of general categories of sources of stress and see if this gives you some idea to identify your stressor. This is not a complete list of Stressors. It is a general overview of them.
Physical environment : Bright lights, noise, heat, cold, weather, traffic, Social/relational: Rudeness or aggressiveness in others, conflicts with others, not spending enough time with important people, lack of social support, loneliness.
Financial: Taxes, bills, unplanned expenses, EMI,
Organizational: Rules, regulations, school or work deadlines, just scoring passing marks, school, society or work culture.
Life events: Sudden death of a family member, loss of a job, illness, entering in university, work promotion, birth of a child, marriage, winning the lottery.
Lifestyle choices: Not enough sleep, increased caffeine, alcohol, or drug consumption, poor time management, unhealthy nutrition.
THIRD STEP :
Identify the reason for the stressor : In process of managing stress now you know the stressor. Next step in this process is to identify why it is causing you stress. This is a very important question as it will later help you in selecting the best strategy to manage your stress.
FOURTH STEP :
Formulation of Strategies to Manage Stress :
Formula of Managing Stress
- Define the problem and the expected results: Ask yourself, “what is the problem?” state it as specifically as possible giving attention to all facets of the problem. Kettering said, “A problem well-defined is half solved.”
- State the problem as specifically as possible.
- Clarify the expected results.
- Ask few questions to yourself:
- What is expected in terms of a solution?
- What are the parameters I need to work within?
- What is the real problem?
- How have I confirmed that it is a real problem?
- Is the problem a situational issue or a personal reaction?
2. Collect facts and ideas : Collect, as many facts, ideas and opinions as you believe may be necessary to provide insights into the problem.
- Collect all relevant facts, data, and ideas
- See fact-finding as one step which may not have all the data available to you at this time or perhaps ever.
- Let the ideas and facts incubate
- Ask few questions to yourself:
- Are all the facts available at this time?
- What facts are pertinent to moving ahead toward a solution? What are the facts?
- Have I forgotten specific, accurate facts?
- Do I have facts or opinions?
3. Generate solutions : Gather all possible solutions, no matter how wild they may seem. This is a sort of brainstorming process whereby all solutions are collected. Generating solutions is a part of the problem solving sequence that most people neglect. They do not use their creative imaginations to get all possible solutions. The greater the quantity of solutions that you generate, the higher will be the quality and wisdom of the decision.
- Truly brainstorm all possible solutions. Let the creative mind work.
- Involve others to get best possible ideas.
- Develop solutions without personal bias or opinion.
- Ask few questions to yourself:
- Have we recorded everything said?
- Did we eliminate any solutions before writing them down?
4. Pick the best solution :
- Which of the solutions in step 3 would be most apt to give the results you defined in step 1?
- Determine which one is likely to give you the expected result.
- Compare the best solution to the specifics identified in the problem.
- Ask few questions to yourself:
- Are we meeting the expected results?
- Does this solution meet the issues defined in the problem?
- Are there other potential solutions that can be woven in with those identified?
- When can the solutions be implemented?
5. Implement the best solution :
Act on the solution. Keep in mind that there may be more problems unsolved by no action than by wrong action.
“There is no more miserable human being than one in whom nothing is habitual but indecision” – William Jones
Begin to act on the solution.
Create a timeline and act according to the identified dates.
Ask few questions to yourself:
- Do I fear the results?
- Am I procrastinating?
- Am I fearful of other people’s reaction?
- Do I lack confidence in the solution?
- Are we willing to take the risks involved in the solution?
- Are we willing to change?
6. Evaluate the solution :
- Is the solution working? Are the desired results being achieved? Is there any modifications needed.
- Check how well the solution is working according to the expected results.
- Modify the solutions to improve it.
- Set the date of the next checkpoint.
- Ask few questions to yourself:
- What were the expected results? How does the solution compare to the expected results?
- What was working well?
- How could we improve this?
- Has this been an adequate test period?
Once you have answer of the above question, you will get to know, how to manage your stress.
Try this six step formula, if you are stressed in , and do let me know in the comment section, if this article helps you somehow.
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