How to Cope with Stress

In modern days, stress is a part of our lives. Yet contrary to our general assumption, stress is not necessarily harmful or detrimental, it all depends on how we take it. Life without stimulus could be incredibly dull and boring, while too much stimulus becomes unpleasant and tiring, and may ultimately damage our health or well-being.

The art of stress management is to keep ourselves at a level of stimulation that is healthy and enjoyable. General stress management puts much emphasis on the importance of having balanced diet, sufficient rest, regular physical exercise, be positive and optimistic, recreational activities, time management, priorities setting and etc. This article will show you practical and effective methods of reducing stress to a level where you can perform most effectively.

The three levels of stress management

In choosing methods to alleviate stress, it is worth asking ourselves where the stress comes from. If outside factors such as important events or relationship difficulties are causing stress, then a positive thinking or imagery based technique may be effective. Where stress and fatigue are long term, then lifestyle and organizational changes may be appropriate. If the feeling of stress comes from adrenaline in your body, then it may be effective to sit back and relax, and let the body slows down the flow of adrenaline.

In other words, we can manage our stress in three levels. The first level is to change the external factors and eliminate the source of stress. For example, if the working environment is the main source of stress, when we change to a new environment, the source of stress will be eliminated. The second level is to give a new meaning and interpretation to the external situation. The focus is to drive away the negative thoughts, and motivate us in meeting the challenges by positive thinking. The third level is to control the stress symptoms through stress reduction exercises, which help us to relax. If necessary, medical treatment is required to tackle some of the symptoms.

In the following, we will introduce some stress reduction exercises and ways to develop a positive mode of thinking.

Stress reduction exercises

1. Deep breathing

When we are stressful, our breathing will become shallow and fast. It will be beneficial to practise deep breathing, which is different from our usual way of breathing. The time proportion for inhaling, holding breath and exhaling is 1:4:2. Expand your abdomen to inhale and contract your abdomen to exhale. Throughout the process, the chest only moves very slightly. Keep your breathing evenly and slowly. This breathing exercise can help us to calm down, and also strengthen our immune system.

2. Progressive muscle relaxation exercise

Find a quiet place. Sit or lie down comfortably. In the beginning, take a deep breath as the above-mentioned and relax yourselves gradually. Afterwards, contract and relax different muscle parts orderly, and remember to match it with your breathing. Inhale and contract your muscle. Hold your breath and maintain the muscle in tense condition for several seconds. Then, exhale and relax the muscle. Throughout the exercise, focus your attention on the muscle parts. Feel the difference between the tense and the relaxed state. Practise this exercise slowly and steadily. Enjoy the relaxing state. However, a small number of people are not suitable to do this exercise. When you feel uncomfortable or get a little dizzy during the exercise, you should stop doing it immediately.

3. Regular physical exercise

Regular physical exercise is indeed one of the most effective ways to reduce stress. It not only strengthens our stamina, but also stimulates our body to secrete a kind of chemical, which makes us feel good and reduce our anxiety. To be effective, you should raise your heart beat rate to the range of 70% to 85% of maximum heart beat rate (the target heart beat rate) during the exercise.

Calculation of maximum heart beat rate:
220 - Your Age = Maximum heart beat rate/minute

Calculation of target heart beat rate:
Maximum heart beat rate x 70% (The lowest target heart beat rate) to 85% (The highest target heart beat rate) = Target heart beat rate

You may choose the types of exercise that you feel interested, and do it regularly.

Ways of developing positive thinking

Very often, we are easily overwhelmed by negative thoughts when we are undergoing difficult times. Negative thoughts would put us down, make us criticise ourselves for errors, doubt our abilities and expect failure. Such nasty thoughts cause us immense stress and undermine our confidence to tackle the tasks we face. At times like this, we may find it useful to combat negative thoughts with positive affirmations. We can use affirmations to build confidence and change negative behaviour patterns into positive ones. The affirmations are usually based on clear, rational assessments of fact, and we can use them to undo the damage that negative thinking may have done to our self-confidence. In the following, we will introduce to you a way of positive thinking- positive self-talk with visualization, which can increase your motivation, confidence and sense of control.

Positive self-talk with visualization

Positive self-talk means speaking to yourself with several positive statements, which describe the goals you want to achieve and your capabilities to attain them. When you speak to yourself, you could also think of a past successful event, and visualize yourself in that situation. Try to use all your senses as far as possible, that is to see, hear, feel, touch, smell or taste in your mind as if you were in that situation. It is more effective to practise it when you are in a strong subconscious level, e.g. when you just wake up in the morning or before you fall asleep at night.

Conclusive remarks

Our famous Kung Fu Star, Bruce Lee, once said: "Try to visualize success but not failure in our mind, and believe in our capabilities of achieving the goal. Negative thinking could exhaust our energy, especially when you allow it to occupy your mind." We hope this article can help you to understand a bit more about how to manage stress effectively, and to keep yourselves in optimal level of stress.