How to Release Your Stress in a Healthy Fashion
How to Release Your Stress in a Healthy Fashion
Ways to Cope with Stress
Coping is when you try to master, reduce, or tolerate the demands created by stress. Realistically speaking there are adaptive and maladaptive sides to coping with stress, by which I mean there are two different ways you can go about to deal with stress. I will use losing your job as an example. Do you cope with it adaptively, in a way which you actively engage yourself in job hunting, or do you cope with it maladaptively, in a way which you just give up.
The way you cope with stress, will be different from the way that I will cope with stress. That's obvious. But across all individuals, there seems to be some stress-coping related patterns....both healthy, adaptive patterns and unhealthy, maladaptive patterns.
I will start off by explaining the unhealthy coping patterns because I believe it to be very important for people to realize what is categorized as an unhealthy coping mechanism.
Giving Up and Blaming Yourself - Never, never do this! Giving up is termed by psychologists as "learned helplessness", and in this case when situations arise that are beyond someone's control they easily and rapidly fall into depression!! When you are constantly blaming yourself it is called "catastrophic thinking" and it is when you are highly self critical in a given stress response. This too easily leads to depression.
Striking out at Others - Yes, I am guilty of this too. And yes, I do get a temporary relief of frustration and anger for a couple of minutes, but the cost we pay at the end of the day after lashing out at someone is catastrophic. Why do we lash out at others? Mainly because we cannot vent at the real source, so in Freudian terms, we "displace" our anger on someone else. Our aggression is always caused by frustration. Although we have a temporary release of emotional tension, the interpersonal problems which this brings about only increases stress on a large scale.
Self-Indulgence - What's your guilty pleasure? Mine's chocolate. When we self-indulge at a point that it becomes excessive, it is an easy sign that you are stressed. Often we try to compensate for the stress we feel in our lives with something which provides us with temporary satisfaction. Is it shopping? Internet addiction? Or worse...drinking, smoking, drugs? All of the previous are sure signs of stress.
Defensive Coping- a way to protect yourself from emotional discomforts of stress, in a matter that reduces the intensity of the stress experienced. Defensive coping includes avoidance, repression, and denial. How does this work? By self-deception; we bend and twist reality in ways that suit us best. This is both an unconscious and conscious process, although mostly unconscious and it is very normal. Although it's normal, it definitely is not healthy. When you avoid a situation, you do not come up with a solution. When you repress a situation, it leads to poor health because you delay owning up to your problems. When you are in denial and you experience wishful thinking, you surely do not accomplish much.
Now that I have discussed the unhealthy ways to cope, I will briefly discuss healthy coping solutions.Constructive coping is a healthful, positive approach. Below I will outline a few ways to cope in a constructive manner:
Confront Problems Directly: Be task relevant and action oriented. Always rationally evaluate your options...make sure you do this when you are calm and all of your emotions have passed.
Have a realistic appraisal of your stress & coping resources: although self-deception...in tiny doses....can be beneficial, but in excess it can be detrimental.
Learn to discriminate unhealthy reactions to stress: distinguish between reactions that are detrimental and those that are beneficial. Always remember: acting under stress will only make the situation worse.
Put in effort to ensure that your body isn't vulnerable to damaging effects of stress: always get check-ups and ensure that you are mentally and physically healthy.
An important aspect of dealing with stress is learning how to relax. How to relax?
Follow my guidelines:
1. Pick a quiet environment: no distractions.
2. Have a mental device: shift all of your attention inward and hold it there. Think of a relaxing sound.
3. Have a passive attitude: Don't get upset when your attention strays to other distracting thoughts.
4. Sit in a comfortable position: sit up against the wall...don't lay down, you'll fall asleep!!
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