Contributed by: Healthians Team
Stress is an unwanted outcome of the modern lifestyle that we live in today. The underlying reasons for getting stressed could be multifarious like the stress of work, family responsibilities, impossible targets and deadlines, problematic relationships, financial instability, performance pressure, and the added stress of not doing justice to oneself. The unfortunate reality of this mental fatigue is that it just doesn’t make you feel awful, it also hurts your body at the cellular level and wreaks havoc on your emotional equilibrium. The unreleased psychological stress that we feel easily manifests in physical stress and creates an environment within our body that is conducive to health hazards.
Given that stress has been linked as a co-factor in 95% of all diseases, acute and chronic, it is important that you should take a holistic approach to your health and well-being. The key here is to understand that whatever happens to us in our work and private lives, it is not worth putting your entire well-being at risk. The bills will never stop coming, there will never be more hours in a day and your work and family obligations will always be as demanding.
You may think that there is nothing you can do to make the stress disappear. However, you have much more control than you may think. Here are four A’s: avoid, alter, adapt, or accept to mitigate the pressure and regain control.
Avoid unnecessary stressors
Avoiding stress is simply a matter of not putting yourself into situations that trigger anxiety and stress.
- Whether in your personal or professional life, Learn how to say NO to more than you can handle
- Avoid toxic people who stress you out.
- Take proactive control of your environmental stressors
- Re-analyze your schedule, responsibilities, and daily tasks to drop tasks that are not really necessary
Alter the stressors
If you cannot limit a stressful situation, try to alter it by changing the way you communicate and operate in your life.
- Express your feelings instead of keeping them bottled up.
- Be willing to bend at least a little to find a happy middle ground.
- Create a work-life to prevent burnout.
Adapt to the stressors
If you can’t change the stressor, it is better to change yourself by adapting to stressful situations in order to regain your sense of control.
- Try to view stressful situations from a new perspective.
- Look at the big picture. Introspect the stressful situation and ask yourself it really worth all your emotional and mental investment? If the answer is no, focus your time and energy in another direction.
- Set modest and achievable standards for yourself and others, and learn to be okay with “good enough.”
- Practice gratitude and appreciate all the things in your life.
Accept the situation you can’t change
The best way to cope with stress is to accept things as they are instead of trying to change the uncontrollable.
- Don’t try to control things in life that are beyond our control, particularly the behavior of other people.
- Consciously look for the upside when life throws major challenges.
- Free yourself from negative energy by learning to forgive and letting go of people’s mistakes.
- Express your pent-up tensions to someone you trust.
