Stress Management: 5 Ways to Cope

To define stress in general; stress, feeling unable to cope with mental or emotional pressure; We can say that it is the totality of our physical and mental reactions to the changes we experience in our lives. A certain level of stress can actually motivate us. But when it starts to increase, it reduces our quality of life. It can seriously damage both our mental and physical health, and when it becomes chronic, it damages our immune system, reducing our ability to fight diseases.

What Causes Stress?

Common causes of stress may include:

• Situations that threaten your sense of safety, health or well-being
• Thoughts and feelings that involve fear of loss (such as a relationship, your job, your health, or your money)
• Recurrent worry about one specific thing or vague worries about many different things
• Uncertainty
• Perceived lack of control over one or more aspects of your life
• Habitual thought patterns that include negative beliefs or a pessimistic outlook on life
• Lack of self-efficacy (belief that you do not have the resources or ability to deal with challenges)

Stress Physiology: What Causes Stress Reactions?

Your stress response, or what we commonly think of as stress, happens when something triggers your fight-or-flight response. This is a body-wide reaction involving your brain, autonomic nervous system, hormones, and other substances that affect various biological functions:

• Your senses notice something disturbing
• Sensory input is processed by the thalamus in your brain.
• The thalamus alerts your amygdala, another brain region, that something negative is happening (the amygdala is an emotional center in the brain responsible for emotions, including fear)
• The amygdala and other emotion-related areas of the brain stimulate the motor cortex, which sends messages through neural pathways, instructing muscles to tense and tense in preparation to respond to the stressor.
• The amygdala also stimulates the hypothalamus, an area in the brain just above the brainstem.
• The hypothalamus activates and stimulates the pituitary gland, causing it to send a chemical messenger called corticotropin-releasing factor (CRF) up to the adrenal glands above the kidneys.
• The adrenal glands participate in this reaction by secreting stress hormones such as cortisol, epinephrine (adrenaline) and norepinephrine (noradrenaline).
• Meanwhile, the part of the autonomic nervous system known as the sympathetic nervous system revs up and sends impulses down the spinal cord and to nerves throughout the body to prepare you to escape or fight the stressor.
• As a result of all this activity, your senses become sharper, breathing rate accelerates, heart rate and blood pressure increase, and glucose and fats are released into the bloodstream to keep you alert for further danger.
• Your immune system also kicks into high gear, causing inflammation throughout your body when you are injured by a stressor and need to heal.

A lot happens inside you when you encounter something that causes you stress. Your physiological response to a trigger leads to stress symptoms.

 

Try Meditation to Reduce Stress

Stress Symptoms

Because our entire system – body, brain (physical organ), and mind (thoughts and emotions) – is involved in our stress response, we can feel many different symptoms of stress: cognitive (thought-based), emotional, physical, and behavioral.

Cognitive symptoms of stress include:

• Constant worry about one or more different things
• Difficulty concentrating
• problems remembering things
• Problems making decisions
• Brain fog, difficulty thinking clearly
• Decreased creativity or problem-solving ability
• Reduced sense of humor

Emotional symptoms of stress:

• Irritability, anger
• Increased crying spells or crying easily over small things
• feeling nervous
• Unrest
• Loneliness
• Vague feelings of unhappiness
• sense of purposelessness
• feeling easily overwhelmed
• low motivation

Physical symptoms of stress include:

• muscle tension
• Pain anywhere in the body
• burnout
• difficulty staying asleep
• Palpitation
• Shake
• increased sweating
• ringing in the ears
• teeth grinding
• Dizziness with or without fainting
• Feeling of choking and/or difficulty swallowing
• digestive problems
• Frequent need to urinate
• decreased libido

Behavioral signs of stress:

• Difficulty starting or finishing tasks
• Using avoidance coping strategies to avoid people, situations, or tasks
• Criticizing others or making many negative statements about life in general
• Restlessness
• emotional eating
• Substance use, including smoking
• Withdrawal from friends and family
• Isolation

5 Tips for Stress Management

We can’t always control the things in our lives that cause us to experience stress. But this does not mean that our well-being is at the mercy of external forces. No matter what stressors you encounter, you can manage your stress response and feel good mentally and physically.

Try these 5 tips to manage stress:

1. Increase Your Awareness of Your Stressors and Stress Responses

The more you know about what triggers your stress response and how you experience stress (your symptoms), the sooner you can take action to manage things. Tune in to your thoughts, feelings, and physical sensations to catch feelings of stress before they get out of control. Once you understand what triggers you and when it happens, you can cope using one or more of these tips.

2. Start with What You Control

Identifying what you can control and taking small steps can help you feel more centered and empowered. Perhaps simplify a large project by breaking it down into small, manageable components, take a stressful situation one moment at a time, or choose to spend more time with people who encourage you and less time with toxic ones. If you find yourself stuck in a scary situation, take some control of your response by utilizing relaxation strategies.

3. Often Use Purposeful Relaxation Strategies

When you teach yourself to relax, you learn to control your physiological stress response. The fight-or-flight response occurs automatically, but you can intentionally turn it off by using relaxation techniques that deactivate the sympathetic nervous system (CNS) and activate its physiological counterpart, the parasympathetic (i.e., “rest and relax”) nervous system. The moment you realize you’re feeling stressed, start taking slow, deep, mindful breaths. The act of breathing in this way calms the body’s stress response.

You can also prevent your fight-or-flight response from becoming dominant by practicing regularly to strengthen your body’s natural relaxation response. Practices such as yoga, tai chi, and meditation have been found in studies to reduce stress and increase feelings of calm. Additionally, getting a massage, watching something that makes you laugh, or doing something healthy that relaxes you can reduce stress in a given moment and over time.

Regular relaxation can be as simple as listening to music you find calming or inspiring. A study published in 2019  in the journal Anestesiologica found that music disrupts the stress response. The study showed that listening to or creating music directly affects the nervous system, brain, heart rate, blood pressure, respiratory rate and hormone production.

Getting outside is a quick and easy-to-implement relaxation strategy that reduces stress. A review published in 2020 of 14 studies investigating the effects of nature on well-being found that even just 10 minutes of being in nature (like a backyard or park) can reduce feelings of stress. Taking frequent breaks to step outside and breathe deeply can reset your body.

4. Nourish Your Body and Brain

Taking care of your whole self helps reduce the negative effects of stress. Proper diet and physical activity are vital for both short- and long-term stress management. Exercise improves sleep, improves mood, reduces anxiety, and increases positive feelings about yourself and your circumstances by increasing the amount of restorative slow-wave sleep cycles each night.

What you eat also directly affects your mental health. Eating too much processed food, sugar, and unhealthy fats can worsen the effects of stress and ruin your mood. Eating healthy foods like complex carbohydrates, lean proteins, healthy fats, and antioxidant-rich produce, spices, and beans nourishes your brain and body with nutrients like magnesium, vitamin C, and omega-3 fatty acids. It reduces the effects of stress on the body and mind.

5. Find What You Love and Do It Often and Regularly

An important key to dealing with stress positively is to try stress management techniques to find what works for you. Just as the causes of stress differ from person to person, so do the tools that reduce stress. Discover what you enjoy doing and gradually do more of it over time.

Incorporating stress management into your daily life in a natural and pleasant way will prevent it from becoming just one more thing on your already long to-do list and therefore another source of stress. When stress management is pleasant, you are more likely to engage regularly, which is another important key to coping with stress. Stress management is not a single event, but rather something done regularly to keep your PNS active and working to keep you calm.

Why is Managing Stress Important?

Our body’s stress response exists to help us cope with immediate, threatening situations. When our mind and body are alert, we are ready to deal with problems. This fight-or-flight response is assumed to be temporary, but is deactivated when a stressor passes. Unfortunately, in our hectic modern age, stressors are frequent and numerous, so our physiological stress response is often deprived of the chance to completely shut down. As a result, our physical and mental health may suffer. Chronic stress can lead to serious problems such as heart disease, stroke, headaches, inflammation, pain, digestive problems, sleep disorders, anxiety and depression.

The good news is that managing stress and taking intentional steps to cope with stress works. When you step up and do things that help your body and mind rest and reset, you can prevent your physiological stress response from wreaking havoc on your entire being. With regular stress management, you can respond to challenges thoughtfully rather than reacting in ways that make you feel worse.

Stress and Your Mental Health

Stress begins with your body’s physiological response to something distressing or threatening, but once this stress response begins, thoughts and emotions follow and perpetuate the fight-or-flight response. Anxiety and fears about perceived problems or consequences can run rampant, leading to mental health problems.

For example, you may work for a difficult boss and be involved in a difficult project with a long deadline. Your boss, your project, and your deadline trigger your fight-or-flight response. The resulting hormonal and neural activity keeps you on high alert for danger and makes you wonder, “What happens if I lose my job because I couldn’t please my boss with this project?” I can’t afford my mortgage and how do I continue to support my children? My daughter has some health problems. What if I can’t afford to take him to the doctor? What if it’s really cancer and it’s spreading because I can’t afford the treatment…”

These stressful, anxiety-provoking thoughts and feelings not only fuel themselves, they also fuel the body’s stress response. Without proper stress management and treatment, it becomes a vicious cycle that is difficult to escape and can worsen.

Stress has been linked to mental health problems such as:

• Anxiety
• Depression
• Sleep problems, including insomnia
• Worsening symptoms of other mental illnesses

If you feel like stress is interfering with your mental health, dominating your thoughts or disrupting your emotions, working with a mental health therapist may help.

How Can Therapy Help You Manage Stress?

If you are suffering from stress, know that you are not alone. Everyone experiences stress. You don’t have to proceed on your own; It’s okay to seek help from others, including professional therapists. A therapist can help you identify and better understand your triggers, effectively deal with the concerns and issues underlying stress, and develop an action plan to manage stress in a way that works for you.

When working with a therapist you can:

• Develop tools to help you manage your body’s stress response so you’re not at the mercy of your stressors
• Increase your endurance
• Make changes for a healthy lifestyle to keep stress away
• Learn new insights and build a new relationship with your triggers so you can use stress for positive results
• Feel more in control of your life
• Discover ways to replace stress with a sense of meaning and purpose
• Identify and change negative thought patterns that both contribute to and result from stress

7 Therapy Options for Stress Management

Therapy can be useful for stress management and help people cope with stress in a positive way. Specific therapeutic approaches are particularly useful in managing and coping with stress. Here is a brief overview of stress management therapy options.

1. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) for Stress

Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is an approach to mental health that involves learning to identify negative thought patterns that can increase stress and contribute to anxiety and depression. When working with a CBT therapist, you can recognize and change maladaptive thought patterns, identify your triggers, create and implement new, helpful behaviors, heal your emotions, and develop specific tools for coping with problems.

Cognitive-behavioral therapy varies depending on the needs of the individual client. Sometimes therapy is completed in 10 to 20 sessions (sessions usually last 45-60 minutes), but other times the duration is shorter or longer.

2. Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) for Stress

Acceptance and commitment therapy  (ACT) is a therapy approach that helps people overcome challenges such as stress and create their own version of a quality life. With ACT, you learn to stop fighting stress, change your response to stress, and live in a way that reduces it. Acceptance and commitment therapy changes how people respond to stress and increases their feelings of well-being.

The cost and length of the ACT varies. The cost of psychotherapy in general can vary depending on things like geographic location, setting (community health center or private practice), and qualifications of the therapist.

3. Positive Psychology for Stress

Positive psychology is a scientific field of study that identifies and develops traits that help people thrive, and is useful for stress because it helps build skills and perspectives to increase what’s working rather than focusing on what’s wrong. Working with a therapist who incorporates positive psychology can help you increase stress-reducing abilities and perspectives such as optimism and gratitude. Additionally, this therapeutic approach helps people identify and use their unique character strengths as well as plan and take positive actions to improve their lives—important skills for keeping stress at bay.

While positive psychology is a fairly new approach to therapy, it is a legitimate field of psychology, recognized by the American Psychological Association, that can help people overcome stress and thrive. The principles of positive psychology are often incorporated into many different types of therapy. Therefore, the cost and duration of therapy vary greatly.

4. Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) and Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) for Stress

Mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) and mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) are structured group programs that help people manage stress and cope positively with common life challenges. Both emphasize mindfulness, living fully and paying attention to the present moment rather than dwelling on thoughts and feelings that cause stress.

Participants in MBSR programs learn stress management tools as well as mindfulness, meditation, yoga, and stress-related information. In an MBCT program, participants learn a combination of mindfulness and CBT techniques to deal with stress in a positive way. Both MBSR and MBCT have been shown to reduce stress and relieve symptoms of anxiety and depression. Mindfulness-based stress reduction and MBCT are eight-week programs offered in many different settings.

5. Music Therapy for Stress

Music therapy  involves intentionally listening to or creating music to create positive changes in emotional and physical health. While people can listen to music on their own as a relaxation technique, music therapy involves specific musical interventions led by a trained music therapist. Music therapy has been shown in studies to help people reduce and better manage stress because it induces a state of calm and relaxation by reducing the body’s physiological stress response and evoking positive emotions.

6. Art Therapy for Stress

Art therapy is a creative approach to mental health therapy that may include activities such as collage making, creative journaling, drawing and painting, as well as discussing and processing creations that lead to personal insight and discovery. It has been found to help people reduce stress by lowering cortisol levels in the body, resulting in better mood, relaxation, and reduced physical symptoms such as headaches, chest pain, and sleep problems.

Art therapy is usually done in a group setting but can also be done individually. The cost depends on location, setting, and therapist qualifications.

7. Biofeedback and Autogenic Training for Stress

Biofeedback  and  autogenic training are interventions designed to help people become more in tune with their physiological stress response and what happens in their bodies when they are stressed. During a biofeedback session, a therapist uses noninvasive tools to measure brain waves, heart rate and rhythm, respiratory rate, and muscle activity and helps the client recognize these bodily sensations.

People then learn relaxation techniques to calm the body when they notice the stress response. The number of biofeedback sessions required to learn to recognize and control the physiological stress response varies. Biofeedback is usually performed in 30-60 sessions over three to six months.

Autogenic training typically takes place over four to six months and includes specific lessons, techniques, and practices. During training, people learn to activate the PNS and induce the relaxation response.

Where to Find a Therapist for Stress?

Seeking a therapist for stress may seem overwhelming at first—especially when you’re stressed and don’t want one more thing on your already too full plate. Knowing where to look can make the process much more doable. You can find a mental health professional by using an online directory, asking family for friends, or asking your primary care doctor for a recommendation or referral.

It’s okay to consult a therapist before starting therapy sessions. It is important that you feel comfortable with your therapist and that the two of you trust and respect each other. The quality of the relationship between a therapist and client is perhaps the biggest factor in success.

Is Therapy Effective in Managing Stress?

Research shows that therapy is effective for managing stress. A review published in the Health Science Journal in 2011  found that therapy for stress management was safe and effective in helping people cope with stressors and manage their reactions to stress.

Many studies point to the effectiveness of cognitive behavioral therapy, especially for stress management. A review of 122 studies conducted between 2007 and 2018 found evidence supporting the effectiveness of therapy, specifically cognitive behavioral therapy, for stress management in students. A separate review of 106 studies published in 2013 found strong support for the effectiveness of CBT in managing and reducing stress. A 2018 study involving 30 medical students in Iran who reported feelings of stress and anxiety showed that group-based CBT reduced their symptoms and increased feelings of hope.

Studies of other forms of therapy to manage stress also show positive results. For example, a study published in 2016 examined 50 men with heart disease who reported negative stress and related stress symptoms. They participated in eight 90-minute ACT sessions over two months, and by the end of the study, they reported feeling significantly reduced by the negative effects of stress.

Stress can be incredibly disruptive to life, affecting people in many different negative ways. Learning healthy ways to manage and cope with stress and working with a therapist can bring positive changes and help you cope and thrive.