Stress Management

How to prevent, reduce and cope with stress.
Stress is happening in your life on a daily basis, whether its the bills coming in, taking an hour to drive to work, working and then rushing home for the kids, it is everywhere.  You may think that it is impossible to reduce or prevent stress but there are ways that can help you to manage it on a daily basis.

We all respond to stress differently and so there is no one way to manage it. But if you feel your life is out of control then it is definitely time to take measures to slow things down or to introduce coping methods.

Where is stress in your life?  Its important to locate where it is coming from as over time it all seems normal and you don't think "it" is causing stress.
I suggest you start a stress journal and it will help you to track where it is coming from and the patterns you have formed.  Heres a few questions to ask yourself.

• What caused your stress (make a guess if you’re unsure)
• How you felt, both physically and emotionally
• How you acted in response
• What you did to make yourself feel better

A few other things to think about is do you just think you have a million things to do at the moment (its temporary), do you blame your stress on others(from outside events and people, meaning you have no control) or is it just part of your job, or the kids are just busy doing lots of things(things are always crazy around here)

How do you cope with stress at the moment?  Do you have time out when you have a smoke, or go to the pub for a drink or do drugs or take your stress out on others by getting angry, or sleep all day as you have no energy or sit in front of the tv all night.
As much as we need balance if you are doing any of the above activities every day, it is time to start looking at how you can can your habits or change the way you think about life.

Some healthy ways of dealing with stress.

• Get  moving, yes go for a walk, or go to the gym. Moving allows emotions to be released from the muscles.
• Meditate - even if its 5 minutes a day.
• Deep breathing -  deep breathing  takes you out of the fight and flight mode into relaxation. Do 10 deep breaths into your belly each morning or night.
• Sleep - If you go to bed after 10pm cortisol kicks in and its harder to get to sleep or sometimes its not till 1am that you then finally fall asleep.
• Learn to say no- know your limits and stick to them.
• Express your feelings - Learn to say what you feel in an honest, compassionate way.  If you don't you will bottle them up and could explode in later days
• Change the way you feel about yourself -  If you have a pattern of feeling un-noticed, unworthy, unimportant or under valued find a practitioner who can help you resolve those issues.
• Manage your time better -  diary time for yourself, make it an appointment on a weekly basis.
• Learn to forgive - often when we have been hurt we hold onto that experience which does no good for us, the other person may not even think about it, it is only hurting you.
• Eat healthy foods
• Get together with friends and laugh and play

Want more help to manage your stress? Call Jacky on 021 0572519 and we can chat about your needs or leave a comment below.

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