Managing Everyday Stress
In This Chapter
- Defining stress
- Discover your triggers to stress
- Stress-free problem solving
- Techniques for lowering stress
In today’s fast-paced, high-achievement world, it is easy to become stressed. Each day you must deal with family and work, find a way to balance both, and still find time for you. With everything going on around you, it’s no wonder you feel stressed much of the time. In this chapter, you will learn what stress is, where it comes from, and ways to cope with it.
What Is Stress?
Stress is internal pressure you put on yourself. It occurs when faced with difficult, overwhelming, or challenging situations. When you’re stressed out, you don’t think you have the ability or resources to deal with the situation. You feel burdened, either emotionally or physically. Stress is unique in each person. You might handle certain situations calmly, feeling completely in control, while someone else might feel frazzled when faced with the same situation.
Stress is unavoidable. From the time you were a child, you have learned to deal with stress. It pushes you to try harder and achieve more. This type of stress is short-term. For example, you feel stress when you have an important test. You study and prepare, but once the test is over, the stress is gone. Other times stress lasts much longer and becomes harmful. You are frustrated and irritable. You have trouble sleeping, get headaches or stomachaches, have nightmares, or have difficulty concentrating. When this happens, it is referred to as distress. Chronic, or long-term, stress can be debilitating.
IMAGINE THAT
Everyone experiences stress at some point in their life, but distress is avoidable. This is when you feel completely overwhelmed and shut down because you perceive your situation as too much to handle.
Identify Your Stressors
Most people juggle several areas of their life each day. Stress can develop in any one of these areas. Some common causes of stress include the following:
- Working long hours
- Pressure to succeed
- Job uncertainty
- Friction with co-workers or supervisors
- Poor working conditions
- Lack of career prospects
- Relationship problems
- Illness
- Financial difficulties
- Moving
- Having a baby
- Starting a job
- Traveling
- Planning a large event
Sometimes identifying your stressors can be easy; you might look at the previous list and quickly see several areas that are stressful for you. Maybe you are working long hours or facing losing your job. Maybe you are going through problems in your relationship and considering divorce. At other times stressors are harder to figure out. Maybe there isn’t anything big going on in your life, but you feel overwhelmed managing you household, taking care of your children, and cleaning your house. Or maybe your stressors are hiding behind denials, excuses, and blaming others for your problems.
STOP AND THINK
The most stressful events usually revolve around transition periods, such as getting married, having a baby, moving, starting a new job, death of a partner, and divorce.
Take time over the next week or two to write down what situations and events cause stress or tension in your life. Note whether this was a one-time event, such as a job interview, or an ongoing situation. For each stressor that is an ongoing situation, place it into a category, such as work, family, illness, pain, or social situations. This helps to separate short- and long-term stress and to identify the areas of your life that are causing the most difficulty. It gives you a place to start managing your stress.
Problems vs. Problematic Thinking
Once you have a list of common stressors in your life, decide whether each one is the result of a problem or problematic thinking. Is there a specific problem and possible solution? If so, sit down and write a plan of action for solving the problem. If not, reread the problematic thinking processes in Chapter 2. Are you creating stress in your life thinking negatively?
Suppose you wrote down that you feel stress when your wife works late. You think, “There is so much to do. I have to cook dinner, straighten up the house, help with homework, and get the children ready for bed. It’s going to take forever and I have a report to read for work. This is a disaster. I’m doing all of this alone; she should be here to help. She only thinks about herself. I can’t do this.” In this example, you are:
- Catastrophizing (“This is a disaster;” “I can’t do this.”)
- Overgeneralizing (“This is going to take forever.”)
- Using “should” statements (“She should be here to help.”)
- Blaming (“She only thinks about herself.”)
If you slow down, take some deep breaths, and restructure your thinking, you can approach the situation differently, looking for things that are practical and solvable. You realize that it isn’t really a disaster. You can take care of your children; you have gotten them dinner and ready for bed in the past. You realize that you and your wife are partners and that means you both take responsibility for your home and children. Once you see the situation from a different perspective, you start problem solving. You check the refrigerator for something for dinner, you get everyone settled with homework, and you don’t worry about straightening up—that can wait until tomorrow. By the time your wife arrives home, everything has been taken care of, your children are ready for bed, and you can focus on work.
Your Turn: Problem Solving
Write down the problem in one or two phrases or sentences. Focus on the actual problem, not how you feel. In the previous example, you would write, “my wife arriving home late when I have work to do” instead of “my wife doesn’t care about me.” Writing the problem helps because trying to solve things in your head is difficult. The solutions and ideas get cluttered and create confusion. Solutions become much clearer when you put the problem on paper.
CBTIDBIT
In CBT, you are encouraged to look at problems from a different perspective. One way to do this is to pretend to solve the problem for someone else. When faced with a challenging situation, imagine you are talking to a friend or a young relative, 10 years in the future. What would you tell him to do? What advice would you give?
After you’ve written your problem, list all of the possible solutions. Don’t worry about whether the solutions are all practical or realistic right now. Write down every solution you think of. For example:
Problem: Car making a strange noise; needs to be taken to a mechanic.
Solutions:
- Buy a new car.
- Ask a co-worker for a ride to work while the car is in the shop.
- Take the bus to work.
- Rent a car until the car is looked at.
- Work from home.
- Take a day off work to take the car to the shop.
Once you have list all the possible solutions, go back and cross out any unreasonable solutions. You might cross off “buy a new car” because it isn’t in your budget and “take the bus to work” because the bus route is inconvenient.
Keep the top two or three solutions and write down the pros and cons for each one:
Ask a co-worker for a ride to work.
Pro: least expensive
Con: need to have co-worker pick me up and it is out of his way
Rent a car.
Pro: gives the most flexibility
Con: might be expensive
Take a day off work and take car to shop.
Pro: can take car to shop and wait for it to be done
Con: have to use a vacation day
You can now decide which choice is best for your situation and create a plan of action. Some problems are more complex. For those, you will need to break your plan of action into steps and work on one step at a time. Then, monitor your progress and, if needed, change and revise your plan until you reach your goal.
GIVE IT A TRY
When going through a stressful situation, ask yourself these questions:
- What are the facts?
- Is the situation bad or do I feel bad about what is going on?
- What evidence supports my feelings? What evidence disproves my feelings?
- How big of an issue will this be in five hours? Five days? Five years?
Remember, feelings are temporary. No feeling lasts forever, not even the good ones.
You manage your stress, or your stress manages you. Stress has been linked to diseases, such as heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure, and stroke. Managing your stress improves your overall feelings of well-being and increases your longevity. The following are some techniques for managing every day stress:
Prioritize. If you have a long “to-do” list each day and worry about whether it is every going to get done, take time each morning to prioritize your tasks. Write down everything you want to accomplish. Rate each one. You probably have several tasks on your list that are only mildly important or nonessential. Cross these out. You might have four or five items that need to be completed. This is your new “to-do” list. Accept that the other tasks might not get done.
Think in action steps. Instead of thinking in terms of an entire project from start to finish, break your projects into actionable steps.
Build an oasis. When feeling stressed, take a few minutes to build your own private oasis. Find a quiet area and take a few deep breaths. Use visualization or positive imagery, as explained in Chapter 6, to imagine yourself in a serene and calm place. As you practice this, you will find it easy to simply close your eyes and go to the quiet space in your mind for a few minutes of peace.
Determine the probability. During stressful times, it is easy to catastrophize. Take a few minutes to determine the probability of your anticipated outcome occurring. Usually, the likelihood is much lower than you imagine. Make a list of all of the steps that would have to occur in order for your situation to be as catastrophic as you image. Assign each step in the sequence a percentage of how likely it is to occur and multiple all the percentages by each other. This is probability of your outcome occurring.
For example, imagine your boss has sent you an email criticizing an aspect of your performance. You immediately assume you will be fired. Look at each event that would lead to that outcome and realistically evaluate how likely it is to occur.
I will be put on probation. (30 percent chance of occurring)
I will make another mistake. (10 percent chance of occurring)
I will be fired. (50 percent chance of occurring)
Multiply those numbers together: .3 × .1 × .5 = .015
There is a 1.5 percent chance that you’ll get fired. This is not something you need to worry about.
List what you can control. Sometimes you feel stressed about situations and events over which you have no control. Think about what you can control and ask yourself if there are any concrete steps you can take to improve the situation. Remember, even when the situation is completely out of your control, you can choose to control your reaction.
Use relaxation techniques. In Chapter 7, you learned different relaxation techniques such as deep breathing and meditation. Focusing on relaxing your body can help to lower your stress levels.
Pay attention to your negative thought patterns. Use the list in Chapter 2 to help you identify your negative thought patterns and use the ABCD worksheets to come up with more helpful ways of looking at situations.
Create a stress coping phrase. Find a coping phrase you can repeat any time you feel stressed. You might use “I feel calm,” or “I can handle this,” “I am doing the best I can” or “she is doing the best she can” This is a good way to silence the negative self-talk.
Make time for yourself. Schedule time every day for pleasurable activities and relaxation time. This helps create a balance in your life and helps you put difficult situations into perspective.
Do a muscle relaxation exercise. Tighten and relax each muscle in your body for at least 10 seconds. Progressive muscle relaxation exercises are explained in detail in Chapter 7. Learn your body’s stress signals. Paying attention to how your body reacts to stress, such as tight muscles, helps you identify stress early and take steps to change your perspective.
Ask for help. When you are approaching distress it is possible you need help. If you have a hard time with this, review the assertion strategies in Chapter 14.
Schedule a vacation. Shut the cell phone off and just tune out. In today’s busy world with cell phones, tablets, email, and social media, it can be hard to take break. Your mind is constantly going, checking for the next communication. You don’t have to take a trip; just schedule an hour, a day, or a weekend where you shut off your electronic devices and rejuvenate.
Your Turn: Create a Stress Worksheet
Create a worksheet you can complete each time you are feeling overwhelmed. Write one to two sentences for each of the following:
What is the situation?
What is my immediate reaction?
What emotion am I feeling?
Evidence I have to support any distressing thoughts:
Evidence I have that disproves any distressing thoughts:
Balanced statement:
What emotion am I now feeling?
When filling in your worksheet, remember: moods can usually be described in one or two words. Thoughts are more complex and require phrases or sentences.
Exercise Your Stress Away
Regular exercise has been shown to reduce stress levels. It releases muscle tension and gives you a chance to break the cycle of negative and stressful thoughts. Some people find exercise to be a form of mindfulness meditation—they get “in the zone” when exercising and forget about problems for a short time. During exercise your body produces endorphins, sometimes called the feel-good brain chemical. It may even change how your brain releases and uses chemicals, making the effects of exercise on stress last long after you have stopped.
When beginning an exercise program…
- Talk to your doctor if you have any health conditions. Be sure exercise is safe and ask what types of exercises are best.
- Schedule exercise into your daily routine. Other tasks and responsibilities might seem more important, but remember, exercise helps you better manage stress and can improve cognitive performance and memory. You might find that you feel better and more energetic when tackling other tasks.
- Find the right exercise program for you. Choose something you like to do. You are more likely to stick with an exercise program if it fits into your lifestyle. Consider your time and budget.
According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, adults should have a minimum of two and a half hours of moderate aerobic exercise per week. You can spread this out over the week and even spread your daily exercise into several sessions each day. You do want to make sure that each exercise session is at least 10 minutes long.
CBTIDBIT
If you don’t already exercise, start small. Even 10 minutes of exercise each day has been found to lower stress levels. When first starting an exercise program, many people get carried away, overdoing it and then feeling tired and sore. Then they stop. Instead, start slowly and increase your activity level in small increments each week.
The Least You Need to Know
- Stress occurs when you don’t think you have the ability to handle a difficult situation.
- Identify your stress triggers to discover what areas in your life are creating the most problems.
- Solving problems sometimes requires you to look at the situation from a different perspective.
- Regular exercise is an important part of stress reduction.