Effective Stress Management

“Stress is nothing more than a socially acceptable form of mental illness”, said Richard Carlson, the famous American author and motivational speaker. You may not want to agree with him, but the fact remains true. Anyone who finds himself stressing about the silliest things in life can be safely considered a person with issues. However, these issues are almost always the ones that can be resolved, sometimes with minimum effort. It’s just that people are not willing make that move or take that step. Like temptation, stress by itself is not a sin, but when a person gives into the empty pressure of stress, that is when he finds himself trapped in its viciousness. This one’s all about getting the better of stress. Remember, stress is not the real enemy here; it’s your perceptions that make everything in your life seem stressful. Destroy baseless perceptions to make it on top as the victor as opposed to failing miserably to the challenges that stress pose.

How To Manage Stress Effectively 

• To manage stress is not the most difficult thing to do. To achieve an objective like this it is important to know the birth places of stress, in other words, the causes of stress. Most people are not too familiar about what are those one or two areas of their lives that are responsible for all the stress. Sometimes, people can get stressed about the silliest things in life. However, in reality, it is not that silliest thing they are stressing about, it usually is a bigger thing that’s causing all the stress. This bigger thing in turn causes people to also stress about the smallest deviations from the normal. Some sources of stress are possible to locate and eradicate, some however are beyond a person’s control, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that damage control is a far-fetched dream.
• To manage or even get rid of stress permanently, first sit down at a peaceful place; your favorite place at your house will do just fine. With a soothing cup of coffee or tea, a pen and a paper, get down to work. First, try making a list of all the areas of your life you believe cause stress. These can range from the silliest of areas to the most prominent ones. The point is to simply recognize and note down all the areas of your life that you believe are extremely stressful. While recognizing areas of your stress, don’t just list your job as one, be more specific. What is that one part of your job that causes stress, note that down!
• Then on a scale of ten, start rating the areas of stress. Ten being the areas or things that result in the most stress, and one being the areas or things that result in the least amount of stress. It may not be easy to rate the causes for your stress, but then to get the better of your stress, what has to done, simply has to be done!
• For each and every area of stress start chalking out a plan of action and a realistic one at that. You don’t want to be highly ambitious here. Being headstrong and knowing your own capability is more like it. The ultimate goal here is to come up with an optimal solution to those areas that are resulting in stress.
• Once you’re done with this, slowly start putting your plans into action. This is where the real test lies. Most people fail here, but the ones who make it through the storm, are the ones who enjoy the most success at the end of it all.
• For some areas of your stress, it may seem impossible to put together a plan of action, but you will still have to do something about it. With determination and in time, you are sure to bid stress a permanent goodbye.