FREE ESSAY ON STRESS MANAGMEENT

STRESS MANAGMEENT

Stress management is something we as people should take a lot more seriously than we
really do. Whenever I tell someone that they need to learn how to control their stress
they always tell me they need their stress. They are right, they do need their stress, we
all need a certain amount of stress in our lives. No stress is almost just as unhealthy
as too much stress. Just the right amount of stress is called Eustress. Eustress is a
healthy stressor because it helps to keep us motivated. Unhealthy stress is called
Distress. Distress is unhealthy because it can cause all sorts of health problems such as
anxiety attacks or high blood pressure. There are two different kinds of stressors, an
internal stressor and an External stressor. An internal stressor is self-generated
stress. For example, spending more money than you have therefore getting yourself into
debt, or procrastination. An external stressor is something that stresses you out that
you have no control over. For example, sick or dying relatives or your car breaking down.
Since most of the stress we suffer from is internal distress we usually think that it's
something that a pill can fix. Hey isn't that Americas answer to everything, Take a pill.
Did you know that 80% of health care is spent on stress related disorders every year?
(According to the centers for disease control and prevention.) You can easily avoid going
to the doctors due to a stress-related disorder by simply learning to manage or relieve
your stress. This is very important for students because stress will cause a vicious
cycle of unhealthy behavior patterns. Once you become distressed it can cause sleeping
disorders, unhealthy eating patterns, and immune deficiency. These will all cause a
student to become quite unproductive in their studies. Here are some stress management
strategies that one can implement quickly and without turning to a doctor. -  Exercise
regularly Nothing beats aerobic exercise for relieving stress. The stress reaction in the
body consists of tightened muscles, increased heart rate, Increased blood pressure, and
heavier breathing . The result is our bodies go into a state of high energy but there is
usually no place for that energy to go. Exercise is the most logical way to dissipate
this excess energy. In turn relieving stress. -  Humor Humor is the best medicine.
Laughter reduces the heart rate and arterial blood pressure to below their original
levels and causes the chest, abdomen, and shoulder muscles to contract, thus providing
release from stress. Do the quiz in one of my humor potential quiz books located in the
back of this report to test yourself and see if you should be laughing more than you do.
-  Realistic Expectations A common source of stress is unrealistic expectations. People
often become upset about something not because it is innately stressful but because it is
not what they expected. For example, If you get caught in slow moving traffic during rush
hour you may not like it but it won't surprise you or necessarily upset you. However if
it occurs on a Sunday afternoon it is more than likely to stress you out considerably.
When expectations are realistic life seems more predictable and therefore more manageable
because you can plan ahead and prepare yourself. As for expectations of others; expect
less from people who cannot give you what you want. It makes it easier- not great, just
less upsetting. -  Reframing Reframing is a technique used to change the way you look at
the things in order to feel better about them. The key to reframing is to recognize that
there are many ways to interpret the same situation. Its like the question, Is the glass
half empty or half full? The answer depends on how you look at it. If the glass is half
full you are an Optimist. An optimist is someone who usually sees the positive side in a
given situation. If you see the glass as half empty you are a Pessimist. A pessimist is
someone who usually sees the negative side in a given situation. The purpose to reframing
is to be an optimist in any given situation. Therefore as a result you will most likely
feel better about the situation. Remember though that reframing doesn't change the
external reality but simply helps people view things differently and less stressfully.
(Better late than never) -  Leisure Time The word Leisure is actually derived from the
Latin word licere which means permission. You need to give yourself permission to take
some time out to have fun. Leisure time and levels of distress are proportional - the
less leisure, the more stress. Leisure time should be taken in intervals throughout the
day. A ten-minute break every few hours will do wonders for someone who is stressed out.
Take a walk around the office, at school, or just at home. Get your muscles stretched out
and relieve some tension. Leisure is one of the most pleasant stress relievers ever
invented. -  Sleep Sleep is an important way of reducing stress. People who are tired do
not deal with stressful situations very well and this is where that vicious cycle I was
talking about begins. It eventually leads to loss of concentration in your studies at
school and can even affect job performance. When distressed people get more sleep, they
feel better and can deal with day-to-day events more readily. Pay attention to your body
cycle, If you wake up groggy in the morning you may need more sleep. In an attempt to
relieve some of the distress I experience from day to day I employed three of the
strategies that I listed above. I decided to start exercising regularly and found that it
really did help. When I went to the gym after a long stressful day lifting weights and
taking a little jog on the treadmill relieved a lot of my stress and frustrations. I
guess that's why some people say that the gym is where they like to go to get away from
it all. I often found that on my way to work I would get extremely frustrated with all
the other people on the road so I decided to use the realistic expectations exercise on
my way to work every day. I simply told myself that everyone on the road was going to be
slow and do a lot of really stupid things like cut me off or ride their brakes for
absolutely no reason. The simple fact that I expected those things to happen actually
made me laugh when they did happen! I also found myself leaving earlier for work because
I expected everyone to be slow. Which in turn meant that I got to work with plenty of
time to spare. That also relieved a lot of stress because I didn't stress out about being
late for work. My favorite exercise was leisure time. I found that taking ten-minute
breaks every couple of hours to take a walk or sit down and go over my schedule and to-do
list helped me to stay more alert throughout the day. It also helped me to be able to
concentrate better because I wasn't thinking about what I needed to do that day. I also
used my breaks to do little things that needed to be done like make doctors appointments,
drop my bills off in the mailbox, or just to run a quick errand. All in all I am very
satisfied with the exercises that I tried out and I highly recommend you give a few of
them a try for yourself. I learned a lot in my research of stress management but the
biggest thing I learned is that the main principle in stress management is change. You
have to figure out what you are doing that is contributing to your problem and change it.
I found that these changes usually fell into one of four categories: change your
behavior, change your thinking, change your lifestyle choices, and/or change the
situations you are in. By getting to the root of the causes of your stress, you can not
only relieve those problems but also prevent recurrences. I feel that this has been a
very time worthy assignment for me because I can continue to use everything I have
learned throughout my life. I can also help others by teaching them some of these helpful
strategies in managing their stress. 
Bibliography
Stress management is something we as people should take a lot more seriously than we
really do. Whenever I tell someone that they need to learn how to control their stress
they always tell me they need their stress. They are right, they do need their stress, we
all need a certain amount of stress in our lives. No stress is almost just as unhealthy
as too much stress. Just the right amount of stress is called Eustress. Eustress is a
healthy stressor because it helps to keep us motivated. Unhealthy stress is called
Distress. Distress is unhealthy because it can cause all sorts of health problems such as
anxiety attacks or high blood pressure. There are two different kinds of stressors, an
internal stressor and an External stressor. An internal stressor is self-generated
stress. For example, spending more money than you have therefore getting yourself into
debt, or procrastination. An external stressor is something that stresses you out that
you have no control over. For example, sick or dying relatives or your car breaking down.
Since most of the stress we suffer from is internal distress we usually think that it's
something that a pill can fix. Hey isn't that Americas answer to everything, Take a pill.
Did you know that 80% of health care is spent on stress related disorders every year?
(According to the centers for disease control and prevention.) You can easily avoid going
to the doctors due to a stress-related disorder by simply learning to manage or relieve
your stress. This is very important for students because stress will cause a vicious
cycle of unhealthy behavior patterns. Once you become distressed it can cause sleeping
disorders, unhealthy eating patterns, and immune deficiency. These will all cause a
student to become quite unproductive in their studies. Here are some stress management
strategies that one can implement quickly and without turning to a doctor. -  Exercise
regularly Nothing beats aerobic exercise for relieving stress. The stress reaction in the
body consists of tightened muscles, increased heart rate, Increased blood pressure, and
heavier breathing . The result is our bodies go into a state of high energy but there is
usually no place for that energy to go. Exercise is the most logical way to dissipate
this excess energy. In turn relieving stress. -  Humor Humor is the best medicine.
Laughter reduces the heart rate and arterial blood pressure to below their original
levels and causes the chest, abdomen, and shoulder muscles to contract, thus providing
release from stress. Do the quiz in one of my humor potential quiz books located in the
back of this report to test yourself and see if you should be laughing more than you do.
-  Realistic Expectations A common source of stress is unrealistic expectations. People
often become upset about something not because it is innately stressful but because it is
not what they expected. For example, If you get caught in slow moving traffic during rush
hour you may not like it but it won't surprise you or necessarily upset you. However if
it occurs on a Sunday afternoon it is more than likely to stress you out considerably.
When expectations are realistic life seems more predictable and therefore more manageable
because you can plan ahead and prepare yourself. As for expectations of others; expect
less from people who cannot give you what you want. It makes it easier- not great, just
less upsetting. -  Reframing Reframing is a technique used to change the way you look at
the things in order to feel better about them. The key to reframing is to recognize that
there are many ways to interpret the same situation. Its like the question, Is the glass
half empty or half full? The answer depends on how you look at it. If the glass is half
full you are an Optimist. An optimist is someone who usually sees the positive side in a
given situation. If you see the glass as half empty you are a Pessimist. A pessimist is
someone who usually sees the negative side in a given situation. The purpose to reframing
is to be an optimist in any given situation. Therefore as a result you will most likely
feel better about the situation. Remember though that reframing doesn't change the
external reality but simply helps people view things differently and less stressfully.
(Better late than never) -  Leisure Time The word Leisure is actually derived from the
Latin word licere which means permission. You need to give yourself permission to take
some time out to have fun. Leisure time and levels of distress are proportional - the
less leisure, the more stress. Leisure time should be taken in intervals throughout the
day. A ten-minute break every few hours will do wonders for someone who is stressed out.
Take a walk around the office, at school, or just at home. Get your muscles stretched out
and relieve some tension. Leisure is one of the most pleasant stress relievers ever
invented. -  Sleep Sleep is an important way of reducing stress. People who are tired do
not deal with stressful situations very well and this is where that vicious cycle I was
talking about begins. It eventually leads to loss of concentration in your studies at
school and can even affect job performance. When distressed people get more sleep, they
feel better and can deal with day-to-day events more readily. Pay attention to your body
cycle, If you wake up groggy in the morning you may need more sleep. In an attempt to
relieve some of the distress I experience from day to day I employed three of the
strategies that I listed above. I decided to start exercising regularly and found that it
really did help. When I went to the gym after a long stressful day lifting weights and
taking a little jog on the treadmill relieved a lot of my stress and frustrations. I
guess that's why some people say that the gym is where they like to go to get away from
it all. I often found that on my way to work I would get extremely frustrated with all
the other people on the road so I decided to use the realistic expectations exercise on
my way to work every day. I simply told myself that everyone on the road was going to be
slow and do a lot of really stupid things like cut me off or ride their brakes for
absolutely no reason. The simple fact that I expected those things to happen actually
made me laugh when they did happen! I also found myself leaving earlier for work because
I expected everyone to be slow. Which in turn meant that I got to work with plenty of
time to spare. That also relieved a lot of stress because I didn't stress out about being
late for work. My favorite exercise was leisure time. I found that taking ten-minute
breaks every couple of hours to take a walk or sit down and go over my schedule and to-do
list helped me to stay more alert throughout the day. It also helped me to be able to
concentrate better because I wasn't thinking about what I needed to do that day. I also
used my breaks to do little things that needed to be done like make doctors appointments,
drop my bills off in the mailbox, or just to run a quick errand. All in all I am very
satisfied with the exercises that I tried out and I highly recommend you give a few of
them a try for yourself. I learned a lot in my research of stress management but the
biggest thing I learned is that the main principle in stress management is change. You
have to figure out what you are doing that is contributing to your problem and change it.
I found that these changes usually fell into one of four categories: change your
behavior, change your thinking, change your lifestyle choices, and/or change the
situations you are in. By getting to the root of the causes of your stress, you can not
only relieve those problems but also prevent recurrences. I feel that this has been a
very time worthy assignment for me because I can continue to use everything I have
learned throughout my life. I can also help others by teaching them some of these helpful
strategies in managing their stress.