Stress management techniques
Stress reduction techniques must be applied according the situation and the cause of your stress. In fact, we can distingue two types of stress : long-term stress, caused by lifestyle and environment, and short-term stress, coming from events or sudden anxiety.
Reduce long-term stress often implies a change in your lifestyle and organisation :
- Very busy persons are often subject to stress. To keep control of your life, you need a good time management method : anticipate problems by planning, use goals setting to improve and motivate yourself.
- Try to work and live in the best environment possible (establish a pleasant personal space, reduce noise, air, keep everything clean enough)
- If your job is stressful, try to have some peaceful moments out of work (reading, listening music, walking…)
- Your attitude in life has a great influence on your stress : always try to find the positive side of things (view mistakes as learning experiences, minimize you problems by considering them in different perspective), don't be hostile to change (anticipation, adaptation), try to have good relations with other people (project a positive image, be assertive, pleasant, sincere, try to understand the way they think).
- Avoid bad habits (caffeine, smoking, alcohol, too much sugar…),
prefer a well-balanced diet completed by exercise, aromatherapy and
other technics to have a good health.
Mental techniques to reduce short-term stress, are essentially stress anticipation techniques :
- Learn to anticipate stress, so you can avoid it or at least control it : you have to know yourself, your negative thinkings, your stress factors...
- Try to reduce importance of events in your eyes (speech, meetings…)
- Use imagery process to relax (imagine a peaceful scene or place) or to prepare an important event (practise it in your head).
- Reduce incertainty (about your future, what your boss think about you, unclear instructions) : the best way is to ask for information !
- Try to think rational and positive, even use auto-suggestion
: convince you that you're capable, try to give you more confidence,
motivation ("I CAN do this!")
On the contrary, physical techniques will prepare you to face stress situations, and reduce the stress effects when needed (muscle tension, adrenalin effects).
The best way to physically reduce stress is to regularly take exercise
: it relaxes tense muscles, improves your health and helps you to better
sleep. But you have to adapt your type of exercise, in order to enjoy
it and keep going on! You can also use different relaxation methods to
remove body tension and stress : see our page
about relaxation!