Coping With Stress

Coping With Stress is easier when you identify your stress triggers, manage your time well, and take steps to curb job burnout.

Stress can be a good thing in small doses and it can motivate and energize you and perhaps even delay or prevent certain types of damage to your cells. However, prolonged or excessive stress - the kind that overwhelms your ability to cope - can take a severe psychological and physical toll. High stress levels have been linked to depression, anxiety, cardiovascular disease, musculoskeletal problems, an impaired immune system and cancer.

The way you respond to stress is influenced by your life experiences, your genes and personality. Certain situations and events that can be distressing for most people might not bother you in the least. Or, you may be particularly sensitive to even minor stressors. The first step in dealing with stress is identifying what your particular stress triggers may be. The best way to cope with stress is to try to find a way to change the circumstances that are causing it.

Six Easy Methods of Coping with Stress

1. Take a quick recess. Lock yourself in the broom closet if you must, but take five minutes to walk away from your work, sit quietly, and just breathe deeply. Focus on the physical feeling of your breath going in and out of your lungs.

Don't pay attention to distracting thoughts - just let them enter and leave your mind without stopping them. Coping With Stress this way for even five minutes, twice a day, energizes you, clears your head, and lets you get back to work renewed and ready to go.

2. Ask for help. It might be hard for you to ask for help at first, because you may have been trained to shoulder all burdens yourself, or told that you are the only one who can do a certain thing the right way. Forget all of that. Ask for help.

It is important to remember that when you ask for help, you should not criticize the person helping, or go back and redo all their work when they aren't looking. Let them help you, and give them clear instructions.

3. Exercise for at least 20 minutes every single day. This is not the fat-burning, body building workout kind of exercise, although that is good for your health, too. Walk the dog. Walk your kids. Break out the dusty frisbee or croquet set and have some fun.

Plan ahead to ride your bike or rollerblade every Tuesday. Spend the weekend at the beach or pool swimming with your family. Have some fun and use this exercise as a great way for Coping With Stress.

4. Pay attention. Also known by the fancy word of "mindfulness," paying attention simply means living in the moment and focusing on only what is in front of you without being distracted by thoughts or plans outside the present moment. While it takes dedication, learning to live mindfully is a powerful way of Coping With Stress.

5. Break tasks down into manageable chunks. If you are new to this way of Coping With Stress, write down every small step of a project, concentrating on steps which will take you an hour or less to complete. Then, work on a big project one hour at a time without stopping, and you will find the project done! As you continually use this process, it gets easier, until you automatically work in small increments.

6. Let some things go, its great stress relief. How important is it, really, to spend your entire Saturday morning cleaning the house from top to bottom? If your friends and family are coming over to see how clean your house is, rather than seeing you, get new friends and family. Wear mismatched socks once in a while. Skip organizing your spices alphabetically. Let go of what is not important so you can begin Coping With Stress.

Do one thing at a time, and don't try to change your life overnight. Coping With Stress is a project in itself, so break it down, take a deep breath, and ask others to help you accomplish your goal of a stress-free life.