Stress takes a toll. Let’s manage it!

Stress is one of those emotions that everyone feels from time to time, making stress management key to a psychologically healthy life. 

It can be universal in that sense, but some people experience stress at a degree that others may never experience during their lifetimes. 

For instance, high levels of stress are naturally felt by California residents in the areas where fires have caused massive damage. Folks who have serious medical experiences or unexpected losses can also experience intense, long-lasting stress. 

Like many common emotions, things can get out of hand for an individual who does not manage the emotion well.

What Is Stress? 

Stress is most often a reaction to change or challenges. 

This reaction is natural, as it helps keep your focus so that you can adapt to the change or challenge. Though the word “stress” has negative connotations for many people, the fact is that stress can actually be helpful for this reason. 

Think of it this way: seeing a large growing fire in your area will induce stress, which can helpfully trigger our flight-or-fight response that can kick us into high gear and act accordingly. Or maybe that funny-looking mole that keeps changing shape can cause enough stress to get us to finally make that appointment to get it checked.

However, stress can lose its benefits if it does not cease. Persistent stress can take a serious mental and physical toll on an individual. If the level of stress is so high that it negatively affects a person’s ability to adapt to a change or meet a challenge, it can lead to a mental health collapse.

Types of Stress

Psychiatrists have three categories for diagnosing stress-related mental health issues. 

Acute Stress

Acute stress tends to be short-form and typically has to do with an understandably stressful event, like a medical emergency. 

It could lead to physical symptoms like headaches, or mental symptoms like irritability. 

Episodic Acute Stress

This can occur when people continually experience stress-inducing events on a regular basis. 

The problem here is that it can lead to consistent tension within a person. Without relief, that can lead to many of the health problems that are associated with stress. 

Chronic Stress

If episodic acute stress is consistent stress, chronic stress is more like constant stress. 

Threats of large and unpredictable environmental disasters that could cause—or have caused—damage to your property or person or loved ones can certainly be a cause of chronic stress. Other sources of chronic stress include health, finances, work, and relationships. 

There can be severe physical and mental health consequences to chronic stress. Even heart attacks can occur during periods of chronic stress. 

It can affect your mindset as well, making it difficult to focus or causing anxiety. 

What makes chronic stress so problematic, then, is that it can take away whatever benefits that stress could offer us (temporary sharpening of focus and motivation) and instead just leave us with all the negatives. 

That is why it is quite important to understand stress – and to develop stress-management techniques that can protect you when it keeps coming your way.

The Dwelling Issue

Something that can make stress so troublesome is that our minds tend to dwell on stress, extending the experience so that it lingers with us. 

There may be some benefits here, in that keeping the subject of stress in one’s mind could motivate one to do what’s necessary to handle the problem. 

For instance, if you go to bed without doing any work that day for a project that is due tomorrow, then feeling stress as you try to go to sleep could be a way of your mind telling you that you should really buckle down and do the work.

Stressors 

Worth noting is that not all stressors are the same. Some, indeed, may be imaginary and irrational. 

But the problem there is that those stressors can still cause you the same amount of stress as something tangible and immediate, like a fire in your city or layoffs at your place of employment. 

Either way, it can be useful to know of some stress-management techniques that can help you manage stress.

Stress-Management Techniques

How you cope with stress can make all the difference. 

As mentioned, stress is indeed a natural response of the body to difficult circumstances. Learning to manage the stress can help an individual better work through the emotional challenges the stressor presents and prevent lasting harm. 

The following are some stress-management techniques:

• Journaling: Writing about your stressors can help you think through how the stressors are affecting you, offload some of your worries, and get clarity about what you need to do to move on.
• Volunteering and Community Work: Helping others can foster a sense of community and solidarity in a stressful time, be a feel-good distraction, and help to reframe your perspective. Not feeling alone in your stress can be a good inroad to staying emotionally healthy. 
• Sleep: It can be hard to get a good night’s rest when stress is beating down your bedroom door, but a good night’s rest can help you think more clearly and have the emotional stability to confront and manage stress. 
• Seek Counseling: Mental health professionals are extraordinarily helpful when you need to process stress, develop coping techniques, and identify strategies to prevent stress from becoming chronic.

Getting Help for Stress

If you feel you may need professional help in dealing with stress, reach out to bonmente for assistance. The psychological impact of stress can linger long after the stressor goes away, making recovery difficult. Bonmente’s team of experts are trained to help you manage, process, and move on from stress so that you can enjoy life’s carefree moments when they happen.