Stress Management Tips and Techniques

Introduction To Stress Management Tips

Stress is a part of day to day living and adjusting to our environment. Family, friends, employment and life experiences can all affect our level of stress. Mild forms of stress can act as a motivator that propels you to complete tasks that excite you. However, if your stress level becomes too high, physical, mental / emotional problems can result. This is when stress management tips come in handy to help you to cope more effectively.

What causes Stress?

How we react to external events is what causes stress. In themselves, events are not stressful. We all differ in how we respond to the events taking place around us and it is our internal reactions, thoughts and choices that either create or alleviate stress. What one person finds stressful another does not. For example, one person may fear speaking up for themselves and worry that this may cause conflicts to arise. Another person though, may view speaking up as a way to achieve their desires and is motivated to do so.

Both positive and negative life experiences can be stressful. Major changes though contribute to higher levels of stress and require stress management tips and techniques to help you to cope at these times.

Major changes that influence our level of stress include:

• Changing homes
• Divorce
• Death of a loved one
• Losing your job
• Changing jobs
• Conflict in the workplace or home
• Increased workload
• Getting married
• Starting a family
• Illness
• Financial issues / problems
• Noise / distractions
• Feeling let down

A combination of two or more of these stressors is more likely to raise your level of stress.

How do you know if you are stressed?

There are a number of symptoms that indicate that you may be experiencing stress. You may notice that you:

• have mixed feelings
• feel anxious
• experience mood swings
• feel irritable
• frustrated
• or are easily annoyed

You may notice a change in your behaviour, for example:

• crying when you think about what is causing you stress
• acting impulsively
• grinding your teeth
• increasing your level of smoking, drugs or alcohol
• Losing interest in your environment or social interactions
• You may notice that it is difficult to concentrate or you suffer a loss of productivity
• You may be preoccupied or worried with thoughts / tasks to complete
• You may feel inadequate
• Loss of appetite or increased binge eating

Stress can also affect the body, you may notice any one of the following symptoms:

• Increased perspiration
• increased heart beat
• feeling nervous
• sleep problems
• digestive problems
• tense muscles
• illness prone

It is important to be aware of the indicators of stress. In the last year, both of my beautiful parents died and then my workload increased dramatically due to changes in my work role. It wasn't until a colleague pointed out that I was behaving differently (snappy, irritable, memory fading) that I stopped and fully realised that I had experienced three major stressors in a period of twelve months, which were contributing to how I was feeling.

Whilst I "should" have been aware that I was suffering the effects of stress, I had not acknowledged it because I was trying to cope with grief and the increased workload. I am truly grateful that my colleague brought it to my attention. This is when I began to empower myself again, by using many of the techniques listed below.

The benefit of using these techniques is to increase your level of happiness and well-being. Remember you are never alone if you are suffering from stress and there is always someone who can assist you. But the first step you must take is to recognise that you are experiencing stress and then decide what you wish to do about it.

Stress Management Tips and Techniques

Here, we will cover some of the stress management tips and techniques that you can use to reduce your stress. Do not hesitate though to seek the services of a professional counselor or your doctor if symptoms persist. Ongoing stress can affect your health and well being. Learn to recognise the signs and choose to help yourselves to lessen stress.

To reduce your level of stress you can:

• Exercise - Practice some form of exercise daily to promote optimal health and well being. This is a wonderful way of reducing the impact of stress on your physical and mental well being.
• Change the way you think. Reinforce positive self-statements. People grow from strength rather than weakness.
• Practice a relaxation method that incorporate the Mind Traffic Exercise. The Mind Traffic Exercise is where you have a pen and paper beside you as you relax where you can dump all of your thoughts onto the paper.
• Learn to recognize and accept your limits. Do not judge yourself or place expectations on how you think you 'should' cope. Each one of us is unique in how we handle stress.
• Find ways to have fun. Start a new hobby or rekindle an old one.
• Eat a balanced diet daily.
• Talk with friends, family, a counselor, teacher or someone you can trust about your worries/problems.
• Develop time management skills. When you have many tasks to complete, setting priorities will help you to manage more effectively. Remember to set realistic goals.
• Practice relaxation techniques on a daily basis. 

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Stress Management Shouldn't Create More Stress. 10 Ways To Reduce Unreasonable Stress At Your Workplace.

We all know that stress levels in the workplace are reaching unreasonable levels. And most sensible human beings will agree that we have to take action to fix this problem.

However, some government agencies and, I must say, some consultants are all for creating yet another paper and theoretical exercise that will have little benefit to the employees or the business. Managers don't need lectures on how too much stress diminishes people's creativity and productivity, increases absenteeism, extended sick leave and can result in tribunal payouts of tens or hundreds of thousands of pounds. Managers want assistance not lectures.

Do whatever you can to escape the form filling that supposed ensure you meet certain "stress management standards". Avoid like the plague what are now being called "stress risk assessments". These will require the resources of a full time employee and lead to even more stress!

Rather concentrate on straightforward and easily applied measures to reduce stress and at the same time show employees and regulatory authorities and legal courts that your organisation does stake stress seriously.

Here are just ten you could start with.

1. Ensure your Employee Handbook and Induction has plenty of wording in it that shows that management knows about the adverse effects of too much stress. Explain what people must do if they feel under stress. Go over the top to show that management wants and welcomes discussion reporting of excess stress. Who ever is giving the induction must state this orally too.

2. Have a clear, written and concise procedure that people can follow if they find stress getting out of hand. What can people do if they feel under stress? Who should they speak to? What do they do if it's their boss who is the cause of stress? What help can the business offer? Make sure employees know they also have a responsibility to look after their physical and mental health.

3. Give people clear job descriptions so they know what is required of them and revisit the description every six months to update them. You can do this in the annual or (better) twice-yearly appraisal Involve people in writing and re-negotiating job descriptions. Specifically ask about what can be done to reduce stress and record the answer.

4. Keep referring to stress in newsletters, speeches and meetings. Put stress reduction on the agenda of management meetings and have a set section in the newsletter. Senior managers should include a mention of stress in at least one speech per year.

5. Offer people-management/leadership workshops to managers and supervisors. Many of them don't know how to get the best from their people. Unnecessary tension is caused by ignorance of how to speak to and treat people effectively in the modern workplace. Often supervisors don't know they're a source of stress - nobody tells them. Keep it simple: one day is enough and avoid "models and theories of leadership"!

6. Offer stress management workshops and literature. Even if there are no current stress problems offer the workshops anyway. Even insist people go. Keep it simple - a half-day is enough and avoid all theory! Give people a book or CD on stress management as part of the induction.

7. Offer a time management workshop. It's amazing how people can take better control when they know it's okay to say "no", to scrap a meeting, to scrap a report, to cut short appointments and to find better, quicker less burdensome ways of doing things. Most people get bogged down because they don't think in terms of time management and even when they do, some are too afraid to approach the boss. They will think you'll think, they're lazy or uncooperative.

8. Monitor stress levels.

No, you don't need an 80-question stress climate survey or bureaucratic stress management standards. Just twice a year issue a half-page with one question: "For you personally give three things the organisation could do to reduce unreasonable stress". Make this an anonymous exercise and publish the results with actions taken.

9. Take time to listen and act. If a stress issue is raised, be seen to be taking it seriously. Make time to listen, document the issues and then take action. Whilst keeping confidences publicise what action has been taken.

10. Unfortunately, sooner or later you'll have to prove to some authority that you are doing things to combat unreasonable stress. Therefore keep a running and up-to-date record - just a simple book - of all the things your organisation is doing to reduce stress in the workplace. Record everything. For example, if you run a Recruitment Interviewing Course, record how you amended the content to include an hour or so on testing to see if candidates can cope with the stress of a particular job.

Debate about what stress is, the relative responsibilities of employers and employees and what systems to use will go on and on. You might as well just get on and do what commonsense and good leadership dictates.

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