Momuntary stress isn’t a bad thing. It’s a part of life.
Sustained stress over long periods of time is not good for you though.
Managing stress requires you to understand what’s causing it. Let’s lay it out:
What’s driving the stress impulse?
- Common stressors:
- Deadlines
- People conflicts
- Financial pressure
- Health issues; or
- Is it just your personality? Perfectionism and all that.
- What does stress look like with you - what are the stress signals?
- Racing thoughts
- Tension
- Fatigue
- Tiredness
- Irritability
- Wanting to sleep.
- Wanting to party uncontrollably.
- Doing destructive things.
How to be more resilant to stress
It doesn’t matter how ‘tough’ you are, stress will get you in the end.
Sustained high levels of cortisol is not good for you.
Here are some techniques to mitigate the effects.
- Remove the sources of stress:
- Sounds stupid, but if something your doing is creating huge amounts of stress you’re not very well centred.
- Make some adjustments, and just cut off what’s stressing you.
- People go on for years being miserable.
- For what I have no idea.
- Fix the source of the problem.
- Relax a bit from time to time:
- Take a drive.
- Go for a walk.
- Go to the beach.
- Breath.
- Meditate.
- Go smash weights at the gym.
- Listen to music. Whatever it is. Do that.
- Physical health:
- Exercise lowers cortisol.
- Go work out.
- Go for a walk.
- Sleep for a long time; and
- Eat a nice meal.
- Nutrition boosts your stress handling ability.
- A good rule of thumb is, if you can’t shoot it, or cut it off a tree - nutritionally, it’s probably trash.
- Go and have some fun:
- Go 4WDing, camping, fishing.
- Go hang out with mates, family, or other people you like.
- Let your hair down a bit.
Techniques to make work less stressful
Same job, different stress levels.
Things to consider:
- Break big tasks into smaller, managable chunks and walk through them 1 by 1.
- Set boundaries on what you will take on and what you wont. This one is particularly important. You want to say no to certain things to protect your energy.
- Ask for help, reach out to others to help you with tasks in the event you’re not making it through; and
- As funny as it sounds. Just give up occassionally.
- If you’re not making progress with something, sit back and re-assess. You might be doing it wrong.
- It is genuinely possible to NEVER get stressed if you master this - but it’s really hard.
Final word
Short periods of stress is OK
Long bouts will make you die young
Figure it out. No one is going to look back and laud your stress.
Get a grip, and manage it.