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Posts Tagged ‘Stress management’

stress management

Trying to distract yourself from your problems and finding ways to manage stress levels has become an important part of our daily lives. We’re all told how to deal with stress and what things we should do to manage our time and busy schedules, but what most stress management guides don’t come straight out and say is that we’re stressed because we have too many stress-causing factors in our lives.

In the modern world, the quest for money and possessions has taken precedent over being happy. Our consumer culture and its endless ad campaigns have brainwashed us into believing that having money and nice things is happiness. This is obviously a ploy to push a population into buying status symbols to keep up with the Joneses, an imaginary super-cool family that exists in our collective consciousness. This mindset has caused people to place image on a pedestal and replace substance with style. This ultra-consumer mindset we have taken on is causing many people to work high-stress jobs in hopes of making tons of money and buying tons of stuff that will make them seem cool. However, many of the highest wage earners are not happy and complain constantly about being broke despite have huge salaries and tons of ‘cool stuff.’

In order to truly manage stress, people need to look inside themselves and figure out what would make them happy, and what is causing stress in their life. If a person would be happy living in the country and driving an old pickup truck, why should they continue to work a high-stress job they don’t enjoy just to pay for a forty thousand dollar SUV? How much can you enjoy your money if you are always stressed out and are barely around the people you would like to share it with? How many pointless arguments must you get in with your significant other before enough is enough? If you unsatisfied with some aspect of your life, you may want to develop a plan to improve or change the situation. If you hate your job, there are thousands of other jobs available; you have to be qualified for at least one of them.

Applying stress management techniques is important to feeling more balanced and able to cope with the things that happen to us, but more individuals should focus on finding ways to eliminate issues or problems in their life that cause stress in the first place. The best way to do this is through recognizing those issues and deciding which ones are worthwhile living with and which ones are just drains on your energy and ability to enjoy life.

The current global economic downturn has resulted in an alarming increase in stress-related problems in the workplace. Employers are forced to make tougher decisions than they normally do while workers are faced with job uncertainy. With these new factors in mind, it’s easy to see how managing stress in the workplace becomes an essential part of improving productivity. Stress management training for employers and their employees alike will teach them roles in dealing with stress. It is a two-fold process: employer is taught how to handle the workforce while employee is trained to handle stress on a personal level – both resulting in the improvement of any business operation.

Managing Stress in the Workplace

The saying: “The best defense is a good offense,” is applicable to stress management training. Employers who not only want increased productivity from their workers but the prevention of future problems from happening in the future ought to actively find ways in managing stress in the workplace. This will result in increase productivity among workers leading to the entire business running at a more efficient system. So what does stress management training truly aim to accomplish? A wide-ranging stress management program begins its work at the core by training individuals in an organization, and then those employees will be able to work with their coworkers in the program to provide help where needed and provide support.

In addition, stress management training continues to coach all employees to deal with their own stress at the same time; employers will learn how to effectively resolve situations in the workplace.The results will show that programs like these have a tendency to succeed. Anyone can see how effective the continual use of a program for managing stress in the workplace can be. With a potential for ten to a mid-level twenty percent average increase in efficiency, any employer would scramble to enforce stress management training for their business.

The benefits are obvious, and the program is simple, easy, and cost-effective for any business. With flexible programs available, stress management training is perfect for any kind of business, and it’s suggested to be done once every few years (or if the budget allows, once a year) to be successful in managing stress in the workplace. With crucial decisions that await a lot of businesses as well as most workers today, stress has obviously become a staple food of our economy. With appropriate stress management, stress can be dealt with promptly and effectively.

Stress is with us always – there’s just no getting away from it. But all stress is not the same. Some types of stress actually help us to cope.

Fight-or-flight response, also known as acute stress, is an anxiety disorder. When we experience either a real or perceived threat to us, it kicks in. The perceived threat can be a physical one, such as an impending plane crash while trapped in a passenger seat. Or an African lion, 100 yards away,  bearing down on us in the middle of the jungle. Or the threat can be emotional as a mother might feel as she’s waiting for the hospital to call regarding the fate of her husband or child that is lying on a hospital operating table.

The hypothesis of acute stress response is not new. It’s been around since at least the 1920′s. When acute stress response occurs, the body experiences many changes. The blood vessels constrict which causes blood to drain away from the skin and leading to the expression “he was white as a ghost” as a way of describing somebody who has just experienced a frightening event. The drained blood, and oxygen, flows into the muscles, lungs, and large muscles – strengthening them all. The heart rate increases enabling blood to be pumped to the various body organs faster. And the pupils of the eye becomes dilated allowing for sharper vision.

Besides the symptoms referred to above, the adrenal glands release the “stress hormone” cortisol which flows through the body. Cortisol has an instantaneous and striking effect on the body. Reflexes are enhanced, immunity is augmented, sensitivity to pain is diminished, and the body is suddenly more energetic and ready to run or fight.

Prime candidates for acute stress are soldiers returning from war. Many of the troops coming home from Iraq have experienced high levels of acute stress resulting in post tramatic stress disorders. Many people in the medical field, such as doctors and nurses, experience this as well.

Acute stress disorder is something a bit more serious. It is something that develops after the initial traumatic event that may have caused acute stress in the person. It’s triggered by the person merely remembering the event. Only a licensed therapist or psychologist can diagnose acute stress disorder, but some symptoms are:

1) Trouble focusing – the person may have difficulty concentrating or maintaining a train of thought and may appear as though he’s in a stupor or fog.

2) Disengagement and a diminishing of emotional responsiveness – the person may seem to be aloof emotionally, almost as if they’ve separated themselves from their feelings in order to avoid further pain.

3) Ongoing Short term amnesia – the person may go into a room to get something but suddenly can’t remember what it was he wanted. Or, he may start to ask you an important question, but can’t remember what he wanted to ask.

In order for symptoms to be classified as acute stress disorder, they must take place within 1 month subsequent to the initial traumatic event. This disorder is very closely related to post traumatic stress disorder or PTSD. PTSD is basically a longer lasting form of acute stress disorder.

Generally stress is considered bad for us. And usually it is. But acute stress or short term stress is a centuries old survival mechanism that helps us to cope with wrenching events in our lives.

There are many ways you can reduce stress.  There are just as many reasons why you would need or want to reduce stress.  Life is getting busier and busier each day, week, month, and year.It seems to pass by so fast.  If you have kids, you will look at them sometimes and cannot believe they are going to be 12 when it seemed like it was just yesterday that they did not want to be potty trained.  And you add more stress when you think about how much work you have and how little you get to play with those 12 year olds.  Get some tips to help you reduce stress in your life and enjoy it a little bit more.

Ways To Reduce Stress

Sex is what got you those soon to be 12 year olds in the first place which caused you so much stress, it can also help you relieve some stress if you have a partner who is not too tired and doesn't have a headache.  Having sex more often releases positive chemicals in your body which act as natural stress relievers.  Have sex 2-3 times a week and get closer to your partner.  If your sex life is getting dull and boring, spice it up.  There are tons of ways you can do this - get some pills to help with performance issues if there are any, go on a much needed vacation and do it like you were bunnies back when you were younger, or just start watching some more adult entertainment to help get you in the mood.  Be sure to protect yourself as you don’t want to find another unexpected surprise to cause you another 18+ years of stress.

Another way to reduce stress is through aromatherapy.  You can buy some lavendar essential oil cheap on eBay and sprinkle it on a napkin and put it in your pillow case to help you sleep.  You can also put some in a diffuser to spread the aroma throughout the area you work in to calm your mood throughout the day.  Aromatherapy has plenty of other benefits in addition to stress relief. 

The last tip for today is to let go and laugh.  Life sucks sometimes, people suck sometimes, work sucks sometimes, but that is how it is.Accept the situations life throws at you, let those tense feelings go and laugh.Force yourself to laugh more.  It could be worse, you could be dead.  If you think your life is hard, think about people who don’t have enough to eat and are dying of starvation.  Who has more stress, you or them?  Learn to let go of your troubles and laugh more. Follow these simple tips and you can be on your way to reducing the stress in your life and getting to know your partner better and have a better appreciation of the things you do have.

Anxiety disorders are unfortunately becoming more common and there are several different side effects. One of these is the panic attack. Anxiety panic attacks are debilitating to many folk, causing them to feel powerless and much overtaken with emotion. If you have ever experienced these feelings, then you realize how important they are to control. Read on if you want to learn more about panic attack symptoms and causes and how to cope with the mental effects more efficiently.

If you are a sufferer of anxiety panic attacks, it is essential that you realize exactly what they are and how they occur. An attack starts out when stress and anxiety levels increase to a point where they are uncontrollable by the individual who is going through the episode. The individual will quickly fall into a state of panic and fearfulness of surroundings, feeling that they are dying or having a heart attack and even going crazy. In effect, the brain is saying to the body that it is experiencing a discomfort that is in all probability not real. Dependent on the severity of the attack, they can last anywhere up to approximately fifteen minutes. The experience often causes a vicious cycle where the individual fears another attack, which just causes the symptoms to worsen.

Going through an anxiety panic attack can send anybody into delirium, and folks with anxiety disorders know only too well how incapacitating they are. Rather than living your life in fear you can learn how to control them. Anxiety panic attacks ordinarily come on out of the blue to most folks, but what if there was some manner you could know it was coming. There are particular patterns or triggers present when a person is about to have an attack. If you know these, then you could learn to prevent them. If you find yourself having an attack, then the best thing to do is to make yourself stress free and start speaking out loud in a positive fashion.

You can take the controlling techniques to a higher level in order to eliminate your anxiety panic attacks. You can start out by teaching yourself relaxation exercises. You will want to select something that is appropriate for you. Some of the more popular choices are listening to relaxing music, reading and practicing yoga. Once you understand what an anxiety panic attack is and what to do to bring them under control, your life should be on the road to recovery. Anxiety disorders can make life complex but with a clear mind and a lot of determination you should be able to handle whatever they throw your way.

For any beginner the first yoga class is baffling by the large number of poses and the novelty of the practice as such. Surely, things are taken progressively, with the instructor starting by naming the yoga poses and explaining them one by one while also giving a personal example. The benefits that come with the full practice are manifold, from body mobility and health improvement to superior stress management and the ability to control and understand the inner workings of the self. Yoga exercise gives great results when practiced on a constant basis, particularly if it brings body and mind harmony.

Another name for the yoga poses is asanas, and each of them has a physical and mental dimension to it. Books, Internet sites, e-guides and plenty of other informative materials include listings with various yoga poses together with pictures and instructions about the execution. Asanas are dedicated to almost all the parts of the body, and usually the instructor will indicate where the physical stress lies. What needs to be mentioned here is that depending on the yoga variant practiced, the performance of the asanas varies, particularly since some postures are specific to one school or another.

Besides the physical capacity to perform yoga poses, one also needs to grow the balance and the concentration ability, since the physical is just one side of the practice that gets complete by the spiritual dimension only. Tension release, breathing techniques as well as the ability to ignore the difficulty of a posture improve the level of success allowing one to carry on with the asana for the required exercise completion. The idea is not only to reach the yoga poses but to also be able to hold them for a determined period of time.

The practice of yoga poses without professional guidance and help could turn into a threat to the practitioner’s physical and spiritual health with the risk of getting injuries. Therefore, starting yoga practice with the instructions from books or Internet sites is dangerous and should therefore be avoided. Beginners have to be under the direct supervision of a trainer, particularly since you are still an apprentice even after you have evolved a bit on the yoga path. The complexity of the yoga poses will increase with every advance you make on the way, but progress is usually slow as one pushes the limits of body and mind.