Here we will start talking about how to deal with stress and anxiety but by the introduction to what stress and anxiety is, and what are the signs of stress. And what are the simple steps you can take when you feel stressed and provide practical advice for preventing it?
What is stressed?
Stress is nothing but the reaction of the body reaction to mental and emotional pressure. Stress is a feeling of being under irregular emotions. This pressure can be the source of your day-to-day life. Such as overwork load, a transitional period, an argument you have with your peers, or new and existing financial worries.
When we are not being able to handle stress and let it get the better of us then it becomes a problem and now have to find ways of handling it, otherwise, it can take us down and put us in a worse situation. Overburdens us it can damage our relationships; mood can have a very negative impact on our health.
How can we identify the signs of stress and anxiety?
Everyone experiences stress and anxiety. However, it is important to tackle it as soon as it starts affecting your life, health, and wellbeing. Stress affects everyone differently and there are common signs and symptoms you can look out for:
Difficulty in relaxing.
Difficulty in concentrating.
Constantly feeling worried or anxious.
Feelings of being overwhelmed.
Changes in mood or mood swings.
Short-tempered or irritability.
Depression.
Eating Disorder.
Low self-esteem.
Usage of drugs.
Loss of sex drive.
If you experience these symptoms for a long time period and If you feel they are affecting your daily life or are making you feel unwell, you should talk to your family doctor.
What happens to your body when you feel stressed?
The effects of stress and anxiety on your body are immense. Following are the examples of what can be affected by not properly managing stress and anxiety.
Immune System.
Respiratory System
Cardiovascular System.
Musculoskeletal System.
Unhealthy Ways to Deal with Stress
Before we talk about how to deal with stress and anxiety in healthy ways, we first talk about what are the unhealthy ways that we follow to deal with stress and anxiety and what we should not do in this process.
Some unhealthy ways to manage stress include the usage of alcohol with the hope of drowning your sorrows. Taking alcohol is not a surviving mechanism, it only depresses you more once the alcohol wears off. Smoking and taking drugs is another unhealthy way. Avoid reaching for a cigarette every time you feel stressed.
These ways will have unfavorable effects on your health. Emotional eating is also unhealthy because you will start eating junk food.
So, a little stress in your life is not bad. Some people tend to work great under pressure but if you get to a point where you start feeling that everything is going downhill, leave it and take a walk. It might be the difference between falling from the cliff and hanging on.
Ways to Deal with Stress and Anxiety
Stress and anxiety are an increasing problem in today’s world, but it doesn’t need to become a fact of life. Yes, there are many occasions when we have many demands made on our time, many places where you need to be, problems that need to be set on but offer no opportunity for shortcuts. Finding ways to avoid stress and anxiety rather than overthinking about any situation is the key to success.
Positive ways to deal with stress and anxiety:
There are many positive ways to cope with stress and anxiety. We can deal with it positively. It is not always important to deal with anxiety and stress thoughtfully. We can deal with it normally by following these positive ways:
Attitude:
Attitude is a very important factor. When we start feeling resentful, overwhelmed, and cornered it can become frustrating and exhausting.
Dealing with issues as they happen:
If you deal with issues as they happen, you can avoid stress. Whether it is a difficult situation, a disagreement with a friend or co-worker, or an unpleasant meeting, putting it off makes the matter worse. The situation will not heal on its own. And usually, when we start to figure out things positively, we discover that they are not so difficult after all.
Taking responsibility for our choices:
This can turn a difficult situation into a situation with many plus points. This can help us in seeing the situation as less stressful and more as a matter of choice. It can change our perspective and can make us feel better about the situation. This realization can help us in appreciating what we have. We celebrate our happiness rather than feel stressed by the position we are in.
Enjoy finding situations to your problems:
When you enjoy finding situations to your problems and treat it as an interesting opportunity to learn. Stressed people usually worry about making mistakes and making things wrong. Treat your challenge as an opportunity to learn and develop new skills can turn stressful situations into positive events.
Prioritize your important matters:
Do not let anyone say or demand anything related to you. Respecting that something really important to you needs handling instantly can help in avoiding being contacted by stressed demanding to know when they will receive their information. Leaving things till the last minute can be stressful for everyone.
Let your friends help you:
Sharing stressful problems with your friends we can get support from our close ones. They can listen to you in a supportive way or even be able to offer sound help and advice.
Whilst some stress is good and allows us to perform well and react to situations, extended exposure to stress is debilitating and can affect our health.
Coronavirus anxiety: dealing with stress, fear, and worry.
Coronavirus fear can affect our emotional toll, specifically when you already have an anxiety disorder. But you are not weak. These tips can help you in getting out of stressful times.
Understand your anxiety:
It is a terrifying time. We are in the middle of a worldwide pandemic, many places are partially shut down, others are struggling to reopen safely. Some of us are living in areas where the coronavirus infection rates are getting worse. Others are preparing themselves for what may come next. And all of us are watching the news and thinking, “When is this going to end?”
For many people, the unreliability surrounding coronavirus is a difficult thing to handle. We still don’t know how we will be impacted, how long this will stay, and how bad things might get.
Do not check the news:
Yes, stay informed, see what is happening around but do not obsessively check the news and do your part to slow the spread of coronavirus. But there is a lot of misinformation spreading around and sensitive coverage that only feeds into fear. Do not watch untrustworthy news channels. Stick to trustworthy sources like CDC, the WHO. And your local public health authorities.
Do not constantly follow the news and social media feeds. The limit is different for everyone, so pay attention to your feelings and adjust accordingly.
Focus on the things you can control:
We live in a world where we face so many difficulties. There are so many things that are not in our control, including how long the pandemic will stay, how other people behave, and what is going to happen in our surroundings.
That is not an easy thing to accept, and many of us respond after searching from the internet for answers and thinking about all the different scenarios that can happen. But as long as we are focusing on questions with unconceivable answers and circumstances outside of our personal control, this will get us nowhere.
So, it is important to handle this situation with good strategies rather than getting panic and mishandle the situation.
I think we are in a very trying time right now. And there is a lot of anxiety in between our employees as well as community, and here are some answers to the questions like what people can do during this time.
The first thing to know that anxiety is not dangerous, and it is not wrong and this is the time when anxiety makes a lot of sense.
Anxiety is an emotional response to a distinguished future threat, somewhere in the distance, and what we are dealing with right now is really appropriate for that kind of anxiety response. What we know is that sometimes anxiety becomes excessive, and we know it is excessive when it starts causing problems and getting in the way of people’s day-to-day life, and then we do have some ways to try to manage that kind of thing.
It is totally normal to feel anxious and stressed from time to time, but you can do many things and feel better. It is important to remember that there is a difference between feeling stressed now and then.
We can get relief from stress by practicing muscle relaxation techniques. This also called “body scan” and this technique helps you to focus on yourself and release tension that you are holding in your body.
Muscle Relaxation Technique:
Breathing in and tense the muscles in your face, squeezing your eyes shut and clench your jaw and keep your face tensed for at least ten seconds. Slowly relax your muscles over time and count to ten, then take a deep breath. Now, the next move is to come to your next and shoulders and slowly move down your body. Be careful if you have any injury and pain.
Apart from these different techniques, we should also focus on our present. Have you ever noticed that feeling sad and anxious is either because we think about the past or worry about the future? You can feel a lot better if you think about the present or live in the moment.
To live in the present there are some techniques that we can follow:
Take a break.
Talk to someone you trust about how you are feeling.
Keep a thought diary and challenge negative thinking.
Identify your triggers and work on them, and many more.
These are the points that we can follow and we can ignore negativity from our life. We can even work on our negativities and then we can deal with it.
One more thing that is important to follow and we can deal with our anxiety and stressed easily.
Move more, eat well, and sleep:
It is well-known that exercise can lower stress, it can reduce anxiety, and improves mood. And the good news is that there is no need to run a marathon to get benefits. You can also make difference by walking for at least 30 minutes.
Diet and sleep are the most important things to take care of. A healthy diet will make you feel healthier and stronger and able to handle stress and anxiety. And enough sleep can affect your mood and stress.
Good sleep is very important for your physical and mental health too. So, it is very important to take proper sleep.
Although stress and anxiety may arise even at your workplace and personal life and there are many simple ways to reduce the pressure you feel as is mentioned above in this article.
Exercise, music, mindfulness, and physical intimacy can work to relieve anxiety and stress and they will improve your overall work-life balance as well.
