Recognising Stressful Situations

A huge part of dealing with stressful situations and managing to be able to regain your state of calm when things start to go off course is recognising what an impending stressful situation looks like. Of course, this isn’t always going to be possible as some stressful situations in your life may be genuinely out of the blue, but for the most part, you will at least be able to notice when your stress levels begin to rise.

Noticing Your Stress

When you are starting to feel stressed out, you will notice your stress levels rising. You may feel nervous, agitated, sweaty, faint, or you may start to get a headache. Understanding the physical symptoms which you experience when you are stressed is key to noticing when your stress levels are rising, recognizing stressful situations, and getting everything back under control.

One of the worst mistakes that you can make is to try and ignore your stress and hope that it will go away – this will not work. In order to best manage and get control over the stressful thoughts and emotions, it’s absolutely essential to accept them before attempting to deal with them. Once you have noticed a stressful thought, it is easier pin down the cause of your stress in your attempt to deal with it.

How to Manage Stressful Thoughts

However important the ability to notice stressful and anxious thoughts may be, it’s a useless skill if you do not know how to deal with and manage these thoughts once you have dealt with them. There are a multitude of different ways in which you could deal with stressful and worrisome thoughts and feelings, and it is really down to you finding out which coping techniques and methods work well for you.

Some common coping techniques include:

• Breathing techniques;


• Taking a break;


• Listening to music;


• Going outside;


• Taking a walk;


• Switching off your phone and other connected devices;


• Talking to somebody you trust, or


• Eating a healthy snack.

Of course, these are all different techniques, and whilst some may work great for others, they may not be what suits you. You may also find your own personal coping techniques which are not listed here. In the end, dealing with stressful thoughts, feelings and situations is all down to finding what works best for you and applying it when these situations arise.

Finding Your Techniques

When it comes to discovering which relaxation techniques for dealing with stress work well for you, it is absolutely vital to have patience with yourself. If you have never used any anxiety-busting or stress-busting techniques before, it can often take a while for you to discover which ones actually make a difference to you as compared to those which don’t work at all.

The key here is to try not to be disheartened if a certain technique doesn’t work for you – it’s OK, you can just try another one. You also need to be aware of the fact that relaxation and stress-busting techniques not working when you try them could make you feel even more stressed. However, once you have figured out what works well for you and know exactly when and how to use it, you will have made a huge step in controlling your stress levels and encouraging a life which is calm and collected.

Finding Your Stressors

We all have things in our lives that stress us out more than others. Understanding what causes you to feel the most stressed out is absolutely vital to taking control of your life and your stress levels. When you’re stressed about something but not quite sure why, it can make you feel even more stressed – some people end up in situations where they are stressing about their own levels of stress, further intensifying the condition.

Being able to pinpoint your stressors in life not only means that it is easier for you to know what to avoid in order to keep stress at bay, but it can also help you stay in control as you will be able to better prepare ahead for most situations which include your particular stressors. Discovering what stresses you out the most is all about being totally honest with yourself.When you are feeling particularly anxious, you should ask yourself what it is that you are worried about.

Sometimes, you may find that small things which would not usually worry you are stressing you out if this is happening, you need to understand that it is usually the result of a knock-on-effect from other stressors, perhaps over an extended period of time. It can be helpful to enlist the services of a therapist when dealing with your stressors, especially if you suffer from a lot of stress which is related to a traumatic past experience.

Being In Control

The key to a life which is calm and has minimal stress is to be in control of it at all times. Staying in control not only means being on top of thing such as your diet, finances, and lifestyle, but also your own thought processes and energy. Staying in control of your own mind by making sure that your body and mind is getting the right nutrition, adequate exercise, and little harm from bad lifestyle habits is absolutely important when it comes to achieving a life which is calm and relatively stress-free.

Understanding how to harness your thoughts is one of the main goals of managing stress and anxiety. Rather than allowing your thoughts to run away with you, being in control – both physically and mentally – means that you can catch stressful thoughts when they first appear and use a range of techniques to deal with them efficiently.

Written by Yola Bastos Co-Founder of Women Flix and Founder of Beautifly Digital 

https://msha.ke/yolabastos/ 

Practical Stress Busting Secrets

If you take a look around the world, you'll see that stress, tension, and anxiety impact just about every single one of us. Regardless of who admits to it or not.

Let me ask you a few questions...

• Have you been late to work recently? Did your boss come in and give you crap because he's in a bad mood and you're an easy target? Did you get loads of work dumped on you by others, causing you more stress?


• Have you parked your car somewhere only to find some jerk hit your car with a shopping cart, or some inconsiderate person decided to “key” your car for no reason?


• Have you had to deal with rude customers or people in life, and they've made you feel lousy about yourself through the process?


• Have you been bothered by bill collectors or other debts that are nagging at you day in and day out?


• Are you feeling overwhelmed all around in many different aspects of your life?

If you answered yes to any of those, you're not the only one, at all. Unfortunately, whether you approve of it or not, the world is definitely NOT a fair place. And in many cases, it's not a nice one either. Some even think that it's becoming worse as years go on.

So... why is that?

Well, to put it simply, our lives are growing more fast-paced and action-packed, and because of that, many of us aren't able to learn just how to cope with it. After all, nobody really teaches us HOW to deal with stressors or daily life. In a way, we're just left to power through the issues and drama of every day, all on our own. It doesn't matter what religion, race, gender, age, or anything that you are.

Stress and anxiety hit all of us, and we all deal with them in different ways. There's certainly no shortage of books on the manner and topics of dealing with stress and anxiety. Many even look to the teachings of the Dalai Lama for guidance. In one of his books, he addresses the question of “How do we solve the great atrocities and wars that we face in today's society?” to which he simply responds with “I do not know” and leaves it at that.

One of the points he proceeds to discuss is that there's no simple and straightforward answer to this kind of question. This is because most of the major wars were due to one consequence that unfolded into another, and so on. Until it compounded into a situation where nobody is truly in control and there's no answer to the issues that have arisen. Plus, at that point, nobody really knows why the whole thing started in the first place.

But, how can this happen? How does it get to this boiling point? Well, let's imagine you're driving down the
road minding your own business when suddenly another driver cuts in front of you and this results in you having to slam on the brakes suddenly. Talk about a mood killer! Your initial reaction might be to simply curse the other driver under your breath and continue driving.

But what if you were already having a lousy day? Maybe you lost your job, or you had a disagreement with your significant other. Maybe the bills are piling up and you're losing your house. Perhaps this is the last straw for you on that day. In this case, you might speed up to the driver, and maybe you'll give him the finger, and shout out the window at him, which feeds the altercation. This might end in a car accident or a physical engagement such as a fight.

This could escalate into somebody becoming severely injured, or even dead. Then later one of the family members wants reparations and ends up taking your family or you to court. I know this seems a bit over the top, but it's not far-fetched to believe that things like this happen just about every single day in the world. The reality of it is that you and many others can control the situation's outcome by simply taking control of your emotions and how you feel.

By taking steps to remove the stress in your life or at the very least, controlling it, you'll find yourself to be in a situation where you can better control your reactions to the different scenarios that life throws your way. That's why in this brief but hopefully informative course, I'm going to detail just ten major things that I've found to help reduce the stress in my life.

You can use these however you want, apply them in different ways, and adapt them to suit your life the best way they can. If you want to reduce the stress in your life, then strap yourself in and get ready.

Written by Yola Bastos Co-Founder of Women Flix 

https://msha.ke/yolabastos/

Women Flix, Supporting Women all the way to Success! 

Women Flix Limited, a company limited by guarantee, was incorporated in England and Wales (company no. 13047578 ).