When you’re feeling under pressure, whether at work or in your home life, it’s only natural that your stress levels are going to rise.
A busy lifestyle juggling family commitments, work and your social life can leave little time to take care of you, combine that with a sudden added issue, such as immigration appeals or a project that needs to get done yesterday and you can feel like you’re going to explode.
In this article we explore how to cope with stress and why it might actually be beneficial.
Beneficial, How?
While too much stress can negatively affect your mental and physical health and well being, a little stress can do quite the opposite – as long as it’s identified and dealt with appropriately.
By this we mean, when you feel worried or anxious about something, your health for example, you spend time considering worse case scenarios and assuming the worst. That stress can prompt you to take action. You recognise that the worry is just increasing so you make that appointment with the doctor. The same might be true with a situation at work. The project you’re working that seems to be going wrong spurs you on to talk to the boss, to get support and to find a solution rather than just worrying about it and letting the stress mount up.
How to Deal With Stress
As we said, sometimes feeling stressed is a perfectly natural and normal reaction to a situation where you feel under pressure or anxious about something.
In a lot of cases, the very best thing you can do is to wait it out. To accept that the moment in time that you find yourself in is stressful, that there are pressures on you but more importantly that these pressures will pass. The end of the project will arrive, that relationship will end, you will get answers from the doctor.
While that might help you with the long term, how to deal with stress in the short term? The answer is, to keep it simple. Don’t take any more work or responsibility, be clear and firm in saying no when people ask you for favours or to take anything else.
Go back to the basics and get through each day, each hour even, one at a time. Set yourself specific times to eat and to go and take a walk. It might seem simple but even the act of remembering to eat lunch can get lost when you’re feeling up against it.
Remember that you’re important, that you matter and your health is important too. Talk to friends and family members about how you’re feeling and try and take time away from the situation if you can to give yourself space.
Stress is a natural part of life, especially if you’re someone who carries a lot of responsibilities on their shoulders. Take time to recognise how you feel and stay focussed on the saying that this too shall pass.
