CONTROLLING STRESS AND ANXIETY
The key to stress reduction is to be aware. The stress drains you to feel overloaded with your life and you may become agitated, devastated, and feel useless as a result.
Every day you are exposed to a variety of stressful factors that you eventually don’t recognize it anymore as stress and it starts to feel normal.
Recognizing your triggers is the first step to better controlling your stress and preventing it from worsening and negatively affecting your life.
Today you’re going to control your stress.
Each one of us responds to stressful situations differently, so let’s recognise the triggers and how to control them.
Action step:
What are triggers that make you stressed?
● Having a great deal of pressure?
● Facing significant changes?
● Worrying about the future or the past?
● Thinking you don’t have much or any control over a situation?
● Losing perspective concerning a challenge you’re finding too difficult?
Make a ‘triggers list’ and decide actively to avoid everything that can influence this stress.
● Avoid the people, places and situations that place you in a state of stress. Learn to recognise the triggers that activate it and once you do, attempt to consciously avoid it.
● Avoid actively inflicting stress. This can be having the same argument with the same people. Avoid both or at least don’t bring up the subject that triggers the argument.
● Accept that you can’t change. There are situations in life that are out of your control and in these circumstances so the best way to moderate your stress is by accepting whatever it is you can’t change.
● None of us are perfect, but if you set up perfectionism as your standard, you will create an unnecessary stressful environment for yourself.
● Avoid exposure to stressful news in any form.
Relax Your Stress.
● Make time for relaxing and recharging. Follow your heart and make a list of the things you enjoy doing. Choose one activity a day and enjoy it to the fullest extent.
● Visualization is a powerful method to control your stress:
– Set 5 mins aside each day to go to your “place of paradise”
– Sit comfortably, close your eyes, take a few breaths and let yourself relax.
– Imagine your favorite place; it could be a vacation place, a real place that you visited, or an imaginary one, your favorite place.
– The purpose of this exercise is to get you to a state of total of relaxation.
– enjoy going to your “place of paradise” and come back refreshed and relaxed