How to Deal With Stress
Life is a bitch, and then you die. Or so we’ve been told. And sometimes, it doesn’t feel far from the truth. However, what is true is that life consistently presents us with challenges and changes. And at times, this can lead to us feeling super stressed.
Planning how to manage and cope in various life situations, and finding out which coping skills work best for you, is part of the key to succeeding with stress rather than experiencing distress.
So let’s explore. Here are some ideas for coping with stress and acute emotional distress.
Understanding stress
This involves recognizing the sources of your stress and how stress affects you personally. It is a good idea to track how you react and write down how a particular situation felt and what happened after. If writing things down isn’t your thing, make a short video about it - just for your own use, record a voice note, or something else that works better for you.
A good starting point is asking yourself these questions:
In what specific situations am I experiencing stress?
How does my body react when I’m stressed? For example, tension headaches, nausea, struggle to sleep, etc.
Plan for stressful periods. Because they will come. Being prepared, and having some idea of how you best can handle it, will make you feel more in control and less anxious and overwhelmed when you find yourself in the midst of it.
Separate stress from stressors
A stressor is a situation, event, or even person causing stress. You have external stressors, and you have internal stressors. Examples of stressors include a deadline, a crying baby, an unhinged parent, a douchy boss, or financial worries.
Stress is your response to a stressor, how you react to the situation or event causing you stress. It’s essential to be able to separate the two because we sadly can’t always deal with the stressor. For example, while we would like to tell our boss to fuck off, it’s seldom advised.
Instead, you often have to accept that you can’t do much about the stressor, at least not in the moment, but you still have the stress to deal with. And the way you do that is to…
Complete the stress cycle
When we separate stress from the stressor, we can complete the stress cycle, aka deal with it, instead of just burying it, avoiding it, or pretending it’s just a normal part of how we feel all the time.
Stress is an evolutionary response that helps us survive when chased by a tiger. Or a man. Your whole body and mind change what they do to keep you alive facing a threat. But just because the cause of the stress disappears doesn’t necessarily mean you stop feeling stressed. This is where completing the stress cycle comes in.
So the tiger is chasing you, and a car crashes into it out of nowhere. The threat is removed, but your body is still on high alert because you didn’t do anything physically to tell your brain that the danger is over.
Here are some ways to complete the stress cycle:
Physical movement. Run, dance, jump, or tense all your muscles.
Breathe. Take a deep breath, and do that for a few minutes.
Laugh. Always a good remedy, and it’s a science-based way of completing the cycle.
Positive interactions. This lets your body know you are safe; we’re social creatures, after all.
Affection. A kiss (minimum six seconds) or a hug (minimum twenty seconds) works a treat - you wouldn’t be doing this if your life was in danger, so this signals to your body and mind that you’re safe.
Creative expression. Express yourself through art, sport, or whatever else brings you joy.
Cry. The daddy of how to feel better when you’re not feeling great. Let it all out.
Develop new behaviors
Suppose you take on too much or have problems saying no; practice being more assertive. This isn’t easy, but you can start small by saying no and setting boundaries to the more manageable things before you go head-to-head with your boomer manager.
Seeing a professional like a therapist can be an excellent way to learn new hacks for dealing with stress if you have the capacity and privilege of time and money to see someone. If not, there are books, podcasts, and other resources you can access for free.
Try to avoid procrastination: while you are not doing it, you’ll only be spending energy worrying about it.
Develop a support network you can rely on
Before you can rely on your support network, you need to develop one. This doesn’t happen overnight, and it’s one of those things we suggest you start working on *before* you need them to cultivate organic, genuine relationships with people you can then rely on for support later when you need it.
Ask for help when needed and accept it when offered. However, you must also be prepared to do the same for others.
Make time to relax and enjoy yourself.
Be honest: how many of us know we should do more of this but don’t make the time?
Set aside time each day to relax and build this into your routine. While acknowledging the privilege it is to be able to take time for yourself, it’s essential to recognize that relaxation and finding enjoyment is not a “nice to have”, it’s a “need to have.” It is just as important as nutritious food and healthy friendships.
Develop hobbies and leisure activities that help you to switch off. Remember that your hobbies and interests don’t have to be productive, and they don’t have to be organized. Watching TV or doing nail art are just as valuable and legitimate hobbies as playing for a football team or having a side hustle.
Want to read more about ‘unproductive’ hobbies under capitalism? Read the article here.
Coping with acute emotional distress
Acute emotional distress is a short-term and intense reaction to a specific event or situation. It can manifest as feelings of anxiety, fear, sadness, anger, or other intense emotions that are difficult to cope with. Here are some ideas on how you can deal with this:
Distract yourself
This is precisely what it sounds like. The aim is to limit the time you spend in contact with the emotional stimuli, the things causing you to feel emotional. The triggers could be anything from another person to the thoughts that you are having.
Distraction involves doing something else to absorb your attention. It is obviously not a long-term solution, but it can absolutely help you right there in the moment.
Imagery
This is when you think of safe and soothing images. This involves imagining images that make you feel good; it may be a favorite place, person, pet, or scenes from nature.
Relaxation techniques
Learn a simple technique like using peripheral vision to induce relaxation. Peripheral vision is effective at switching on the parasympathetic nervous system, which is the part of the nervous system responsible for making us feel calm. It’s basically impossible to feel anxious or distressed while fully relaxed in peripheral vision.
If you’ve dabbled in meditation or breathwork, both are effective techniques you can use to try to relax.
Journaling or brain dumping helps take everything you feel on the inside and move it out of your body. It doesn’t have to be profound. It can be a stream-of-consciousness style on the back of an envelope that you immediately throw away after.
Focus on being in the moment.
As adults, we tend to spend much of our time stuck contemplating what went wrong in the past or what may go wrong in the future.
Try and just focus on the ‘moment.’ Perhaps this involves thinking 'I’m in my house in my favorite chair, I’m warm and comfortable, and I have a good book to read.’
Physical exercise
Physical activity can help to disperse the chemicals released in your body by the stress response.
It also releases many feel-good chemicals - this ties back to completing the stress cycle you read about earlier in this article.
Soothe yourself
Do something to nurture your five senses. There are numerous techniques for self-soothing that are appropriate for almost everyone, also for people who are neurodivergent - find what works for you.
And remember: be kind and gentle to yourself.
