Stress… be aware and manage it
"Stress is a basically a response to a certain pressure or circumstance, which are termed stressors,"
“This is stressing me!”; “I’m so stressed.” “I don’t think I can take any more of this.”
Like many of us, you’ve likely felt like this before. You would have likely been experiencing stress to some degree, or are currently feeling stressed.
Have you ever wondered what stress really is and how to handle it? Well let’s unpack this a little. Stress is a basically a response to a certain pressure or circumstance, which are termed stressors.
These stressors are usually external, meaning they are caused by something outside of us. Now, when you’re confronted by a situation (like a divorce, unemployment, being in debt, lack of parental love, death of someone and work problems) your brain needs to make sense of that situation and decide if you can deal with it.
It is similar to demand supply – when you sell a product you need to have enough of it for your customers. When you don’t have enough of the product, you may start to panic and try to get more of it.
You may even consider getting help from other businesses that sell the same product. Your business may even start to suffer as a result of this shortage.
When your body decides that it cannot provide you with the resources you need to deal with this circumstance or stressor that you are facing, it will start to panic and try pool energy from your body to try and carry on with life.
When the situation is getting too much for you to handle, you might experience some symptoms.
These symptoms include:
headaches, muscle stiffness, loss of appetite, low libido, sleep disturbances, forgetfulness, lack of concentration, aggression, substance abuse, anxiety, depression, low self-confidence, withdrawal and depression.
These are the mental, emotional and physical signs that you’re experiencing stress and might be finding it difficult to deal with the situation.
Stress is not always bad as there is good stress. Good stress can help you in being prepared for performing tasks. If you are writing an exam or are going for a job interview, it is normal to be worried about your performance if you really want to do well.
Thus, you will study, you will practice, you will ask for help or do anything else that will help you be prepared. That is good stress because it is not making life unpleasant for you; it merely motivates you to do your best.
However when it manifests in the physical, emotional, behavioural or social manner described in the previous paragraph, then it is bad stress. It will cause disruptions in your day to day well-being and it becomes a call for concern which needs to be managed.
I’m a person who supports the idea of increasing prevention rather than to focus solely on dealing with the after-effects – prevention is better than cure. Likewise when you are faced with stressors, part of stress management is to be mindful of the situation you’re going through.
This includes being aware when you are starting to experience the mental, emotional and physical symptoms of stress and then using techniques of dealing with the stress yourself.
One of the techniques I like to start with whenever I am facing stressors is to be mindful of things that I can control and those I can’t control.
When I have figured that out I start focus on controlling the things that are within my control. Sometimes we try so hard to control things that are not within our control, and this leads to increased stress and anger, because we feel like failures.
Fortunately we can shift our focus on what we can control and capitalise on that. When we do that, we manage to reduce our stress because we are making changes that help us deal with the circumstance.
This is an example of how we can deal with stress ourselves, and being able to do this makes it possible for us to adopt other ways of managing stress.
Other stress-management methods include getting regular exercise, practicing your hobbies, improving your diet and relaxation which mostly targets relieving physical tension.
Increasing social support like keeping in touch with friends, family community and religious organisations may also be beneficial in managing stress, so is externalising or speaking about the problem can also be beneficial. That can also involve journaling or finding other ways of expressing what you are going through.
A safe environment is needed for speaking about the problem and dealing with the stressor and thus psychological counselling/therapy from a mental health care professional may be necessary and beneficial as it helps you identify and deal with the different aspects of the stress.So be aware of overwhelming stress and manage it.
Thembelani Nyathi
Registered Counsellor
