Stress isn’t always bad for you. It can be part of what keeps you motivated and on top of your game, ensuring that you reach your goals in the workplace and elsewhere in life. However, when stress does get the best of you, it can take away from other parts of your life and make it difficult to keep up with everyday demands. If you find yourself stressed out or overwhelmed regularly, here are some helpful tips on how to handle it effectively while maintaining your sense of well-being in other areas of your life.
The Biology of Stress
This may sound counterintuitive, but many people actually use stress as a motivator. When faced with situations that make them feel anxious or challenged, they can perform better than they might normally do. This psychological phenomenon of stress intensity syndrome — feeling more alert under pressure — has been studied in elite athletes and soldiers going into battle. Under extreme circumstances (i.e., facing death), we experience less pain, slower heart rates and higher levels of performance because our bodies are flooded with adrenaline (aka epinephrine).
That's why some people seem to thrive on chaos —they've learned how to channel their own natural responses into productive energy. For example, when confronted with an overwhelming workload, business leaders often find themselves thinking more clearly and being able to focus intently. The takeaway: Your body adapts to stressful situations by releasing hormones like cortisol and adrenaline. These chemicals help your body prepare for fight-or-flight mode by speeding up your breathing rate, increasing blood flow to your muscles and improving hand-eye coordination. In other words, anxiety can help you think faster on your feet!
The Good News About Chronic Stress
Recent research has shown that chronic stress may have a protective effect on some parts of your body. The most obvious examples are telomeres. Telomeres cap off the ends of our chromosomes (like plastic tips on shoelaces), and they're an easy way to gauge biological age; in general, shorter telomeres are associated with increased risk of disease, mortality, depression and anxiety. Over time we shed telomere length through normal end-replication events. A stressful childhood can mean that cells start replicating earlier than usual, however—meaning they tend to shed fewer telomeres over time. As such early replicators have longer telomeres than their peers: long story short, chronic stress may be linked with lower rates of aging-related diseases.
What Causes an Overwhelming Amount of Stress?
Are you worried about a tough meeting at work? Or maybe there’s a big project due next week. Are bills piling up? Do you have an exam coming up that has all of your co-workers stressed out, too? While high levels of stress can affect us all differently, there are common triggers that cause our stress levels to spike. We have personal responsibilities, relationships with friends and family members and workloads at work which make dealing with stressful situations on a daily basis much more difficult than we realize.
That’s why it’s important that we know how to recognize what causes us stress in order to avoid any unnecessary bumps in our day-to-day lives. Here are some things that might be causing you stress: A Difficult Relationship: Whether it’s a friendship or romantic relationship, having someone around who makes you feel anxious or angry can put a lot of pressure on your life. When someone is constantly making demands or being overly critical, they take away from your sense of self-worth and can quickly become exhausting. If possible, try avoiding these types of people as much as possible so that they don’t bring down your mood. A Lack of Sleep: It may seem like sleeping more would reduce anxiety and help with relaxation but in reality sleep deprivation often leads to irritability and anger issues which can make even simple tasks harder to accomplish.
What Triggers Should Be Dealt With Immediately?
When dealing with stress in your life, there are certain things that should be dealt with immediately. Otherwise, they can have lasting effects on your mental health. In some cases it could even lead to a full-blown anxiety disorder. Examples of things that must be dealt with as soon as possible include work or relationship related issues or problems and other things like money troubles or family struggles . Though sometimes tough to deal with at first, when these issues are addressed correctly they can provide an increased sense of control over our lives and allow us to relax more after they're solved.
If they aren't then our bodies continue reacting negatively which can lead us down a slippery slope towards being unable to cope with anything leading us right into depression. This can cause us to isolate ourselves from others and experience physical symptoms such as headaches, insomnia, nausea, etc. It's important not to ignore any problems that arise in your life if you want to avoid having them snowball out of control. Instead try taking small steps each day to better manage what's going on around you until it gets easier. You'll feel better about yourself if you do!
What Strategies Work Best When Handling a Trigger?
According to Shawn Achor's research, there are two ways of responding to a stressful situation: one puts us into a positive state of mind that helps us solve problems and think creatively (this is called an upward spiral) whereas another puts us into a negative state of mind that limits our ability to come up with solutions. When faced with such situations, consciously practicing something positive every day can help trigger that upward spiral. Whether its exercise or a certain food or writing in your journal, find something that puts you in a positive mood on an everyday basis so when things get stressful, Achor recommends. Here are 13 stress-reducing habits proven by science.
How to Manage Your Personal Life with Power Tools
The majority of your time at work will be spent doing one thing: sitting in front of a computer. Unfortunately, that’s not a very good recipe for productivity or happiness. A big reason why is because we simply spend too much time on computers every day. It may seem like any hour outside of work spent on Facebook or watching TV could be eliminated without harming your job performance, but science has proven otherwise. Luckily there are some power tools you can use to help manage your personal life when it seems out of control...
How You Feel Depends on Your Viewpoint: People have an inherent tendency to think about themselves in terms of I statements, but that same perspective makes them vulnerable to an array of biases. For example, people with high self-esteem tend to believe they have more control over events than others do. This outlook may give them confidence going into a difficult situation, but it also increases their risk for getting angry or disappointed when things don't go their way. In fact, studies show people with low self-esteem deal better with setbacks and recover faster from negative experiences.
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