Therapy for stress and counseling for stress management
Well this is easier said than done, we all think we know what makes us stressed but do we really actually know the difference between what annoys us or what really does release those hormones that combat the feeling of threat.
One way to try and figure out what causes us to feel under pressure is to diarize our day, week, and month to find out what triggers there were to make us feel stressed.
In our daily lives we are bombarded with loads of information ranging from tasks given to us at work through to what to choose for lunch.
Many of these choices, and they are choices and not to be confused with stress, are unavoidable and therefore we must learn to deal with them. This is something we will examine later in this guide.
What we are looking for from keeping a journal is patterns that emerge from the things we feel are putting us under the most undue stress. We can work out a little easier whether what’s making us stressed is something we can work on or if it’s an unavoidable stress that we can learn to manage.
Obviously we are not expecting you to write all this down while you are in the midst of a stressful episode and I also don’t expect you to remember every exact detail of what has been outlined above. And most of all I don’t want you to get stressed at the thought of trying to log every detail in order to complete your journal.
What I would suggest to get the best out of this exercise is to wait until the evening when you have relaxed and are back in the comfort of your home and sit down and reflect upon the day. Try and run through the feelings and perhaps in the evening you can reflect better as to what was stress and what was mere annoyance.
Make some notes of what happened to you using the above bullet points. As I have already mentioned don’t beat yourself up if you can’t remember every minute detail. What we are after is something down on paper, even if it’s just a brief outline of your thoughts and inner observations of what you were feeling during your stressful periods throughout the day. Even the briefest of notes can be the building blocks upon which you can make some real changes to your life and one of the simplest ways in which to keep your stressful episodes under control.
For me keeping this journal was particularly useful in identifying what strategies I used to cope with my stressful moments and whether they worked or not. When you read back through your notes you will discover what has worked for you not.
This diary exercise can be done over a period of weeks or months. In fact this can be an ongoing exercise that can be used as part of the remedy to combating stress. There are no hard and fast rules here. Do whatever you feel really comfortable with and whatever you feel is having positive results for you. Everybody’s stress levels are different as well as what triggers anxiety in us.
One way to try and figure out what causes us to feel under pressure is to diarize our day, week, and month to find out what triggers there were to make us feel stressed.
In our daily lives we are bombarded with loads of information ranging from tasks given to us at work through to what to choose for lunch.
Many of these choices, and they are choices and not to be confused with stress, are unavoidable and therefore we must learn to deal with them. This is something we will examine later in this guide.
What we are looking for from keeping a journal is patterns that emerge from the things we feel are putting us under the most undue stress. We can work out a little easier whether what’s making us stressed is something we can work on or if it’s an unavoidable stress that we can learn to manage.
How Do You Handle Stress?
Well first of all what we are going to do is every time you feel those tingles of nerves or the feeling of being overwhelmed by a situation no matter how small try and make a mental note of the following things: What time of day it happened. Where it happened. What was the situation that caused the stress? How did the stress manifest itself, eg physically, mentally, or behavioral. How did you respond to the stress. Did you actions make you feel better?Obviously we are not expecting you to write all this down while you are in the midst of a stressful episode and I also don’t expect you to remember every exact detail of what has been outlined above. And most of all I don’t want you to get stressed at the thought of trying to log every detail in order to complete your journal.
What I would suggest to get the best out of this exercise is to wait until the evening when you have relaxed and are back in the comfort of your home and sit down and reflect upon the day. Try and run through the feelings and perhaps in the evening you can reflect better as to what was stress and what was mere annoyance.
Make some notes of what happened to you using the above bullet points. As I have already mentioned don’t beat yourself up if you can’t remember every minute detail. What we are after is something down on paper, even if it’s just a brief outline of your thoughts and inner observations of what you were feeling during your stressful periods throughout the day. Even the briefest of notes can be the building blocks upon which you can make some real changes to your life and one of the simplest ways in which to keep your stressful episodes under control.
For me keeping this journal was particularly useful in identifying what strategies I used to cope with my stressful moments and whether they worked or not. When you read back through your notes you will discover what has worked for you not.
This diary exercise can be done over a period of weeks or months. In fact this can be an ongoing exercise that can be used as part of the remedy to combating stress. There are no hard and fast rules here. Do whatever you feel really comfortable with and whatever you feel is having positive results for you. Everybody’s stress levels are different as well as what triggers anxiety in us.
