Stress Management - PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT

What do I know about stress? 

            Stress is a feeling of being pressured, emotional strain, troubled, mentally-bothered and anxiety. It is not new phenomenon, it has been been experienced throughout the whole history since every individual indeed affected by stress because life is full of hassles, deadlines, frustrations, challenges and demands. As psychology states, it is our response to some stimulus and can affect our emotional, mentally, and physical health. Fear, panic, anger, tragedy, even something as simple as being competitive can cause it, when we were in a situation wherein not having any control over the outcome of a situation, facing big unknown changes, worrying about particular thing, having responsibilities that you're finding pressured and uncomfortable, not having enough work, foster relationship, activities or change in your life and times of uncertainty or being doubtful in every step of life.

            But for I have known, there are many ways to deal with stress. Stress management is the recommended treatment for stress. The goals of stress management are reducing stressful life events and coping with stress in healthy ways. Just the way of a real, honest smile, one that uses both the eye and mouth muscles, may help decrease the heart rate after a stressful event, it will actually contribute to the health of your heart. Monitor yourself for stress and identify what causes stress for you and try it to open up with your family and peers and we shoudn’t let the stress consume you.  Stress surrounds us but I, as and individual, I know that every person in the world has an ability to fight and stand over stress.

WHAT MAKES YOU LOOSE YOUR COOL?

I am recollecting my past experiences that I believe I felt something that I need to complement with my emotions. These are the list of 5 situations that make me loose my self control and how do I respond to stressors. 

STRESSORS	HOW DO YOU RESPOND/REACT?
1.      Disapointment in Academics (Failures)	Accept the situation through acknowlgding, accepting, and embracing my emotions since failures always accompanied by embarrasment, insecurities, and sadnesss. So along it, I can label my emotions and allow myself to experience it as a lesson so I’ll be able to keep myself learning and foster by slowly but constanly moving forward to new challenges in life.
2.      Family problem	Accept the situation, be open-minded and as a daughter, I’ll listen to their point of view, encourage my parents to fix the problem as earlier and save the relationship as a family. And empowered my motives and try my best to find the solution as the eldest of the family and be firm but not impenetrable.
3.      Emotional Problem (low-esteem)	Try to be more positive, set a realistic outlook, boosting my self by identifying negative belief I have about myself and turn it as challenge. Write down every positive things about myself. Try love my flaws, be patient and take time to know and understand myself, get away from negative and toxic people, be more open on healthy views, look after my health and view myself as a being, try to love and appreciate myself by valuing my physical flaws more and empowering imperfection
4.      Pressured task, deadline	I should develop time management wherein I know how to priotize time, make a step-by-step plan and take control, don’t let procastnation take over me, focus on the present. Take time to rest and be realistic with the goals. Take the task and deadline given as a challenge. Let myself be stimulated by the new opportunity, and activate a creative thinking to stay focused on the task at hand.
5.      Losing someone	Always take my time to accept the situation, spend more time to myself like take some trip, make some new hobbies, and do new task where I can keep myself busy and active to forgot the lonely emotions, honor what I have learn from the person I lost by keeping his/her memories alive, and share my love to others.

     

                How do you manage the following emotions due to stress? My self-assessment on managing stress.

 Anxiety – Take of myself where I can take time to relax and enjoy small things, eat well-balanced meal, avoiding caffeine, get enough sleep, develop and maintain positive outlook about life wherein I should accept some hard situation, be active and engaged in peers with good influence so I could open up, acknowledge what triggers my anxiety and try to cope and ready myself every situation I might face.

 Pressure – Always take time to think strategically, I should work smarter not harder, prepare and practice developing a system in my life where I can manage my priorities and task properly, be active, take the pressure as a challenge as new room of improvement and learning so I can build myself more to face another upcoming activities. 

 Misery – Stop escaping from the reality and accept the fact that not all situation favoured to me, where I needed to start to have an action of giving myself what I want, need and deserve wherein action of being heard, expressing myself, recognize and connect myself to the significant of life that everything starts with decision to be happy. Let myself experience pleasing things and healthy work-out and lastly, I should be grateful every day and focus on moments of happiness under difficult conditions.

 Strain – Slow down and take my time in acknowledging and accepting the situation, take slight exercise like walking, mountain climbing, swimming and etc, pay attention to my health in every aspect – mental, spiritual, and physical by taking enough sleep, deep breathing and eat well. Do new healthy and change my perspective into positive outlook.

 Desperation – Take a break on the process and focus my attention to myself wherein reset my negative thoughts and I’ll embrace myself for being worth living, consider myself as valuable and love my best qualities. Teach myself to be firm and patient in facing fears of being lost and alone, and engage more in a place where I can seek help, learn and grow, and put myself in the role of giving love to others.

 Tension – I should manage my stress, lead myself to happier and healthier lives and keep being grateful and optimistic person by accepting that some circumstances in life cannot be controlled, assert my feelings, belief, opinions, learn to relax, exercise regularly & eat healthy, make time for priorities and seek-out social support.

 Anger – Always think before I speak, understand and recognize the problem that triggers negative emotions, try to practice to avoid hostile thoughts, deep breaths and do a positive self-talk, gain a different perspective by putting myself in another’s place, practice good listening skill and build communication so it can facilitate trusting feelings towards others and express my feelings calmly and directly without becoming defensive, hostile or emotionally charged. 

 Panic – Face my fear to give myself a chance to discover that every situation can be calm down and turns out fine, breathe deeply and be calm, do some relaxation technique and take care myself by getting enough sleep, proper meals and avoid caffeine and seek help.

 Dejection- Overcome negative feelings by changing point of view in life, be simply grateful and contented in life and don’t let the sadness and bad occurrence consume but instead try to stand and set realistic goals and be creative and productive every day to make my day better and brighter, challenge negative thoughts by doing something new that provides me a new experience.