by Meighan Sembrano
Contributing Author, Conscious Reminder
Abstract
Stress makes you feel overwhelmed, and it’s difficult to focus on work, school, or anything else. When left unresolved, stress negatively influences your life and the way you think or feel. The article explains the impact of anxiety, depression, and other harmful emotions and thoughts on a quality of life and it offers useful strategies to deal with them effectively.
Stress Can Be Dealt Easily With These Tips
In psychology, stress refers to the psychological perception of pressure or being overwhelmed by something. We usually feel stressed out due to problems at work, home, lack of sleep; you name it.
Stress worsens symptoms of existing health condition people may have, and it also contributes to anxiety and depression. When left unresolved, consequences of stress become even more severe and affect your quality of life in many ways. You can make your life easier and manage stress successfully. This article will show you how.
Don’t let depression shadow, stress you out
Depression is a common mental health problem that affects a person’s social interactions, and both physical and emotional wellbeing. Not only does stress contribute to depression onset, but it can make it more severe.
Also, experiencing different depression-related symptoms can induce pressure on its own. Numerous studies have confirmed that depression and stress tend to correlate with another, but the problem occurs when an affected individual uses avoidance and denial to deal with depression and anxiety.
According to the study from the Medical Science Monitor denial and avoidance make it more difficult to cope with given situation.
Coping with depression can be a significant challenge, but with the right approach, you can overcome it. To prevent low from stressing you out and casting a shadow on your life, you need support from loved ones and friends.
Being proactive is essential, and it also includes therapy sessions where a therapist will help you uncover the root of your emotional struggles. As seen above, patients with depression who are too stressed out tend to use avoidance and denial, but these actions don’t lead anywhere. Embrace your emotions, both positive and negative, and accept them.
Only by acknowledging the problem will you be able to address it adequately. The more you deny both stress and depression, the worse it gets. The most important thing to do to prevent these adverse emotions affecting your life is to face them.
Happiness + anxiety = compilation of two emotions
Happiness is the goal we want to achieve, but at the same time, it can give us a concern which is why we fear happiness. Yes, the fear of joy exists, and it has been discussed in many studies that identified different reasons behind this phenomenon.
One study found that people fear happiness because they think it could attract even more significant problems and struggles later on. Happiness makes some people anxious because they don’t want to be punished for it in the afterlife, while others just don’t think they deserve it.
Being afraid of happiness and everything that comes with it contributes to stress, anxiety, and it doesn’t allow you to recharge without losing focus. You deserve more than that!
A major problem is here is that we sometimes forget happiness is relative and an individual matter. Comparing yourself to other people makes you fearful and contributes to anxiety, especially if you think you can’t achieve their level of happiness.
The secret lies in identifying what makes you happy and acknowledging that you deserve good times in your life. It’s crucial to stop assuming negative emotions or events are punishment for your happiness. They’re just a normal part of life, but your response to those situations is what counts.
Strategies to cope with stress
While it would be easy to install some shield that protects you from pressure, that is impossible. Although stress can have a detrimental effect on our lives and contribute to depression symptoms, there are different ways to cope, such as:
- Solve your problem – stress is always a psychological and physical response to some negative situation, a question, or emotional burden. Instead of avoiding it, you should face that problem head on and see what you can do to solve it. Once you do, stress will disappear
- Change the way you think – thoughts and perceptions create your feelings. To change the way you feel, you have to change the way you think. Avoid negative thinking and try to be more positive. This may seem confusing at first, but the more you try thinking positively, the easier it will be
- Accept – you are more likely to stay stressed out, depressed, anxious, and frustrated if you avoid problems or you don’t want to say something’s bothering you. Feel free to be open and honest with people instead of bottling up everything inside
- No excuses – the first reaction we have when stressful or bad times occur is to blame someone (or yourself) or look for reasons to justify these problems. If you put pearls on a pig, it will still be a pig. Therefore, using excuses or blame game for stress and other negative emotion doesn’t mean they don’t exist
Simple ways to make your life easier
Besides useful coping techniques that you can use to escape stress, there are many other things you can do to make life easier. Here are a few examples:
- Recognize that you can’t control everything and that’s perfectly okay
- Every time you feel stressed or anxious, pause and take a few deep breaths or count to 10
- Avoid multitasking as it only aggravates stress; focus on performing one task at a time
- Take frequent breaks at work to avoid getting overwhelmed
- Learn to say “no” to things you don’t want
- Limit distractions, e.g., cut the time spent on social media
- Practice gratitude
- Before bedtime, create a list of all positive things that happened during the day
Options to manage and prevent stress
One thing you should never do is to ignore stress and hope it will disappear on its own. Instead, adopt some management and prevention techniques such as:
- Listen to music; choose songs that generate pleasant emotions
- Call a friend or go out and hang out
- Create your mantra (positive self-talk) and repeat it whenever feeling sick or stressed out
- Eat a well-balanced diet
- Get enough sleep
- Meditate
- Practice yoga
- Exercise regularly
- Drink some tea
- Organize your time and avoid procrastinating
- Volunteer or help someone
Conclusion
Stress is both psychological and physical response to harmful stimuli, and while it is a reasonable reaction, stress can affect your life in many ways. You can’t eliminate stress entirely and prevent it from coming back, but you can minimize the risk and make it more tolerable through a proactive approach.
Accept negative emotions and problems to change them later on. Accept that you can’t control everything and that’s okay. You’ll feel much better when you don’t sweep problems under the rug but address them head-on.
References
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2629543/
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/257045614_The_influence_of_fear_of_happiness_beliefs_on_responses_to_the_satisfaction_with_life_scale
https://www.cnbc.com/2015/05/18/5-ways-to-beat-stress-and-make-everyday-life-easier.html
About the Author: Meighan Sembrano is a health enthusiast and a passionate writer. Her primary expertise is in Beauty and Skin Care, but she has also published articles on Health and Fitness. Her sincerity and thoughtfulness resonate with readers, and her enthusiasm is contagious. You can follow Meighan on Twitter and Facebook.
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