Your Five Minute Stress Management Guide

Family members, friends, employment and everyday life itself can affect our levels of stress. Here are a couple quick tips to keep that stress in check!

Stress is part of our lives. Mild types of stress can work as motivators to propelling you to complete tasks that excite you. However, if your stress level get too high, physical, mental or psychological problems can arise. This is when stress management techniques become handy to help you to get through your routine.

What Causes Stress?

Both positive and negative life experiences can cause stress. The way we react towards external situations is what actually brings us stress. Events themselves aren’t stressful. We differ in how we respond to the events going on around us. In fact it is our internal reactions, point of views and decisions that often can create or alleviate stress. What an individual finds stressful another can find amusing. For example, one person may fear to stand up regarding his own opinions worrying that it may result in conflicts. Another individual though, may think that by standing up for his opinions he can achieve his goals and therefore is motivated by doing it.

How Do You Know If You Are Stressed?

There are a number of symptoms that can indicate you might be suffering from stress. You may notice you:

•       Feel anxious
•       Feel irritable
•       Have mixed feelings
•       Experience mood swings
•       Feel frustrated
•       Are easily annoyed

Chances are you’ll notice a big difference in your behaviors, like the following:

•       Acting impulsively
•       Increasing your consumption of cigarettes, drugs and / or alcohol
•       Crying when thinking about a stress cause
•       Losing interest on your social environments or interactions
•       Noticing difficulty to concentrate or suffer a loss of productivity
•       Losing appetite or overeating
•       You may get worried with tasks to complete

Stress can also affect your body, you may notice any of the following symptoms:

•       Increased heart beat
•       Sleep problems
•       Increased perspiration
•       Digestive problems
•       Tense muscles
•       Feeling nervous
•       Illness prone

Although these symptoms are quite dreadful, you can use many of the techniques listed below to quickly reduce your stress levels.

The benefit of using these types of techniques is an increase on your levels of happiness and well-being. Remember you will never be alone when suffering of stress and almost always there is someone who can help you. But the first task you should take is to recognize that you are experiencing certain levels of stress and then decide what you will to do about it.

Stress Management Tips and Techniques

Below, we will cover a number of the stress management tips and techniques used to eliminate stress. Do not hesitate though in looking for services of your professional therapist or your personal doctor if symptoms persist. Ongoing stress can affect your well-being and health. Keep in mind the stress symptoms and choose to help yourself by killing your stress on the best way which fits into your lifestyle.

To reduce your stress level you can:

• Exercise. Practice some kind of exercise daily you optimize well-being and health. This is a wonderful way of reducing the impact stress has over your physical and mental well being.
• Change how you think. Strengthen positive self-statements. People get developed from strength rather than weakness.
• Practice any relaxation technique that incorporate your mind like meditation.
• Learn how to recognize and accept your boundaries.  Each one of us is unique in handling stress.
• Find ways to have a good time. Start a new hobby or finish writing that novel you started a few years ago or simply just fun.
• Eat any balanced healthy diet daily.
• Talk with friends, family, a therapist or anyone you can trust to share your worries/problems.
• Develop time management skills. When you have many tasks to do make sure you set priorities to support you on managing your daily routine better.

Whether stress management is accomplished by using a creative outlet like running, additional personal hobbies, playing with pets, or other means of physical effort which will lower the adrenal production and therefore help to reduce stress in your life, stress management is a key skill to consider and cultivate. Stress management is not just an immediate need in the current fast-paced lifestyle, but a key factor in both physical and mental health over your whole life.