Better Health Centre |+| Understanding Stress and Stress Management

Understanding Stress and Stress Management Skills

Stress is manageable by either dealing with it… or not dealing with it. 

We have no choice either way.  It depends entirely on what sort of person you are and the situation you find yourself in.

Stress happens to everyone so we all need some understanding of stress and stress management skills.

It can hit us suddenly at any time during the day or slowly grow on us over a long period of time.

The problem is - a lot of people do not even know it is there.

To deal with stress we need to have an understanding of stress, recognize it is there, respond to it and ignore it or try to control it.

This is why it is so important to work on your stress management skills.

There are usually two different ways people deal with stress.  Some people try to manage the stress by managing the causing situation. 

Other people attack it or RUN AWAY!! 

Which is also known as “fight or flight”.

The usual automatic response to sudden or unexpected stressful situations is “fight or flight”.  Researches believe this is because people naturally put up a barrier when they get a shock because it comes across as a threat.  So they either want to fight it…….or avoid it.

“Fight or flight” is not just in our minds. 

As soon as we go into this mode our heart pumps faster, adrenaline is let lose to pump through to our muscles so they get ready to attack or run.  People often go white in the face because blood circulation is immediately rerouted from the skin to the core of our bodies as a survival method.

This makes people more anxious, touchy and very nervous.

Now emotions are poured out all over the place.  It is difficult to make any sense of things when you feel like this.  Our bodies prepare to try to stay alive which diverts attention in our brain.  We can no longer properly focus on the problem properly.

This results in bad decision making and inability to use reason.

“Fight or flight” can kick in whether we are in a physically dangerous position or we are under stress from daily life.

Stress can be caused from anything – not just extreme life threatening situations. 

You could be very frustrated which may be work or relationship related or you could be in a challenging, hard or new situation which causes panic and worry.

The modern world puts everyone in stressful situations all the time.  Some people are always in a “fight or flight” mode because of their hectic lifestyle.

You need to learn the cause of your stress then you have a starting point to work from.

When you suddenly find yourself in a stressful situation, you will immediately respond, whether you want to or not and often with poor results.  Usually people become anxious, block it out or try to adjust.

Sometimes the situation persists and your responses won’t stop the stress. 

This can lead to problems such as extreme fatigue or an emotional breakdown so if you find that this is happening to you sometimes then it will pay big dividends to spend some time understanding stress and stress management skills.