Category Archives: Stress management

Stress Management – Taking Micro Breaks at Work

Posted by on December 8, 2011 None comments

Almost all of us that have to deal with excessive stress at work would like to be able to get away from it all from time to time. The problem with many of these work situations is the fact that we are limited in the amount of time that we can be away from our jobs, perhaps even only being able to get away on the weekends, or one or two weeks during the year. In between the times that we are able to get away from work, the stress can really mount and it may be difficult to come down off of it at all.

Believe it or not, it is not always necessary for you to take long breaks in order to achieve some relief from the stressful situations that you are dealing with at work. As a matter of fact, if you learn how to take micro-breaks during the day, you can become very proficient at dealing with your stress regularly and coming down from stressful situations until the next one occurs.

The real key, however, is learning how to make the most out of the short amount of time that you have available during these micro-breaks.

Meditation is one of the keys of being able to do this successfully. When most of us think about meditation, we may consider some kind of spiritual ritual where we constantly think about a single word or perhaps try to empty your mind so that it is devoid of thought. The meditation that I’m talking about, however, is simply allowing your mind to dwell on something that is peaceful or pleasant. In doing so, you will be able to reduce your stress very quickly and even if you only have 30 seconds, it’s an effective method that should not be overlooked.

Another way of taking micro-breaks that can really help to reduce your stress is to get up from your desk every 30 minutes or so and stretch a little bit. It is not necessary for you to go into a full stretching routine in order to receive the benefits. As a matter of fact, simply stretching your neck and shoulders and getting the blood flowing in your body over the course of 30 seconds or so can go a long way in helping to reduce your stress. It has both physical and mental healing properties and should be a regular part of your workday.

Your Own Personal Stress Management Technique

Posted by on December 8, 2011 None comments

My personal stress management technique has got to be very powerful, whatever it is. Doesn’t seem that there is any let up in stress these days, does there?

However, once I give some thought to where stress exists, or is experienced, and the sequence of events leading to the physiology of stress, a body full of hormones and neurotransmitters more appropriate to combating an attack than the board room or the living room, I can recognize that there are some interventions I can work on to change the chemistry inside my body.

I can change my thoughts, which will change my feelings, which will give me more time to make choices about my behavior.

And according to Dr. Daniel Amen, relaxation actually activates the higher perceptual centers of my brain for better decision making.

That is a good payoff for learning a stress management technique.

Perhaps the most important stress management technique to learn is that my thoughts, my interpretations of sensory data, are what brings the chemistry of stress into my body.

And that process happens very fast, about twice as fast as I can blink my eyes.

And one stressful thought can bring on another and another, and before a second has elapsed, (that is right, one second) I may have generated a sequence of thoughts that leave me filled with enough adrenalin and cortisol to move me into distress rather than eustress, and then I can keep myself there long enough to begin to impact my brain fitness, my heart fitness, and the rest of my body too.

My first really successful stress management technique was to say the phrase; “Gratitude is the attitude” to myself, and that worked, because someone always has it worse off than I do, but the relief I felt when saying that phrase to myself was short lived.

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Somewhere I had picked up the idea that I was supposed to have long periods of contentment, sort of like a drug experience, and that is not how your body normally works.

In other words, I need to practice gratitude frequently, starting with thoughts (and/or breathing) and my body will eventually follow along and learn that the physiology of contentment is what I want it to learn, and stay near.

In my early days of seeking a seeking a stress management technique, I looked at many different tools, and there are a lot of good meditative and cognitive tools out there, including Open Focus, Transcendental Meditation, working out, but for my money, I want a tool that does not require me to stop what I am doing and sit quietly meditating.

In other words it has to be usable while I am going about my daily business, and of all the tools I have tried, the one that has worked best for me is learning how to do the heart rate variability biofeedback.

I can feel the change using heart rate variability biofeedback, and since I learned the skill on a computer, I know that my physiology changes when I do the Quick Coherence Technique.

So when I feel myself getting critical or judgemental or snappy, (and I still use gratitude thoughts by the way) I can switch my thoughts to the area around my heart, place my children’s faces there, and feel my heart become more coherent, and since I have some experience with Heartmath heart rate variability biofeedback, my body switches back to a cooperative and affiliative physiology within a heart beat.

Not quite the speed of thought but close, and that tool has saved me a lot of regrets over the years. I have been able to operate from a heartfelt cooperation and affiliation more and more often.

In fact, the practice of heart rate variability has given me a felt experience of the Cognitive Behavioral Therapy concept that you do not have to accept thoughts as truths. You can dispute them. In other words, I can fill myself with love and then think one distressing thought and fill myself with the feeling of stress or despair, and then think the loving thought, and feel the love come right back into my body. You can even dispute the thoughts that make you feel good, if you want.

So we have managed to move ourselves from the realm of the external making me feel stressed, because it is my thought about the external that brings on the adrenalin and cortisol inside my body, and using and some mindfulness coupled with some practice, I can steer my physiology like I steer my car with thousands of small adjustments.

In fact, I may get so good at heart rate variability biofeedback that it runs in the background of my brain, popping into the foreground for a heart beat’s worth of attention on an as-needed basis.

It is important to recognize for some folks that heart rate variability biofeedback is a learned skill and does not override any basic biological process. In other words, I can still activate my fight or flight chemistry if needed for a real attack.

If you want to check out the benefits of having your own personal stress management technique for your neurogenesis, or the growth of new brain cells, then read Brainfit for Life by Simon Evans,Ph.D. and Paul Burghardt,Ph.D.

Hope you enjoy your coherence!

Values Of Meditation As Stress Management

Posted by on December 7, 2011 None comments

Stress is manly related to your emotions. It can be either positive or negative. Stress begins from your mind and eventually conquers your body, as body works for the mind. When you are stressed you will be mentally unstable and weak. This will directly hit you on the body in the form of headache, cramps, tiredness etc. This is why stress management techniques are very important for overcoming stress.

Stress is mind game

When you are stressed in mind, all your thoughts and strengths are weakened. This will cause a big chaos in your mind which will stop working properly, you might start panicking for various things, and it will have lots of negative effects upon you emotionally and physically. Getting stressed often is very dangerous as it can cause various troubles for you. Stress is mostly caused by the people and factors around us, the reasons could be financial problems, personal problems, official problems, and why not the cause could even be your loved ones.

As said earlier, stress begins from the mind, so it is necessary that you stop and overcome the stress right from your mind. It is possible to overcome the stress from its source. The best way for it is relaxing, as we know that relaxation makes the mind clear. Therefore if you are stressed for any reason, the first thing you have to do is try to move to take some rest. Taking rest or relaxing will refresh your mind by overcoming the stress. Once the mind is relaxed you can start thinking clearly and get solutions for the problems.

Relax with meditation

The best known way in the world to overcome stress is meditation. It helps you focus your mind on the issues you face, and it will help to get a clear and sensible solution for it. As we know that a relaxed mind can find solutions and can clear your mind.

Most of you can do this at your office or at home. Meditation keeps your mind free and calm helping you sort out any of your issues.

Beginning With mediation

There are various ways to start your meditation. It depends on your style and what suits you the best. Tools and manuals can be used to start meditating all by yourself. The simple ways to overcome stress by meditating is by listening to calm music or chanting mantras etc. Books with visuals are also available that helps you to reduce stress.

If you are a beginner needing to meditate, find out a quiet and a calm place in your house. Before beginning, inform your family members about so they do not disturb or distract you in any form. Make sure the surroundings are also quiet. It is essential for you to keep your surroundings quiet before you start.

To begin the meditation, try to sit down on a chair and do not lie down as it would make you sleep. Meditation makes your mind free and blank and if you are a beginner lying down that will definitely make you sleep. Apply the method that suits you the most, and then start meditating. Try to concentrate on your mind carefully as many random visuals and images will pass by. If an object appearing makes you tense or stressed, try to divert your mind from it. Finally, you will mind will reach a state wherein everything will be blank. This is called the tranquil state.

Once you reach the tranquil state, you have to start thinking of one of your issues that needs to be solved. You should be careful here not to get carried away with the issue. Now you will get the solution for the particular issue even without noticing it. This is why meditation is considered as stress management.

Stress Management at the Work Place

Posted by on December 6, 2011 None comments

Most of us have seen someone reduced to tears by work stress. But crying can be just the start of it. Some workers get so distressed they opt for suicide. Recent spate of suicide cases in multinational companies such as Foxconn Technology Group in Shenzhen China, Disneyland in Paris and France Telkom shows that work related stress can reach its extreme.

Work place stress is a harmful physical and emotional response that occurs when there is poor match between job demands and the capabilities, resources or needs of the worker. Its effects on employees are both short and long term.

Short term stress related disorders can manifest in a number of ways. Maladaptive behaviours such as alcohol and substance abuse are the first signs. Cognitive impairment is exhibited by concentration and memory loss problems. Emotional strain also takes toll on the workers and they begin showing signs of dissatisfaction, fatigue, tension and busts of anger.

Further distress leads to psychological disorders such as: depression, anxiety and post traumatic stress disorder. These conditions lead to poor work performance and may affect the health of the worker.

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Biological reactions compromises the immune system of the body causing cardiovascular diseases and in extreme cases may lead to death. How to Identify Sources of Stress

Identifying the sources of stress in your life is not as easy as it sounds. True causes of stress are not always obvious and it’s easy to overlook your own stress inducing thoughts, feelings and behaviours.

To identify the exact sources of stress you first need to look inside yourself. Look closely at your excuses, attitude and habits. Until you accept responsibility for the role you play in creating and maintaining it, your stress level will remain outside your control.

Everyone has his/her own way of coping with stress. Some strategies are healthy and helpful but others are unhealthy and counterproductive.

Most employees develop unhealthy ways of managing stress and instead of lessening it, they end up compounding it.

These ways of managing stress may temporarily reduce stress but cause more damage in the long run:

 

Smoking
Excessive drinking
Overeating
Withdrawal from family and friends
Use of pills and drugs
Over/ under sleeping
TV or internet addiction
Taking out your stress on others

http://integrationtraining.co.uk offers stress management and conflict training to employees with a view to increasing the bottom line. Their stress management courses are meant to address the root causes of stress amongst employees.

By taking valuable steps through advanced stress management techniques, your organization will profit from reduced stress related sickness, reduced error repeat-rate and a lower staff turnover. Put simply, less stressed employees with greater spirit and confidence get more work done.

 

A Brief Guide to Stress Management

Posted by on December 5, 2011 None comments

Stress is among the many factors that decreases an individual’s self esteem. When this happens, certain problems arise, like health-related problems, coping up, family problems, and a whole lot more. Stress is felt once there is pressure from work or from doing many tasks all at once, from issues concerning relationships, money problems and in the society. Stress management is just the solution to this problem. There is a need for us to learn stress management techniques that way we may be able to learn how to handle stress effectively.

We know that we are stressed when we feel different physiological symptoms such as headache, having difficulty of sleeping, increased anxiety, losing of appetite, and having cold or a flu. There is also feelings of frustration and losing of hope. Some individuals even experience fuzzy thinking or being absent-minded.

Some forget to take care of themselves and they looked like they were stunned by a stun gun TASER because of their absent minded looks. Generally speaking, stress affects a person’s whole being.

If an individual will really strive hard in order to combat stress, it is of no doubt that he will properly manage all the pressures that he faces. There are different ways in order to properly manage stress. It will be very beneficial to know them since it will develop our coping up skills, enables us to quickly solve problems and handle every stressful situation. It may take some time to fully develop this skills but it pays off once you get to master the proper management of stress.

The main foundation of stress management is learning to take control of life. Let not stress run your life because it will only ruin your day.

It is the nature of our work to become very demanding and thus making us become severely stressed and exhausted from doing so many tasks. These few tips on how to manage stress will be of great help in your everyday life.

First of all, it is important to identify the sources of your stress. This can be possible by looking at your own habits, your attitude or personality. These are the important areas that need to be focused since they affect your ability of coping up with stress. Keeping a diary or perhaps a list of all your stressors and how you managed them will let you know what needs to be changed on your personality for you to handle stress.

Secondly, you need to evaluate yourself as to how you cope with stress. Through the list of stressors that you have, you may then be able to know whether your management skills are effective or whether it has improved your coping skills. It lets you identify more new and effective strategies to deal with stress.

Third, you can benefit from managing stress in healthy ways either you go spend some time off or have a vacation. Relaxing from time to time does not necessarily mean that you are escaping from a problem but rather it will remind you that you need to take a break and give importance to your body. Adopting a healthy lifestyle will strengthen your physical health and it increases your resistance to stress. Engaging in activities that will give you fun and enjoyment will also make you feel at ease.

Just like rechargeable stun guns, we need to recharge ourselves and gather more energy that way we can effectively manage the different forms of stress that comes our way. Having a relaxed mind, a healthy way of living, staying calm, and use of coping techniques such as time management and maintaining a positive attitude will all help an individual to manage his stress.