,I start here to promote ways to manage daily stress. To begin with, we must know and train ourselves in a series of techniques that will allow us to combat the reactions that the body usually has. These reactions can be physiological, emotional, cognitive, and behavioural. Suppose we do not know how to handle and manage them properly. In that case, they will produce known clinical manifestations that can become chronic and lead to psychosomatic exhaustion. When we get to this type of situation, it’s already too late.
There is scientific evidence of the influence of chronic stress on myocardial infarction, stroke, and the weakening of the immune system, among other effects.
In this exhibition, I want to take Seneca as a basis for one of his phrases: “What reason does not achieve, is often reached by time.” With this as a starting point, I will describe below the twenty techniques to help us master stress.
1.PRACTICE PHYSICAL EXERCISEI
fully agree with John F. Kennedy when he affirmed that “physical health is not only one of the most important keys to a healthy body but the foundation of creative and dynamic intellectual activity.” The development and maintenance of an excellent physical condition positively affect stress prevention. To do this, it is advisable to exercise regularly since it enhances psychological resistance and increases the individual’s physical endurance to the effects of stress. In fact, exercise performance forces us to displace attention from psychological problems. It allows us to rest and recover from the mental activity developed previously.
Physical exercise mobilizes the body and improves its functioning and physical capacity. Consequently, you will be in better shape to cope with stress, which increases your capacity for physical work and improves cardiovascular, respiratory, and metabolic functions.
In general terms.the professional activity requires fewer and fewer physical responses and more intellectual responses. When you work out, you rarely use organic resources in developing professional activities. If they are not “burned”, these resources can be deposited in the vascular system and cause, among other problems, an increase in blood pressure. It is pertinent to remember a phrase by Edward Stanley: “Those who think they don’t have time to exercise, sooner or later have to find time to be sick.”
2. PROPER DIET
An excellent way to avoid stress is to develop healthy eating habits that affect a person’s nutritional status. We need to balance meeting our environment’s energy needs and not having problems with needing more energy.
The Mediterranean diet, based on olive oil, fruit, cereals, fish, and lean meats, is crucial to our health. Doug Larson said, “Life expectancy would increase by leaps and bounds if vegetables smelled as good as bacon.”
3. SYSTEMATIC DESENSITIZATION
This technique attempts to control the reactions of anxiety or fear to situations that are threatening to an individual. It is based on Jacobson’s progressive relaxation method, which involves teaching the person to do physical exercises that include tensing and then relaxing their muscles. This action will allow you to know the state of tension in each part of your body and have resources to relax those areas when they are tense.
4. STRESS INFECTION
It is a cognitive and behavioural technique. His methodology resembles that of systematic desensitization. From learning breathing and relaxation techniques to relaxing tension in stressful situations, the subject creates a list of the most stressful situations.
5. PHYSICAL RELAXATION TECHNIQUES
The most popular is Jacobson’s progressive relaxation and Schultz’s autogenic training. These techniques try to take advantage of the direct connection between the body and the mind and the existence of interdependence between psychological and physical tension. In other words, being physically relaxed while suffering emotional strain is impossible. According to the theories that inspire these techniques, people can learn to reduce their psychological (dynamic) pressure through physical relaxation, even if the situation that causes the uncertainty persists.
6. BREATHING CONTROL TECHNIQUES
When you’re stressed, you tend to breathe quickly and shallowly. This means you’re not using as much of your lungs’ functional capacity, getting less oxygen, using more energy, and making your body tighter overall. Breathing control techniques make it easier for the individual to learn an appropriate way to breathe well so that, in a stressful situation, he can control breathing automatically.
7. MENTAL RELAXATION AND MEDITATION TECHNIQUES
The practice of meditation stimulates physiological changes of great value for the body. They want the person to be able to systematically develop a series of activities, perceptive and/or behavioural, that allows him to focus his attention on those activities and disconnect from the daily mental activity of the individual, which can be a source of stress.
8. BIOFEEDBACK
It is a way to deal with stress through a cognitive intervention that aims to have effects on the physical plane. Its goal is to allow each person to control certain biological activities and processes on their own terms. When some of a person’s bodily functions are measured, information about those parameters is gathered in real-time. This information can then be interpreted and used to gain control over these processes. After that, the person is taught how to control the above methods independently in everyday situations.
9. SELF-CONTROL TECHNIQUES
The goal of these techniques is to teach the person how to control his own behaviour by teaching him how to control his surroundings, both before and after the behaviour. These steps are constructive for managing and controlling behaviour in stressful situations. They can be used to improve behaviours that have already caused problems and to prevent behaviours that could cause issues from happening in the first place.
10. SOCIAL SUPPORT
Relationships with other people can often be a source of emotional or practical help. A social group can serve as a point of reference that makes it easier for an individual to adjust to and fit into reality. Because of this, it is essential to create and grow social networks that give individuals social support.
11. DISTRACTION AND GOOD HUMOR
Distraction and good humour help prevent or alleviate anxiety situations. In addition to facilitating the shift of attention to problems, it contributes to relativizing their importance.
12. COGNITIVE TECHNIQUES
They help rearrange cognitive systems, modify people’s thinking, and correct harmful beliefs about demands and resources
13. COGNITIVE REORGANIZATION
It tries to show ways and steps that a person can use to change the way he sees and understands things. If how we act and feel depends on how we see a situation, it’s essential to have plans for redefining situations when the way we’ve been seeing them doesn’t help us adapt the best way. So, this technique aims to replace negative interpretations of a situation with more positive ones, leading to better feelings and actions.
14. MODIFICATION OF AUTOMATIC THOUGHTS AND DEFORMED THOUGHTS
Automatic thoughts are spontaneous and specific to each individual. They are elaborated on without previous reflection or reasoning, although considered rational. They tend to be dramatic, absolute, and very difficult to divert. The mode of intervention for modifying these thoughts consists of indicating to the subject that he should keep a record of the ideas that arise in his everyday life and try to evaluate to what extent he considers that they reflect the position he has lived.
Another stressful idea is deformed. . They tend to relate all objects and situations to themselves, to use schemes of generalization, magnification, and polarization in interpreting reality, etc. The intervention in this type of thinking consists of accurately describing the situation, identifying the distortions used to solve it, and eliminating them by modifying them through logical reasoning.
15. STOPPING THE THOUGHT
This technique is meant to change negative, repeating thoughts that make you feel bad (like anxiety). They do not contribute to looking for practical solutions to the problem but rather make it difficult. The arrest of thought works like this: when a series of negative, repeating thoughts come up, you should try to stop them and replace them with more positive reviews to take control of the situation.
16. PHYSIOLOGICAL TECHNIQUES
In stressful situations, the body usually responds with solid physiological reactions. These responses make the person feel very uncomfortable and change how the person thinks about the situation and acts to control it.
17. ASSERTIVE TRAINING
This technique develops self-esteem and avoids the stress reaction.
It teaches people how to be more assertive and express their feelings, demands, and needs freely, clearly, and unambiguously. The goal is for each person to reach their goals while respecting other people’s points of view. The execution of this technique is carried out through role-playing practices.
18. TRAINING IN SOCIAL SKILLS
It involves teaching people how to act in ways that are more likely to help them reach their goals and keep them safe in social situations.
19. PROBLEM-SOLVING TECHNIQUE
Unsolvable situations cause problems. Repeated failure to solve a problem causes chronic discomfort, anxiety, and helplessness, making it difficult to find new solutions. Through problem-solving techniques, we help the individual decide the most appropriate responses to a situation. This technique consists of several steps:
- Identification and description of the problem clearly, quickly, and accurately
- Look for possible answers or solutions to the problem by looking at it from different angles.
- Analyzing and weighing the pros and cons of each possible answer to determine the best way to solve the problem.
- Selecting and implementing its steps.
- Evaluation of the results obtained when carrying out the chosen solution
20. COVERT MODELING
This method tries to change destructive behaviour patterns and teach good ones instead. The subject practices the steps of the behaviour he wants to do so that he feels confident that he can do it in his mind and then do it in real life.
In conclusion, the greatest method to manage stress is to build the skills, talents, and attitudes to employ the techniques above. This will help us live more peacefully and, most importantly, keep us from getting many chronic diseases. Of course, I don’t forget Gandhi, who said, “education is the most powerful weapon to change the world.”
