Stress management

Are you finding it difficult to relax, feeling rushed, and letting stress rob you of your joie de vivre?Our constant race against time is particularly widespread:

What is stress anyway?

The term “stress” derives from English and means emphasis – but also pressure or tension. The underlying Latin word  “stringere” means “to tighten.”

The term “stress” actually originates from materials science, where stress refers to material fatigue caused by tension or pressure on a material.
Hans Selye, an Austrian-Canadian physician and biochemist (1907-1982), originally coined the term for materials, later also in a much broader physical context as “the study of the adaptation syndrome for stress-induced bodily reactions.”

Stress is the “non-specific reaction of the body to any demand.”
This can mean, for example, that you start to sweat, that you have an increased urge to urinate, or that your blood pressure rises.

In contrast, stressors are those stimuli that cause or trigger stress (such as a customer who complains, traffic jams, tax returns, or conflicts with your partner or boss).

What methods are there for coping with stress?

There are numerous methods for coping with stress – they range from sports and yoga to relaxation exercises and massages to meditation. In addition, there are various approaches that work on an emotional or mental level and bypass the “head”: Examples include introvision according to Prof. Dr. A.C. Wagner and EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) according to Dr. Francine Shapiro; as well as wave riding according to Vivian Dittmar.

Another proven and exciting approach that works on several levels and for which courses are offered in almost every major city is MBSR (Mind Based Stress Reduction).

Which stress prevention methods help?

When we experience stress, the sympathetic nervous system reacts. The release of cortisol (the so-called stress hormone) and adrenaline puts the body into a state of tension and our senses into a state of high concentration. However, too much of a good thing causes a state of alarm.

In short, anything that helps maintain the balance between the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems (the nerve pathways responsible for calming and relaxing the body) is helpful.

Someone who has this inner balance and inner equilibrium is often described as “at peace with themselves” or “centered.”

Such a person is considered balanced, calm, serene, and clear-headed.

The following ideas and methods are helpful in achieving this:

– Light (!) exercise (walking, jogging, swimming, cycling)

– Yoga

– Meditation

– Breathing techniques

– Walks (ideally in nature)

– If possible, regular visits to the forest (the Japanese even have their own expression for this –
“Shinrin Yoku” literally “taking a bath in the atmosphere of the forest,” i.e., “forest bathing”!)

– Regular reflection and doing neither “too much” nor “too little”

There are many methods of stress prevention – in any case, physical approaches are recommended; they are most effective (or to put it another way: most blockages often manifest themselves in the body).

How does exercise help with stress management?

There are also different types of exercise: Of course, it’s okay if you want to “work out” sometimes, but when it comes to (sustainable) stress management, lighter sports are much more suitable: They lower blood pressure and pulse rate and cause the release of dopamine and serotonin, which – at least in this natural (!!) way – lead to feelings of happiness and joy and to the breakdown of cortisol and noradrenaline or adrenaline, which trigger stress symptoms.

Stress management in the workplace

How important is stress management in the workplace?

A basic distinction must be made between eustress and distress. The former can be very positive and actually spur us on to peak performance.

It is the second type that causes difficulties: stress in the workplace has been proven to reduce work effectiveness and often interacts with anxiety. Something becomes “tight” (same root word as “fear”!), affecting free breathing and causing clear, concentrated thinking and working to fall by the wayside.

Stress management in the workplace means constantly looking for the right balance in terms of the quantity and quality (degree of difficulty) of tasks. 

Ideally, a job and its tasks should be geared towards your inclinations and strengths (or you may not be in the right job – link to → Career reorientation!).

Put positively, stress management measures in the workplace can have an extremely positive effect on employee motivation and contribute to a good working atmosphere.

What strategies are there for stress management and what is
cognitive stress management?

Simply and briefly put, cognitive stress management means: “From the head, with the help of thinking.”

The word “cognitive” comes from the Latin cognoscere, which means to recognize:
It refers to knowledge, thinking, and understanding.

Two of many examples of cognitive stress management can be found below in “What is a cognitive technique for stress management?”

What is emotional stress management?

In contrast to the purely cognitive approach, this involves incorporating other levels as well. Addressing and reaching these “emotional” levels is not so easy, as unfortunately our minds tend to constantly “interfere.”

Such approaches include working with the EMDR, introvision, and “wave riding” [an ingenious
technique, which allows mind and emotions to get into a dialogue with one another], which often allows us to get to the bottom of things even though our minds are still “switched on.”

Another valuable bridge between the mental and emotional-psychological approaches to stress is the physical aspect: light exercise, yoga, dynamic meditation, and MBSR (Mind Based Stress Reduction) can be enormously helpful.

 Good emotional and mental stress management begins with allowing yourself to deal with issues differently—a step that can already loosen or even dissolve many of the blockages.

 
What is individual stress management?

… in-dividual does not mean indivisible—another Latin root! It is about the fact that we are all unique beings: I strongly recommend that you take this to heart and appreciate it for yourself. What does that mean in this context?

If you are wondering what your individual stress management could and should look like, then take the liberty of seeing yourself as a “whole” – the methods and approaches that are effective for you and the type of help or support that is helpful to you will be very different from those of others.

And—as surprising as it may sound—when you recognize and value yourself as an individual, you have already taken an important first step.
This also includes truly accepting everything that is there—this also applies to anger, for example.

Simply accepting what is there NOW leads to more serenity.

So put together your own personalized stress management program and find the components that are right for you! 

Healthy stress management will always be aimed at restoring inner balance.

What is a cognitive technique for stress management?

There are a number of effective techniques for managing stress—including on a mental level. Most of them use the power of imagination. Two particularly effective and quick-to-implement techniques are the zoom and slow motion techniques, both of which are also very helpful for anxiety:

Zoom technique

Observe yourself and the entire stress-inducing situation from the outside as far as you can. Then “zoom” out so that you can see the whole scene getting smaller from a height of five, then ten, then a hundred meters (and suddenly a lot of the surroundings come into view). Pay attention—with interest and curiosity, but without interfering—to your feelings and what is changing.

Slow motion technique

This works in a similar way and is particularly suitable for scenes that your mind presents to you, i.e., non-real images and, so to speak, video snippets of futures that part of you may fear, which your mind produces.

When this happens, slow down the sequence of images to slow motion!

If you want to enhance the effect, describe exactly what is happening!
Very quickly, the horror of the images and “videos in your mind” will be significantly reduced.

Try it out for yourself! If you watch a horror movie or psychological thriller at a very slow speed and, if possible, turn off the sound, certain scenes will seem grotesque or even silly, but no longer threatening.

These are just two examples of cognitive techniques for stress management: in any case, it is advisable to supplement them with physical techniques.

What are internal stressors – examples?

Internal stressors are triggers that our mind, our thinking apparatus, “produces.” It tells us a story and, of course, wants us to believe the story at all costs, using downright narcissistic manipulation methods.

Such a chain of thoughts is almost always accompanied by emotions: pseudo-feelings triggered by thoughts, which, however, come across as deceptively real and tend to magnify the effect of the story.

What are internal and external stressors?

Internal stressors arise from thoughts and chains of thoughts.

These, in turn, are controlled by the sum of the beliefs and imperatives that we carry around with us. They were formed very early on, but in most cases, as adults, we fail to ask ourselves whether they still suit us or whether it is time to make other decisions for our lives.   

Such a chain of thoughts is almost always associated with emotions that are also triggered by it (!), see above.

External stressors can also dissolve these inner stories – however, they are then “triggered” by external stimuli. In short, we can use the acronym VAKOG, which is familiar from NLP (Neurolinguistic Programming):

V = Visual stimuli trigger something in us

A = Auditory stimuli, something we hear triggers a chain of thoughts or an inner story

K = Kinesthetic sensations that trigger feelings, touch, and contact

O = Olfactory influences, i.e., smells that may evoke old memories

G = Gustatory impressions – a taste that evokes old images or stories.

Resilience and stress management

What is resilience and what is stress management?

From my point of view, it is ideally a companion that helps you find a good way of dealing with stress in your life – perhaps even a new way of dealing with your life itself – on several levels.

Resilience: The secret of inner strength

Resilience can be a secret of inner strength – but to achieve this, it is necessary to understand the term correctly, or rather, to implement it correctly.

Resilience as a pure method that “adds something extra” so that we can ‘endure’ even more and “function better” is, to say the least, not a good idea. This often ends up with us continuing to repress things and suppress them even more deeply, and possibly even more strongly than before.

And it often triggers feelings of guilt – because we should now be “functioning better”, but we are not. When this is combined with the so-called “school of positive thinking” (you just have to see things positively, then everything will be fine), it creates a conflict that is not good for us and, above all, is not in line with our nature.

If, on the other hand, resilience is seen more as a program or training for greater awareness, if we have the courage to look at things “as a whole,” including our (previous) way of reacting to them, then it becomes more of an exciting concept.

When are you not resilient?

You are not resilient at all if you more or less let everything “affect you” and also consider everything to be personally relevant: for example, external developments or events are perceived as immediately threatening, and you make your own well-being dependent on issues that you have virtually no influence over.

Who is highly resilient?

Someone who is highly resilient can be both: A perfect repressor or a person who has learned to consciously distinguish between what is within their immediate sphere of influence and what does not concern them at all and takes place outside of it; the latter does not preclude feeling compassion for, for example, war victims or people dying of hunger.
Or – much more importantly – for misfortune that takes place in the immediate vicinity.

Is resilience a strength?

Resilience can be a strength – there are wonderful linguistic images for this, such as “the rock in the surf” – but it tends to become a weakness when we push away what is hidden within us and consider it “not belonging” to us.

Then our demons continue to wreak havoc and we wonder why, despite perhaps various resilience training courses, we still don’t feel any sense of well-being and why we still can’t seem to find any joy in life.

How can we strengthen our resilience?

The simplest and quickest approach is to start by writing down everything that causes stress in your life. In addition, note in a separate column what emotions this triggers in you.

In a second step, decide which of these points are within your immediate sphere of influence and what exactly you can do about them now, or which points you have little or no influence over.

The third step is actually about making an inner decision: Do you want to continue to let things beyond your control influence you and spoil your mood and quality of life? Simply following these three steps consistently can significantly strengthen your resilience.

What role does resilience play in stress management?

As explained above, resilience can play a very valuable role in stress management, provided that it is not about suppressing issues but about becoming more aware; if you can welcome everything internally and at the same time know that it does not have to overwhelm you when you surrender to your life, then you are on a very promising path. “Bouncing back” (i.e., being resilient) is then more about realizing that you don’t have to take everything personally, or at least less and less.

Stress management with the Red Thread

With the Red Thread, we approach the topic holistically – we talk about what stressors there are in your life and how you can deal with them.

And we look at the ways you have dealt with stress so far – how do you feel about the ways you have dealt with stress in the past? Do they promote joie de vivre? Or rather not?

The mere fact that you are engaging with these texts means that you are reflective – appreciate yourself for that! Because you are clearly not really happy with this permanent state of tension within you!

And (probably) you are not looking for an “aspirin solution”, but for something that goes deeper.
Stress management with the Red Thread is a great opportunity for personal growth and—if you like—
I would be happy to accompany you on this journey in a holistic way.
And if you would like to explore all of this in more depth and would like some support, then write to me:   hh@roter-faden-coaching.de