Stress is a result of unusual demands made on you. You respond to those demands and that response is stress – good or bad.

Stress Management tips provide ideas of how you can respond appropriately to demands. Some Stress Management tips tell how to avoid the unusual demands. They are proactive in nature. Other Stress Management tips tell how to respond properly to demands that have already been made. They are reactive in nature.

Proactive Stress Management Tips

The following proactive Stress Management tips will help you avoid many of the unusual demands you may be trying to handle in the workplace. Most of these Stress Management tips are related to time management. If followed, they may provide more than enough time to handle any demands that come your way.

1. Stop wasting time on the following: socializing with colleagues; personal phone calls; personal e-mail; surfing the Internet for personal reasons; computer games; procrastination; daydreaming; and primping.

2. Write out your priorities. List everything you are responsible to do on a regular basis and assign a letter to indicate priority: A, B, C with A as highest priority, C lowest priority.

3. Invest eighty percent of your time in A and B priority items.

4. Schedule specific time(s) when you will open and respond to e-mail. Do not look at e-mail during other times of the day.

5. Schedule specific time(s) when you will receive and return phone calls. Let the answering service take calls at other times.

6. Complete one task before moving to another.

7. Tie up loose ends. Treat every day as though it is the day before vacation and get things done before going home.

Stress Management Tips Put You in Control

Use of these Stress Management tips will put you in control of more of your day. You will accomplish more. Demands that once seemed unusual and stressful will be taken in stride.

Stress Management Tips Make You More Valuable

As you consistently use these Stress Management tips, your value to your employer will increase. You will be more reliable. You will be more responsible. You will be more productive.

Stress Management Tips Make You Healthier

There is no denying that bad stress (Distress) affects health negatively. Such stress is debilitating. It can lead to any number of physical complaints. By incorporating the Stress Management tips above into your life, however, you can actually increase your health.

Conclusion

If you are serious about reducing stress, try the Stress Management tips given here. You have nothing to lose.

To define Stress Management, one must first understand stress, the object of the management.

Define Stress

Stress is the body’s response to any unusual demands made on it, whether those demands are physical, mental, emotional, or spiritual.

Many misunderstand this, believing that stress is the demand itself. For example, you might here, “My boss gives me so much stress. She slapped two huge projects on my desk, and wants them both done sooner than I could do just one! That’s too much stress.”

The unusual demands of the two projects are viewed as stress, for which the boss is blamed. In reality, however, the stress is the employee’s response to the demands. The employee is responsible for his or her own stress.

Those unusual demands are called stressors, not stress.

Define Stress Management

We define Stress Management as you controlling your response to stressors. The opposite of Stress Management is to let stressors control your response.

You need not let stressors manage you. You can, and should, organize your life in such a manner that you control your response to stressors in the majority of situations.

Stress Management Steps

Below are three steps to Stress Management. These are ways that you can organize and control your response to a wide range of stressors.

1. Proactivity: Stress Management should be, first of all, proactive. That is, you should take “action” to prepare for response “before” a stressor arises. If you are a secretary, think through the stressors you have encountered in your past work. List them, along with your normal reaction to them. Then take time, as much as you need, to form a Stress Management plan that will let you respond in a positive manner to those stressors. Are there interpersonal problems? Your best Stress Management response might be a soft answer and a smile as you go back to your work. Prepare yourself to give a positive response, and you will experience Eustress - beneficial stress - rather than Distress.

2. Redirection: A second step toward Stress Management is redirection of your response. Suppose your usual response to a heavy workload has been to pity yourself and/or eat for comfort. Redirect that response with Stress Management. Choose consciously to feel good about yourself. Laugh at the workload. Challenge it to a duel, so to speak, and set yourself small goals toward its completion. You can soon experience Stress Management and the euphoria of Eustress.

3. Prevention: Stress Management was long an unknown in society, partially due to effective training in planning one’s time. In an agrarian society, farmers knew how to plan their work. They knew when to get up to get the livestock watered and fed. They knew how early or late to plant crops. They planned, understanding that unusual things might happen. Such life planning is a Stress Management tool that prevents many stressors that would otherwise occur. If you plan your work, you will not let a half hour of gossip put you in a position where any extra work will be a stressor. If you plan your studies, a last minute assignment will not be the stressor it would otherwise be.

Define Stress Management accurately, and then take steps to change potentially debilitating “dis-tress” into liberating, happy Eustress.

Whether they use the word or not, students are usually aware of stress in the daily course of academic pursuits. Some understand that stress is the response physically, emotionally, and mentally to unusual demands. Others believe the unusual demands on them are the stress.

Students can learn Stress Management techniques that will reduce stress, whether they have an understanding of it or not. The following 5 are basic.

Stress Management Techniques

1. Identify the enemy. Stress Management eludes the person who does not take time to see what is causing the stress. Think through a “normal” happy day that contains little stress. A normal day for a student might involve getting up and going to school with nothing to break the routine. Hair falls into place. Make-up, if worn, applies quickly and satisfactorily. The student arrives on time, and studies are routine. There are no waves on the sea of interpersonal relationships.

If that is normal in your life, then announcement of a difficult assignment or exam with a rapidly approaching due date would be an “unusual” demand. Your response to that demand is your stress. An argument with a friend can be another cause of stress if your response is to worry or get angry. Physical education class may make unusual demands on your body, causing stress. Begin Stress Management by identifying the cause of your stress (stressor).

2. Re-color the enemy. Some stressors can be changed - dressed in brighter colors. For successful Stress Management, you need to determine whether the stressor you identified can be re-colored. If it can be, grab your crayons as part of your Stress Management.

For example, an argument with a friend can be re-colored. You can go to the friend and apologize for your feelings of anger (red), whether or not you were at fault. If you were at fault, take the blame. Then talk softly enough and long enough to smooth the troubled waters (blue).

A rapidly approaching assignment will bow to Stress Management if you decide to take it as a positive challenge (sunny yellow) rather than an unwanted demand (dark brown).

3. Cut exaggeration. Many times, the response to stressors is exaggerated. Good Stress Management cuts down the exaggeration. Look at the mathematics assignment as it really is. It will not kill you! By breaking it down into skills you already possess and those you are learning, you can apply Stress Management to mathematics assignments.

4. Breathe deeply. Many Stress Management classes stress this technique. A large part of stress is preparing to fight someone or something - or to flee. The body’s muscles tense. They need extra oxygen, but stress often makes you hold your breath or breathe shallowly. Stress Management is often accomplished simply by breathing deeply and evenly.

5. Clench fists. You may have seen Stress Management balls or other rubber objects. They require that you clench and unclench your fingers. You don’t need an object to do this Stress Management technique, though. Simply clench your fists and then completely loosen them. Do this repeatedly and rhythmically for Stress Management.

The most effective Stress Management technique, but one that many people refuse or neglect, is prayer. Not everyone can use this Stress Management step, but those who can will benefit greatly as they commit their trouble to the Creator.