How to deal with daily stressful situations?

All of us experience stress. Stress is inevitable.

In fact, a little stress is not a bad thing. It stops us from being complacent and pushes us to meet deadlines. Pressure can be a motivational driver to push our boundaries and move out of the comfort zone. For me this works but on the flip side, constant stress is a problem and we all know the consequences it has on our physical and emotional well-being. The good news is, there are strategies we can deploy to manage stressful situations effectively. In this TED talk, Stanford University psychologist Kelly McGonigal says, how you think and how you act can transform your experience of stress. 

Here are 3 tips to help you deal with stressful situations:

1. Respond not react –

You may experience high stress when difficult situations or people set you off. The truth is that you cannot always control external events or what those around you say and do, but you sure can control how you respond. That’s a ‘choice’. The stress you experience depends on the choice you make in critical situations. It is at these salient times that you can be intentional about your response and exercise a deliberate choice so you are not sucked in the emotional drama. Choose to respond mindfully.

The key to responding mindfully lies in the art of self-management. Self-Management allows you to be mindful by creating a little ‘more space’ to respond in a measured and skillful way to situations or people you find challenging. In that space, you can switch from anger to emotional balance; from being tuned out to listening empathically. The goal is to self-manage at the point of trigger ‘before’ the behavior itself so you can rip off your emotional chain reaction that leads to stress. Self-management is the key to effectively manage your thoughts and responding mindfully before the default knee-jerk reaction.

2. Reflect –

Maintain a trigger log. Take a note of your triggers, your reactions, strategies that work and that doesn’t. Reflection is a very powerful exercise to bring more awareness to your triggers, behavior and the impact it has on you and on others. This process gives you important pointers for course correction. Reflect and review is a useful tool to spot your triggers and plan a course of action.

3. Renew –

Self Management helps to deal with stress in the moment but wouldn’t you agree that ‘Prevention is better than cure’? One long term strategy to manage stress is to renew by refilling your emotional tank periodically. According to psychologist Daniel Goleman, Emotional Intelligence guru, the way to do this is to increase the relative ‘amount’ and ‘variety’ of renewal activities compared to stressors. Choose renewal activities that are engaging and fun. Marilyn Paul’s book ‘An Oasis in Time: How a Day of Rest Can Save Your Life‘ has many insights on renewal. Engage in at least one activity daily that promotes renewal. Some of these are walking in nature, acts of kindness, practicing gratitude, yoga, painting etc.

 Finally remember what Kelly says,

When life is difficult, your stress response wants you to be surrounded by people who care about you. Stress gives you access to your hearts, the compassionate heart that finds joy and meaning in connecting with others.

Spend meaningful time with people who care about you.

With regular practice, its possible to identify and change our default reactive patterns and behaviors that don’t serve us well. Change often happens by taking small steps consistently. Think of small steps you can take to build a practice to Respond, Reflect and Renew so that you can deal with stressful situations skillfully.