Healthy Way To Deal With Stress

Is there a way to avoid stress? No. Is there a way to deal with it in a healthy way? Yes!

We cannot predict everything, we cannot control a lot of things. Sometimes we need to face the difficulties. And it is better to be prepared. Of course there could be different causes of stress, but there are some actions that you can take to deal with more or less any situation. It's like with lifting the weights: if you do it all the time your muscles become stronger. The same way you can prepare your brain to the stressful situation so you can think more clearly and solve the problem faster.

There are some things that you can apply right after stressful situation took place, and the number of things you have to work on constantly, day by day.

Here is my "fight-your-stress cheat-sheet":

1. Healthy Lifestyle. I don't know how about you, but I can clearly see the difference the way I can handle stress when I am not tired, slept well, not hungry and without any major physical pain. I even noticed that I get more negative and upset after eating junk food. And if I didn't get enough sleep everything becomes annoying. So if you want to be resilient you definitely need to take care of your health. Think of a healthy diet, exercises, try to sleep for 7-8 hours or take a nap during the day.

2. Meditation. I didn't believe in power of meditation before I started practicing it. And it took me about a year before I noticed how I could separate myself from my thoughts. So if you tried and it didn't work for you, you might tried not enough. I cannot even describe how helpful meditation is. I think it is one of the best "pill" from suffering, it is easy, doesn't require a lot of time, and super effective. If you can detach yourself from your own thoughts and look at the situation from the side without involvement of strong negative emotions, you can avoid consequences of stress. You basically can just sit through it, noticing how it goes away little by little. By the way, sometimes I replace a nap with 2 minutes meditation and it helps me to feel better.

3. Positive Habits. I have couple of things I am doing on daily basis. I learned about them from online course about positive psychology "21 Days to a Happier Life" created by Shawn Achor. You can google it if you want to find more details. One of the exercises that Shawn recommends is to write down three things you are grateful for today. I do it every night before I go to sleep. If you just say that you are grateful for your health, it won't help. You need to scan your day and find something that happened in the past 24 hours and be very specific. Because you need to train your brain to focus on positive events. And after that I do another exercise: I write down a short story about the most pleasant event which happened to me today. And I live through this moment again and double my pleasure! So I train my brain to be focused on the good things happening in my life.

4. Experience. When you are facing some painful situation try to think of something similar from your past experience and remember that in the end of the day you survived! Usually we are stressed because we are afraid of something. And fear is good when it helps us to avoid dangerous situations. Bun nowadays most of the times we are afraid of something that actually not so dangerous. And most of our fears we can describe as "I can't deal with that". But is it true? You already went through so much difficulties in your life, you had so much painful events. And you were able to go through them and laugh again, and get rid of this pain. So why do you think that now you cannot overcome difficulties? You can do it!

5. List of Pleasures. Write down the things that can help you to distract yourself from negative thoughts. It is not my favorite solution, I prefer to sit through the pain and see how it goes away. But sometimes if I am tired distraction can be useful. It is better to include the things that will put your mind into focused mode. Better come up with 25-30 different options. I have playing piano in my list, reading a book (non-fiction), watching some online class or science related documentary, yoga, talking to someone. I would not recommend to have any type of drugs or alcohol in this list. Maybe just glass of wine. If you start to use drugs you can put yourself into the vicious cycle and turn your stress into long-term depression with addiction. Remember that pleasure develops habits. And once you create a habit you don't think of outcome. So try to avoid destructive pleasures. Remember about #1 of this list - health is crucial!

6. Curiosity. This is almost the same as meditation and being mindful. Try to think of stressful event as of adventure or learning opportunity. I think asking the right questions might help. For example: what can I get from this situation? What can I learn? How can it help me to grow? How do I feel about it and why? I noticed that I get stresses because of hormones sometimes. Unfortunately I cannot do anything about that but wait. But knowing that helps me to avoid scandals and drama. Usually when I become the prisoner of the chemistry in my brain I just accept it and cry. It actually helps! It is better than starting the fight with your partner or your boss. Anyway, when you start to think about your problem as of learning opportunity and become curious about it, stress actually reduces. I can also add meaning in here. Try to find meaning of the event. Your meaning is your rescue.

7. Help. In my list of pleasures I mentioned "talking to someone". I want to add a little bit more details about this idea because it can be helpful, but and it can also make you even more stressed. It is better to avoid judgmental and negative people when you are sicking for help. Or people who just don't know how to help. Not everyone can listen to you. And not everyone can give a good advice. Not everyone have time for you. If you don't have a friend or a sibling who is capable of looking after you, talk to God, Universe or even yourself. It can sound weird but I did try to ask help from myself and it helped. And it is definitely better than contacting wrong person who just have no ability to take care of you. But if you have a person who is always there for you and can be not judgmental, be thankful and appreciate him!

8. Knowledge. I am sure my article is not the only one related to stress. Try to google, make a research on how to deal with difficulties. Maybe you can find something more specific. I read tons of books about happiness, resilience, mindfulness, etc. The more I know, the better I am prepared. Knowledge is a great power!

9. Decision. It is extremely helpful to make a decision. Our minds have a habit to think about thousands of options all the time. And these thoughts can run around our brains for hours, days, weeks and even years. Thinking about some unpleasant sensation becomes a non-productive habit. We just think and worry about something without solving the issue. But... Once you make a decision and stick to it you actually move on. You stop this unpleasant over-thinking. You are done!

10. Love! And love is the greatest power! I do believe that love wins all the battles. And it doesn't matter if it is love to your partner, your parents, your child, your dog, your country, your job, etc. When you are stressed think of the ones you love the most, you care about the most and think what is better for them: to see you upset and devastated or to see you curious, strong, positive and capable of love? Make yourself happy for others! Remember, if you want to be able to take care of someone you love, you need first of all to take care of yourself, your well-being, your emotional state.

As you can see, being ready for stress takes some time and efforts. And you still can be scared, angry or frustrated. But trust me, if you work on your brain every day, if you prepare yourself in advance and if you know how to act, you will reduce the amount of negative consequences dramatically and it will be easier to move on. Train your brain!

Be Strong And Love Yourself!

Image by photographer Alyona Milyutina