Ready for the New Year? 5 Key Areas for Self-Improvement [Stress Management]

This week's article opens with a little mental exercise. Take a few moments and think about how you manage stress. Don't worry about focusing too much on specifics. I imagine one of the first steps you take involves some sort of preparation or planning. This step is important and makes a big difference when working through stress. Likewise, reducing stress is most effective with a clear end point. And because there are numerous ways to manage stress, from breathing techniques to lifestyle changes, understanding the stress and its effect on you will lead to a clearer approach. Improving stress management requires this balanced approach so we can respond with the right tools. Otherwise, we run the risk of being overwhelmed and burned out by daily stressors and lack the energy to tackle bigger challenges and responsibilities.

At its core, stress is a response to strain on a system created by internal and/or external stimuli. In other words, stress is a general way of describing a challenge and the response to a challenge. There are physical stressors, cognitive/emotional stressors, social stressors, and financial stressors, to name a few examples. I believe the most common use of the word “stress” describes a mental health experience. As explored in the previous article, mental health can be understood as the combination and influence of our thoughts, feelings, wants/needs, and values/beliefs in our daily lives – also known as our experiences. Stress is a specific type of experience and contributes greatly to our mental health, so we will focus on understanding and managing stress in this way. Additionally, our focus on stress management will generate a few strategies and skills to practice in preparation for the new year.

Stress Management Simplified

Let’s dive right in by considering the following statement: “I am practicing my lines for the school play so that I do not forget them when it’s showtime.” Does your mind initially construct the specific situation, or do you automatically break down the concepts of preparation and stress? For most of us, our minds immediately went into storytelling mode. Maybe you crafted a hypothetical scenario detailing the situation or recalled an influential memory from your life. Either way, this storytelling part of us is a helpful starting point to understand a stressful experience. Another layer is the emotion conveyed by this statement. We may feel eager with anticipation, fearful of the outcome, or uncertain about what to make of the situation. Each feeling elicits a unique response to stress and helps us look ahead to what might occur. But what makes all this information useful?

For starters, this information expands our view to include both content and context – content being the information we gain from an experience and context being the meaning or story behind the information. In terms of stress management, the experience of stress is the content, and the reason for the stress is the context. Take note that the type of stress you are preparing for and managing can be unclear when exclusively focusing on content; so much so that you may be preparing for and managing an individual stressor while missing the larger pattern of stress (the context). This confusion can result in additional challenges, such as changes in self-esteem, anxiety, and the degree of “stuckness” you may feel. In the example, the individual stressor is performing in a school play, while the pattern may involve how the person responds to expectations about their performance. Determining whether the example is managed or mismanaged requires this additional context.

Begin with the End in Mind

A second point to consider when managing stress is the outcome. When you prepare to manage a challenge or stress, consider what the end result looks like. You can choose to generally reduce your stress, but you may not know how this reduction feels or what might be different about you. If your understanding of stress informs you about what is happening when stress is present, then the outcome becomes clearer by exploring patterns of stress and how you are affected. Two common patterns with stress management are the prevention of a bad outcome through behavioral change and working to change the perspective of an experience through a mindset shift.

Let’s return to the example. Preventing a bad outcome for the school play may involve practicing for hours every day until the lines are perfectly memorized. This practice increases the chances of delivering every line without error. However, the focus on not forgetting the lines may ultimately fixate the person on the technical delivery, which could leave the lines mechanical and unfeeling. This focus on technicality is useful for strengthening one aspect of the performance, but the experience is reduced to delivering the lines rather than improving the overall performance. Changing the perspective of the experience might involve considering the performance to be more than just the lines. Then, the person may focus on their facial expressions and other non-verbal aspects to deliver the lines regardless of remembering every single word. The performance is again strengthened by having flexibility, but this experience may create more focuses than the person can manage at once.

The patterns of preventing a bad outcome and working to change perspective are both useful for stress management. The mindset and subsequent behaviors look different within these patterns, though. Preventing a bad outcome stems from a viewpoint that focuses energy on limiting risk while prioritizing consistency in the present moment. Working to change perspective stems from a viewpoint that focuses energy on broadening an experience while prioritizing adjustment across multiple areas. Risk tolerance and flexible thinking, when combined, lead us to a balanced approach.

For Next Week...

Before concluding this article, another connection should be highlighted that extends stress management beyond the individual person. Stress management becomes enhanced by external support. Relationships with trusted family and friends reinforce the foundation for stress management by accessing shared experiences, having a safety net to rely on when unexpected challenges arise, and celebrating successful stress management with someone. A shoulder to lean on. It takes a village. The proverbial safety in numbers exists when others have your back. In couples, families, and single life, accessing your support system makes a difference when life becomes too much to handle.

Preparing for Peace

Big or small, life-changing or ordinary, stress is a constant part of our lives. Managing stress requires us to be familiar with our stress and the effect stress has on us. Remember that preparing for stress and improving management means understanding the content and context of a situation as well as the start and end points of our stress. We can manage stress in a reactive way, but this approach will create burnout and myriad other challenges. Developing a balanced approach to stress management means we have flexibility and respond to stress. Plus, seeking support, as necessary, to determine the best options for managing stress further fortifies us. May you find greater peace as January ends and less stress with a new month right around the corner!