Stress Management | Reducing Anxiety

Stress Management and Anxiety

The reason to work on stress management is because the amount of stress you are experiencing will affect your anxiety problems. I see this frequently with my patients. If they are under a new or chronic stress, their panic attacks, social anxiety, generalized anxiety, and obsessive-compulsive disorder will worsen. Frequently, taking simple steps to reduce the immediate stress will have a large impact on the amount of anxiety you are having.

Stress is related to anxiety because with anxiety problems, a person generally has an issue with control. They feel they will lose control and have a panic attack on a bridge. They may feel they will be humiliated in a group with social anxiety, and they are worried about about controlling (preparing for) every bad thing that could happen with generalized anxiety. Stress makes one worry more. Too much stress impairs our ability to cope with situations. If we are already having problems, this makes the anxiety worse.

Stress Management: What Do You Need Help With?

• Do you feel overwhelmed often…never having enough time in the day?
• Have loved ones expressed their concern over your stress or anxiety symptoms
• Do you overreact to situations at home and work? Have regret about this later?
• Do you feel you under-perform at school or work?
• Do you have trouble talking with customers or do you receive complaints from them?
• Do coworkers complain about the way you interact with others at work?
• Are you a negative person? Depressed much of the time?
• If you are having any trouble with any of these, getting help with stress management would likely be helpful.

Stress Management: How Stressed Are We?

Stress management is the way we handle things that effect us emotionally or physically. According to The American Psychological Association “Stress in America” Survey  we don’t appear to be doing to well dealing with our stress. Only a third of Americans report dealing with stress well. Too many adults report having more stress than they think healthy for them. We feel our work is not helping us deal with both job and home responsibilities.

The study also noted that parents do not see their children being affected by stress. The interviews from children and teens tell otherwise. They are very aware of the stress their parents are going through and it affects them. Children and teens with stressed out parents respond to stress with sedentary behaviors rather than by engaging in an activity. (TV, Video Games, Internet). This in turn leads to obesity in children along with poor eating and health habits.

Stress Management : Signs of Stress

Here is a list of a the more common signs of stress people experience.

• Irritability: problems controlling anger
• Insomnia
• Simply unable to relax
• Headaches from muscle tension and jaw clenching
• Increased Heart rate and Hear Palpitations
• Body pains all over
• Diarrhea
• Trouble learning or accomplishing work tasks
• Not remembering things
• Low energy and fatigue
• Signs of depression
• Crying
• change in appetite and change of weight
• Increased use of alcohol or smoking or drugs
• Neck and back pain
• Trouble making a decision
• Trouble getting organized
• Withdrawal from others
• Low Self-esteem

Here is a longer list of the Signs of Stress.

Stress Management: What to do

The first place to start when employing stress management is to take the time to recognize stress is a problem for you. It is very easy to be under so much pressure and have so many time constraints, that one cannot examine the problem. The APA survery indicated the reason most people do not manage their stress is because they are too busy. Start by finding the best time during the day were you can concentrate on your stressors without getting interrupted. This could be late at night after the kids are in bed, early in the morinng, or finding a private corner during lunch. You just need to make a little bit of time.

Learn about how you and others respond to stress. Some people are better able to sense and interpret their emotions and that of others. This is called “emotional intelligence.” Many people have trouble with this and need guidance. This is where a good therapist comes in. There are good home courses to help with becoming aware of your own emotions and the emotions of those around you.

Get Physically Active : Exercise

Physical activity is the most helpful thing you can do for stress. Physical activity helps prevent or reduce obesity, it lowers blood pressure, improves you cholesterol, helps reverse depression, and improves self esteem. I would argue one will get more benefit from regular exercise than most medical interventions in medicine. The list of the health benefits of being physically active is endless.

Even small amounts of physical activity make an enormous difference over time. The problem most people have it they start a physical activity routine because they are feeling bad about their weight or health and increase the amount of activity too fast. Within 4-6 weeks they have gone back to their old routine. So how do you break this habit? Get more information about stress and exercise.

Managing Stress and Willpower

Many admit to a lack of willpower to do stress management. Willpower boils down to the motivation in doing the things you really want to do. Most individuals can make a brief effort to change something they dislike, but to sustain that change it takes more than the shear force of will. So what works better that willpower?

You have to make what you are doing fun and you want many rewards for what you are doing. If you want to exercise, find a specific sport you like rather than just going out and “running the miles.” If you find your daily TV routine steals your time, find something else you can do in that time that will make you happy.

Stress Management : Getting Organized

I know some people say they can live in chaos at home. I’m not one of them and I don’t believe most people like living in a messy home. If a house is in order and one can find things, you can recover hundreds of hours of lost time. How stressful is it when you can’t find what you are looking for?  Trying to find those financial documents? How many screwdrivers do you have? Do you dare look into that paperwork drawer that is filled to the brim?

Getting organized takes a prolonged effort in very small steps. If you try to do it all in one weekend, you’ll hate doing it and hesitate dong it again. How about setting aside 15 minutes each day to work on one drawer or project. Maybe an hour on the weekends. When we went through this process we spent 2-3 hours every other weekend at first. The process took me a few years. I am so much happier with less stuff an knowing where everything is located. Things we didn’t use were given away. Find more on getting organized.

Stress Management: Time management

I’m not much of a fan of complicated time management tools. However, if you are so busy these can be invaluable. My thoughts are if you have problems with time management, then you have too much on your plate an need to cut back. I like to be able to keep track of most events in my head which means I don’t have many.

I’ve done my share of time management programs and they can be helpful. I tried using the Palm Pilot, the schedulers on my computer, then online programs like google calendar. I keep coming back to the simple things. I keep a big calendar on the refrigerator for big events in the future and for that month. For the week I will put reminders in my Iphone which will give me an alarm. I usually have no more than 1 or 2 per week, the rest of the events I recall in my head. For the day, I will occasionally break out a notecard and write down the list for the day although lately I’ve been emails that sit in my inbox as a reminder. This takes all of 5 minutes. That’s all I do and I keep coming back to over the years. The point is, you don’t want to spend more putting information into your system than you get out.

You can find out more about becoming super organized if this is not good enough for your needs.

Stress Management: Why You Need To Reduce Stress

There are health and social problems that are related to stress:

• Obesity : Both Childhood and Adult
• Lowered Immune System
• Heart disease
• Skin problems: Rashes and Acne
• High blood pressure
• Menstrual problems
• Reports of stroke, kidney disease, and rheumatoid arthritis
• Children become sad and worried when parents are stressed
• Less activity and poor health
• Stress may delay women getting pregnant

Other Topics To Be Added Soon:

Time management | Anger management |How to Stop worrying | Stopping Relationship stress | Muscle Tension | Emotional Tension | Changing Your Thoughts | Ways to Quickly Lower your Stress |Resilience | Top Stressors | Relaxation Techniques for Anxiety |Signs of Stress|Stress Symptoms in Women

Other Resources for This Page On Stress Management

Stress Definition: Merriam-Webster

APA Survey Raises Concern about Health Impact of Stress on Children and Families 

Holmes and Rahe stress scale

Dr.Rich is a psychiatrist who writes about mental health related topics focusing on anxiety disorders and substance abuse on various blogs as he realizes anxiety and substance abuse occur together. You can find information about opioid dependence and Should You Get Off Suboxone. Skip to our other sections:

 

Anxiety Information | Panic Attacks| Social Anxiety| Generalized Anxiety