Having some difficulty coping with stress?

Coping with stress can be very difficult, especially for people who don't have very good emotional health to start with. Stress takes its toll on your body – weakening your immune and other systems and making it harder to sleep and eat right. It also takes its toll on your mind, making it more likely you'll revert to negative thought patterns and become overwhelmed. Working on your emotional health takes effort, and when you're stressed it can feel like you simply have none to give.

Some stress is useful and helps keep you motivated, but too much can impair your judgment and concentration, as well as make you feel depressed, agitated, irritable, and just plain terrible.

Why do you feel stressed?

Different people are stressed by different things, but there are a few common biggest causes of stress. In general, people feel stressed when they view the situation as more threatening than they think (or worry) that they can handle. This is why different people get stressed by different situations – no matter what the situation (positive or negative), if you think you're not prepared or not skilled or too weak, you will become stressed by it.

For example, some people are very stressed at parties and networking events where you're supposed to meet people, whereas others get excited by the prospect of meeting people. People can really want something (e.g. a promotion, to be married, to travel) but when they get it some thrive and some just feel stressed – the difference is that the ones who thrive were truly prepared and had the skills necessary to deal with the challenge.

Of course, some situations will be stressful to anyone – but these are situations like disasters or traumatic events that nobody is ready to handle. Learning skills for coping with stress more effectively will help you when disaster strikes, but the focus here will be on more common stresses.

Recognize when you need to use coping strategies for stress

Pay attention to how you feel when you're stressed over something – try to identify your early warning signs so you can take action then, as opposed to waiting until you're completely swamped and an emotional wreck. Maybe you start to withdraw and isolate yourself as your stress level rises, or maybe you start complaining about everything, or maybe your stomach gets upset. The sooner you can take action the better, so learn to recognize these signs and you can prevent many of the negative emotional effects of stress.

If you think that taking time to prevent getting stressed is taking time that you could have used to be productive, remember, you'll be more productive if you don't need to take time later to have an emotional breakdown or repair the damage from the bad decisions your overstressed mind made! In all seriousness though, coping with stress is more time consuming and difficult if you put it off until you are seriously struggling. While ignoring your rising stress levels might work in the short term, in the long run it will be damaging for you.

Tips for coping with stress

• Work on your emotional health before you get very stressed! Emotional resilience will help you to weather stressful situations with less difficulty, as will learning better general coping skills
• Change or avoid the stressful situation rather than just focusing on dealing with emotional stress. You can do something about many stressful situations – including extreme things like leaving your job or ending a relationship, but also including small things like saying no to unnecessary commitments, or avoiding taking part in other people's drama and gossip. Putting your own health first is important when coping with stress
• If the situation is necessary and can't be changed, you can still change the way that you respond to it. Express your feelings when you can instead of suppressing them. Try to be as optimistic as you can about the situation - remind yourself about the rewards for getting through this (e.g. a promotion, a stronger relationship, or a new skill) or about any positive aspects of the situation
• Stop putting energy towards maintaining your stress. Many people have a tendency to ruminate when they're stressed, which only makes them feel worse. If you can't put energy towards ending the source of your stress (e.g., getting work done), then at least put it towards something positive. Distract yourself if you need to, but don't feed your own stress by needlessly worrying
• Recognize the emotional effects stress is having on you and take care when making decisions. Stress really impairs your judgment – this is the time to realize you need to change something, not the time to make any major decisions. Wait until you have a breather before you make life-changing changes

There is a lot you can do to prevent stress and a lot of changes to your attitude you can make to lessen the impact of stress. If you're suffering from the effects of stress, learn how to deal with stress more effectively.

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