Individuals experience stress in the process of carrying out their daily activities. Stress cannot be escaped as long as we continue to live and interact with others but what varies among humans is our view of what can lead to stress and our response to these stressors. What then is stress?
Stress refers to an individual response toward imagined or real threats. It can also be seen as an individual’s reaction to any undesirable mental, physical, emotional, or environmental demands. It is an umbrella term that encompasses physical strain/trauma, burn-out, fatigue, negative emotions, wear and tear, etc.
Stress can either be internal e.g. choice of a life partner, choice of outfit, illness, need to be perfect, negative self-talk, unrealistic expectations, or external such as workload, balancing a career and family, meeting deadlines, planning events, relationship issues, pollution, noise, war, joblessness, natural disasters among other
Stress can be positive and this helps us to concentrate, focus, brings new awareness, energy, and ideas to perform tasks but when an individual is extremely stressed and becomes an everyday occurrence, it affects them emotionally, physically, mentally, socially, and psychologically and even one’s health is at stake more especially if it is not well managed. Such an individual finds it difficult to perform tasks, achieve set goals, and may not be able to function as a normal self.
An individual can be to be stressed when experiencing burn-out, fatigue, exhaustion, weight loss or gain, forgetfulness, headache, concentration issue, tension, insomnia, irritation, anger, excess sweat, etc.
Effective stress management helps us be more productive and promotes a healthier and happier life and this can be achieved by adopting the following ways:
- Get support from loved ones.
- Take a break whenever you feel tired.
- Go on vacation.
- Be patient with yourself.
- Delegate tasks to others who are capable.
- Take a lot of water and fruits.
- Break tasks into bits.
- Make time for fun and relaxation.
- Learn to prioritize tasks.
- Know your strength limit and do not work beyond it.
- Determine to be happy always no matter the problem.
- Do not keep problems to yourself.