MANAGING TIME TO MANAGE STRESS
My life is hectic! I’m running all day – meetings, phone calls, paper work,
appointments. I push myself to the limit, fall into bed exhausted, and get up early
the next norming to do it all again. My output is tremendous; I’m getting a lot
done. But I get this feeling inside sometimes, “So what? What are you doing that
really counts?” I have to admit, “I don’t know.”
Friends, the ability to simplify means to eliminate the unnecessary, so that the
necessary may speak.
Managing stress is all about taking charge of your own life i.e. taking charge of your
thoughts, emotions, your schedule, your environment, your priority to the different task
you have to do and the way you deal with day to day problems. Before managing
stress first let us know what stress is:
Stress:
Stress is a normal reaction of the body to changes, resulting in physical emotional and
intellectual responses. In fact, the human body is designed to experience stress and
react to it. When you experience changes or challenges (stressors), your body
produces physical and mental responses. That’s Stress.
Stress responses help your body adjust to new situations. Stress can be positive,
keeping us alert, motivated and ready to avoid danger. For example, if you have an
important test coming up, a stress response might help your body work harder and
stay awake longer. But stress becomes a problem when stressors continue without
relief or period of relaxation.
Positive Stress – Taking things positively even when you’re stressed. Also called
Eustress, it has the following characteristics:
Motivates, focuses energy
Is short term
Is perceived as within our coping ability
Feel exciting
Improves performance
Negative Stress – Reacting quickly for things which could have been taken positively.
Also called as Distress, has the following characteristics:
Causes anxiety or concern
Can be short or long term
Is perceived as beyond of our coping ability
Feels unpleasant
Decreases performance
Can lead to mental and physical problems.
What happens to the body when there is stress?
The body’s autonomic nervous system controls the heart rate, breathing, vision
changes and more its built-in stress response, the “fight-or-flight,” helps the body face
stressful situations.
When a person has long-term (chronic) stress, continued activation of the stress
response causes wear and tear on the body. Physical, emotional and behavioral
symptoms develop. Physical symptoms of stress include:
Aches and pains
Chest pain or a feeling like your heart is racing
Exhaustion or trouble sleeping
Headaches, dizziness or shaking
High blood pressure
Muscle tension or jaw clenching
Stomach or digestive problems
Weak immune system
Stress can lead to emotional and mental symptoms like:
Anxiety or irritability
Depression
Panic attacks
Sadness
Often, people with chronic stress try to manage it with unhealthy behavior, like:
Drinking alcohol too much or too often
Gambling
Overeating or developing an eating disorder.
Smoking
Using drugs.
How is stress diagnosed?
Stress is subjective – not measurable with tests. Only the person experiencing it can
determine whether it’s present and how severe it feels. A healthcare provider may use
questionnaires to understand stress and how it affects our life. If you have chronic
stress, your healthcare provider can evaluate symptoms that results from stress. For
example, high blood pressure can be diagnosed and treated.
Identify the Source of stress in your life
Stress management starts with identifying the sources of stress in your life. This is not
as easy as it sounds. Your true sources of stress are not always obvious, and it is all
too easy to overlook your own stress-inducing thoughts, feelings and behaviors.
Further, you generally forget to identify the sources of stress, generated by you, due
to lack of desired skills / knowledge, in the discharge of your responsibilities at home
and work. If you critically examine these aspects and try to acquire the necessary
skills/ knowledge, you gain confidence, which empowers you to deal with the stress
generated by external forces.
Sure, you may know that you are constantly worried about work deadlines. But
sometimes it may be due to procrastination, rather than the actual job demands, that
is leading to deadline stress.
Think about the ways you currently manage and cope with stress in your life. Are you
using healthy or unhealthy strategies, helpful or unproductive strategies?
Unfortunately, many people cope with stress in ways that compound the problem.
How Can I Manage Stress Better?
Identifying unrelieved stress and being aware of its effect on our lives is not sufficient
for reducing its harmful effects. Just as there are many sources of stress, there are
many possibilities for its management. However, all require work toward change:
changing the source of stress and/or changing your reaction to it. How do you
proceed?
i. Manage your time better. Poor time management can cause a lot of stress.
When you are too stretched and running behind, it is difficult to stay calm
and focused.
ii. Focus on the positive. When stress is taking you down, pause for a
moment to reflect on all the things you appreciate in your life, including your
own positive qualities and gifts. This simple strategy can help you keep
things in perspective.
You can’t avoid stress, but you can stop it from become overwhelming by practicing
some daily strategies:
1. Become aware of your stressors and your emotional and physical
reactions
Notice your distress. Don’t ignore it. Don’t gloss over your problems
Determine what events distress you. What are you telling yourself about
meaning of these events?
Determine how your body responds to the stress. Do you become
nervous or physically upset? If so, in what specific ways?
2. Recognise what you can change / control
Accept that you can’t control everything. Find ways to let go of worry about.
situation beyond your control or you cannot change. Can you
change your stressors by avoiding or eliminating them completely?
reduce their intensity? So manage them over a period of time.
3. Reduce the intensity of your emotional reactions to stress i.e.
Are you expecting to please everyone?
Are you overreacting and viewing things as absolutely critical and
urgent?
Do you feel you must always prevail in every situation?
Work at adopting more moderate views; try to see the stress as
something you can cope with rather than something that overpowers
you.
Try to temper your excess emotions. Put the situation in perspective. Do
not labour on the negative aspects and the “what if’s”.
At the end of each day. Take a moment to think about what you’ve
accomplished – not what you didn’t get done
4. Learn to moderate your physical reactions to stress
Slow, deep breathing will bring your heart rate and respiration back to
normal.
Relaxation techniques can reduce muscle tension, heart rate, and blood
pressure.
Medications, when prescribed by a physician, can help in the short term
in moderating your physical reactions. However, they alone care not the
answer. Learning to moderate these reactions on your own is a
preferable long-term solution.
5. Build your physical reserves
Exercise when you feel symptoms of stress coming on. Even a short
walk can boost your mood
Eat well-balanced, nutritious meals
Maintain your ideal weight
Avoid nicotine, excessive caffeine, and other stimulants.
Mix leisure with work. Take breaks and get away whenever you can.
Get enough sleep. Be as consistent with your sleep schedule as
possible.
Conclusion:
How our thoughts shape our destiny has been beautifully summed up by his holiness
the Dalai Lama, as under:
“Take care of your Thoughts because they become Words.
Take care of your Words because they will become Actions.
Take care of your Actions because they will become Habits.
Take care of your Habits because they will form your Character.
Take care of your Character because it will form your Destiny.
And your Destiny will be your Life”
As your words/ thoughts are responsible for creating your destiny, your emotions play
an equally important role in managing stress. When you practice taking charge of your
thoughts, gradually you can move towards taking charge of your emotions as well and
in the process you can become ‘Emotionally Intelligent’ as well, and acquire the ability
to be aware of your emotions and the emotions of others and then use this knowledge
so that emotions foster instead of creating stress / roadblocks.
If you can master managing your work, you ultimately manage your time and
therefore live without stress.
The information in this mail is confidential and is intended solely for addressee. Access to this mail by anyone else is unauthorized. Copying or further distribution
beyond the original recipient may be unlawful. Any opinion expressed in this mail is that of sender and does not necessarily reflect that of State Bank group.
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