Stress is a natural fact of life that all people who have ever lived have experienced at one time or another, from early man to the present day. Stress is the natural result of a changing world and life experience. It’s an unavoidable part of life and its range can be from the negative as in something not desirable, to the positive as in the joy of success or achievement. Stress is an internal experience provoked by external events. What matters is how you cope with this stress.

How we cope with stress determines the impact it will have on our lives. If we cope with stress in negative ways, such acting out on the world around us for example, then we will complicate that stress with even more stress. However, if we recognize stress as an internal experience, something that belongs to us, and learn to cope with it we can actually reduce the impact that it has on our lives. The question is, “What do we need to learn or do to cope with stress?” Let’s look at some answers to this question.

Identify Stressors and Coping Style

As we indicated earlier, everyone experiences stress. But those things that can cause us stress can be different from person to person. For example, a CEO may be less concerned about a promotion than the assembly line worker might be and therefore will experience advancement stressors differently. With this in mind let’s first make a list of those things in our life that cause us stress. For example, if work, school, bills, income or whatever else is causing you stress put these things on your list.

Just as stressors can be different from person to person, we can also cope with each stressor differently. For example, we might become more stressed about a divorce than we might for financial problems, or visa-a-versa. Nonetheless, these two stressors, when combined, impact our overall stress level. Now that we have a list of stressors we can examine how we are coping with them. If we are not acting on those things that are causing us stress then we might want to develop a plan of action to address them. If, on the other hand, we have done all we can at the present moment then we need to think about other ways to alleviate our stress.

Stress Management Techniques

Taking some form of planned action on something that is causing us stress is one way to alleviate our overall stress level. But sometimes resolving a source of stress can take time. When this is the case we need find other ways to keep stress at manageable levels. Here are some tips to help us accomplish that.

1. Find ways to relax. One effective way is with exercise. Stress is basically built up energy and exercise can help burn up that excess energy.
2. Avoid drugs and alcohol as a means to escape stress. This not to say a glass of wine or a beer can’t help you to relax, as they can. However, what is meant here is to avoid intoxication.  Also, monitor your caffeine intake as caffeine is a stimulant that affects the nervous system.
3. Our diet can affect our ability to respond to stress. If we are consuming too much sugar and fat for example, our stress level will be adversely affected, just like with caffeine. Good nutrition not only improves our health, but also helps us to respond more appropriately to daily stressors.
4. Get plenty of sleep each night. A tired body is more prone to experience stress at lower levels. If you have a hard time going to sleep maybe try reading or listening to some relaxing music.  

We have looked at stress and some ways of coping with it. There are many other ways besides what we’ve mentioned here, but this gives you a starting point upon which to build your own techniques to cope with stress.