Stress is a psychological and physiological response that human beings develop naturally in situations of danger or threat, whether real or imagined.
This biological response is totally normal and at the dawn of our species it had an adaptive and survival function to which we constantly resorted and which, in many cases, still helps us today; Ultimately, the state of activation it induces us into better prepares us to react quickly to danger signals. Nevertheless, Nowadays it is easy to internalize patterns of behavior that predispose us to stress without this doing us any favors or even causing us unnecessary discomfort.
In order to manage daily stressful situations, scientific research has allowed psychologists to establish a series of general tips for prevention and management of excess stress although ultimately it is best to see on a case-by-case basis what works best.
What are the main keys that allow us to manage daily stress?
Below we present the main general tips that can help us manage excess stress properly.
1. Maintain a set of daily healthy habits
Physical health is linked to mental health ; If you don’t take care of your body, you will be more susceptible to stress because you will notice that everything is overwhelming you, that you don’t have the energy to face the challenges of everyday life. Therefore, you must incorporate healthy habits into your lifestyle based on eating what you need, sleeping enough and exercising regularly.
These habits cover all areas of a person’s daily life and range from proper nutrition, optimal personal hygiene and daily exercise to restorative sleep habits, that is, sleeping the hours necessary for the body to rest.
By maintaining these types of habits we will ensure that both our mind and our body are well cared for and function correctly.
2. Strengthen weekly organization
The people who organize their daily lives the most are those who tend to have fewer anxiety or daily stress problems, since They know at all times what responsibilities they must attend to at all times.
Keeping an agenda in which we can see all the obligations we have to take care of every week will help us be more diligent and productive, and will help reduce our stress levels.
3. Set priorities
Psychological professionals recommend that to deal with cases of stress that may appear during the day we must clearly establish what our priorities are.
This advice is related to the previous one, since It has to do with the way we organize our daily lives and it consists of being clear about what things are urgent and must be done immediately and what tasks can wait a little longer to be done.
This will help us be calmer, knowing at all times what is most urgent and what responsibilities have a lower degree of urgency.
4. Promote interpersonal relationships
People who maintain a busy social life are those who generally show lower levels of stress and worries in their daily lives.
That is why We must prioritize those interpersonal relationships with people who truly fulfill us that makes us happy and whose mere presence helps us recharge our batteries and forget about all our worries for a few hours.
These special people can be family, close friends or our partner, the important thing is that it is someone with whom we feel comfortable and with whom we can share all kinds of confidences.
5. Dedicate time to exciting projects and hobbies that connect with you
Just as interacting with people who are dear or significant to us will help us reduce stress levels, spending some time on activities that generate pleasure and well-being. through a system of short, medium and long-term incentives It is also one of the best ways we have to overcome daily stress.
This will help us experience intrinsic motivation associated with a process of constant improvement and learning, generating a context that allows us to both release tensions and reinforce our self-esteem.
The important thing about spending quality time with ourselves is to satisfy some of our needs and realize those activities that make us happy and help us fulfill ourselves as human beings.
Some of these activities can be self-study by reading books, playing sports, dedicating ourselves to artistic activities, etc.
6. Carry out new experiences
Living new enriching experiences helps us increase self-esteem, feel better about ourselves and ultimately be happier in life.
These new experiences test our skills and offer us new knowledge, in addition to serving to divert attention from all those ideas or problems that generate daily stress.
Some of the new experiences that we can incorporate into our daily lives are learning new languages, studying knowledge or skills that may be interesting to us, or participating in all types of sports competitions that motivate us.
Emotional management techniques are strategies that allow us to minimize the negative effect of the emotions that confront us daily and adopt more adaptive ways to live in an environment that can generate stress.
These techniques can be learned and trained with relative ease and some of the most common are: analyzing the usefulness of thoughts that generate stress, assessing whether we have a thinking model that is too perfectionistic, differentiating the possibility of something happening from the probability and learning to say “no” to certain things. .
8. Learn relaxation techniques
Likewise, relaxation techniques help us find states of stillness, tranquility and emotional balance on a daily basis, which allows us to overcome states of excessive stress.
Some of the most common relaxation techniques that we can apply in our daily lives are yoga, meditation, conscious breathing, Mindfulness and progressive muscle relaxation.
You may be interested: “7 easy relaxation techniques to combat stress”
9. Go to therapy
Going to therapy is the best way to learn to manage stress; Therefore, if you notice that this type of discomfort affects you very intensely or you have been suffering from it for months, it is the measure you should take to ensure your mental health. Ultimately, it allows you to have personalized professional support adapted to your needs and way of life.
In addition, a psychologist will also help us treat any other psychological or emotional alteration associated with excess stress or even causing it.
Do you want to have professional psychological assistance?
If you want to go to a psychologist to learn how to manage stress or anxiety, contact our team of professionals.
In Cribecca Psychology We can assist you in person at our center located in Seville, or through online therapy by video call.
