Natural Health Buzz

The Secret to Coping with Stress

Products

After recognizing the factors that causes stress, an individual consciously or unconsciously reacts to manage the situation. This is called the mediating process.

Health experts say that cognitive appraisal and coping are very important mediators of stress. Appraisal and coping with stress are influenced by antecedent variables that include the internal and external resources of the person.

Coping with stress, according to professionals, consists of the cognitive and behavioral efforts made to manage the specific external or internal demands that tax a person's resources and may be emotion-focused or problem-focused.

Coping with stress that is emotion-focused seeks to make the person feel better by lessening the emotional distress felt.

Coping with stress that is problem-focused aims to make direct changes in the environment so that the situation can be managed more effectively.

Both types of coping usually occur in a stressful situation. Even if the situation is viewed as challenging or beneficial, coping efforts may be required to develop and sustain the challenge-that is, to maintain the positive benefits of the challenge and to ward off any threats.

In harmful or threatening situations, successful coping reduces or eliminates the source of stress and relieves the emotion it generated.

Physiological Means of Coping with Stress

The physiologic response in coping with stress, whether it is a physical stress or a psychological stress, is a protective and adaptive mechanism to maintain the homeostatic balance of the body.

Coping with stress is a cascade of neural and hormonal events that have short- and long-lasting consequences for both brain and body. A stressor is an event that challenges homeostasis, with a disease outcome being looked upon as a failure of the normal process of adaptation to the stress.

Stress or the potential for stress is ubiquitous; that is, it is everywhere and anywhere at once. Anxiety, frustration, anger, and feelings of inadequacy, helplessness, or powerlessness are emotions often associated with stress.

In the presence of these emotions, the customary activities of daily living may be disrupted. For example, a sleep disturbance may be present, eating and activity patterns may be altered, and family processes or role performance may be disrupted.

Stress management is directed toward reducing and controlling stress and improving coping. The need to prevent illness, improve the quality of life, and decrease the cost of health care makes efforts to promote health essential, and stress control is a significant health-promotion goal.

Here is a list of some effective means in coping with stress:

1. Promote a healthy lifestyle

An individual's personal resources that aid in coping include health and energy. A health-promoting lifestyle provides these resources and buffers or cushions the impact of stressors. Lifestyles or habits that contribute to the risk of illness can be identified through a health risk appraisal.

A health risk appraisal is an assessment method that is designed to promote health by examining an individual's personal habits and recommending changes when a health risk is identified.

2. Enhance coping strategies

Try to be optimistic about the outcome. Use social support. Use spiritual resources. Try to maintain control either over the situation or over feelings. And always try to accept the situation.

Other ways of coping included seeking information, reprioritizing needs and roles, lowering expectations, making compromises, comparing oneself to others, planning activities to conserve energy, taking things one step at a time, listening to one's body, and using self-talk for encouragement.

3. Learn relaxation techniques

Relaxation techniques are a major method used to relieve stress. Commonly used techniques include progressive muscle relaxation and relaxation with guided imagery.

The goal of relaxation training is to produce a response that counters the stress response. When this goal is achieved, the action of the hypothalamus adjusts and decreases the activity of the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems.

The sequence of physiologic effects and their signs and symptoms are interrupted, and physiological stress is reduced.

The different relaxation techniques share four similar elements: (1) a quiet environment; (2) a comfortable position; (3) a passive attitude; and (4) a mental device or something on which to focus the attention, such as a word, phrase, or a sound.

All of these things are boiled down to the fact that the way people cope with stress are directly dependent on the kind of stressors that affect an individual.

Hence, it is important that you know what your stressors are so that you can find the best way to cope up with stress.

Want more great herbal remedies? Get the eBook that you can download instantly with 47 Herbal Remedies Today!

Get Tips On Boosting Your Energy and Health Naturally With
The Natural Health Buzz Free Newsletter!