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Reduce Stress
- What is stress?
- Recognising stress
- What triggers your stress?
- Controlling anxiety
- Tips to help you relax
- Breathing control
What is stress?
Stress is an everyday term that is used when you feel overwhelmed with the pressures of everyday life, or if you are faced with a situation that makes you feel anxious. - Stress is not always a bad thing. It is an inevitable part of everyday life and you need a degree of stress to make you perform well. Stress is your body's natural way of preparing you to deal with physical or emotional demands: good or bad.
- Stress triggers the release of adrenaline into the bloodstream which increases the heart rate and oxygen levels to the heart and muscles. These physical reactions help the body cope when faced with a 'dangerous' situation, but can also cause the symptoms that make you feel anxious and stressed.
Stress has not been proven to cause heart disease. However, when it begins to affect your health, e.g. tension pains in the neck or back, disturbed sleep or increased anxiety, stress can become a trigger for unhelpful behaviours such as smoking, drinking too much alcohol, eating poorly and not getting enough physical activity.
These behaviours can increase your risk of heart disease. To make the necessary lifestyle changes that may reduce your risk of heart disease it is important to be well motivated and to learn to reduce, and control, the amount of stress in your life and to recognise if you are down or possibly depressed.
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Recognising stress
If you have lived with a high level of stress over a long period of time you may not be aware of being stressed or your inability to relax.
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Possible physical symptoms include: |
Possible emotional problems include: |
Possible effects on behaviour include: |
| Headaches | Feeling irritable | Temper outbursts |
| Muscle tension or pain | Feeling anxious or tense | Over drinking and / or smoking |
| Stomach problems | Feeling low | Changes in eating habits |
| Sweating | Feeling of apathy | Withdrawing from usual activities |
| Feeling dizzy | Feeling low in self esteem | Being unreasonable |
| Bowel and / or bladder problems | Being forgetful and / or clumsy | |
| Breathlessness and / or palpitations | Rushing around | |
| Dry mouth | ||
| Tingling in body | ||
| Sexual problems |
Speak to your doctor if you think you might need some help.
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What triggers your stress?
Keeping a diary of when you feel most stressed or hassled can be a start to understanding how you cope with stress. This will tell you what kind of situation makes you feel a certain way. It is also helpful to try and think about how you reacted in certain situations:
- Did you feel yourself tense up?
- Did your emotions get the better of you?
- Did you do something to calm yourself down or make yourself feel better such as having a cigarette, an alcoholic drink or eating unhealthy food?
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Controlling anxiety
- Recognising a pattern in the way you behave can help you to look for other ways of coping with stress that are less harmful.
- Once you recognise your stress 'triggers' you can consciously try to relax in these situations by stretching tense muscles, breathing slowly and putting things into perspective.
- At work, take jobs in order of importance and try to plan ahead.
- Learn a relaxation technique or use exercise to help you relax.
- Watch your alcohol intake. Having a drink to calm your nerves can be the beginning of heavier and problem drinking.
- Learning breathing exercises and relaxation techniques can help.
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Tips to help you relax
Go to a quiet place. Get into a comfortable position with your arms and legs supported.- Close your eyes.
- Concentrate on your breathing. Take deep breaths through your nose and exhale slowly through pursed lips.
- Learn to recognise tension. Make a fist and squeeze your hand tightly. Slowly open your fingers and feel the tension leave. Your hand will feel lighter and relaxed.
- Now you can relieve tension all over your body simply by contracting and relaxing each set of muscles in turn.
- Every time you breathe out think 'RELAX'.
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Breathing control
This is a very simple way of learning how to breathe normally and restore normal breathing when you are anxious.
It involves gentle breathing using the lower part of your chest and stomach, with the upper chest and shoulders relaxed.
Practising breathing control and relaxation techniques when you are feeling calm and relaxed will help you to cope with stressful situations when they arise. If you become confident about how to use these techniques, it will be much easier for you to use them when you actually need them.
How to do breathing control
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