how to cope with stress essay 120 words

Essay on Stress Management

500 words essay on stress management.

Stress is a very complex phenomenon that we can define in several ways. However, if you put them together, it is basically the wear and tear of daily life. Stress management refers to a wide spectrum of techniques and psychotherapies for controlling a person’s stress level, especially chronic stress . If there is effective stress management, we can help one another break the hold of stress on our lives. The essay on stress management will throw light on the very same thing.

Identifying the Source of Stress

The first step of stress management is identifying the source of stress in your life. It is not as easy as that but it is essential. The true source of stress may not always be evident as we tend to overlook our own stress-inducing thoughts and feelings.

For instance, you might constantly worry about meeting your deadline. But, in reality, maybe your procrastination is what leads to this stress than the actual deadline. In order to identify the source of stress, we must look closely within ourselves.

If you explain away stress as temporary, then it may be a problem. Like if you yourself don’t take a breather from time to time, what is the point? On the other hand, is stress an integral part of your work and you acknowledging it like that?

If you make it a part of your personality, like you label things as crazy or nervous energy, you need to look further. Most importantly, do you blame the stress on people around you or the events surrounding you?

It is essential to take responsibility for the role one plays in creating or maintaining stress. Your stress will remain outside your control if you do not do it.

Strategies for Stress Management

It is obvious that we cannot avoid all kinds of stress but there are many stressors in your life which you can definitely eliminate. It is important to learn how to say no and stick to them. Try to avoid people who stress you out.

Further, if you cannot avoid a stressful situation, try altering it. Express your feelings don’t bottle them up and manage your time better. Moreover, you can also adapt to the stressor if you can’t change it.

Reframe problems and look at the big picture. Similarly, adjust your standards and focus on the positive side. Never try to control the uncontrollable. Most importantly, make time for having fun and relaxing.

Spend some time with nature, go for a walk or call a friend, whatever pleases you. You can also try working out, listening to music and more. As long as it makes you happy, never give up.

Get the huge list of more than 500 Essay Topics and Ideas

Conclusion of the Essay on Stress Management

All in all, we can control our stress levels with relaxation techniques that evoke the relaxation response of our body. It is the state of restfulness that is the opposite of the stress response. Thus, when you practice these techniques regularly, you can build your resilience and heal yourself.

FAQ of Essay on Stress Management

Question 1: What is the importance of stress management?

Answer 1: Stress management is very efficient as it helps in breaking the hold which stress has on our lives. Moreover, you can also become happy, healthy and more productive because of it. The ultimate goal should be to live a balanced life and have the resilience to hold up under pressure.

Question 2: Give some stress management techniques.

Answer 2: There are many stress management techniques through which one can reduce stress in their lives. One can change their situation or their reaction to it. We can try by altering the situation. If not, we can change our attitudes towards it. Remember, accept things that you cannot change.

Customize your course in 30 seconds

Which class are you in.

Travelling Essay
Picnic Essay
Our Country Essay
My Parents Essay
Essay on Favourite Personality
Essay on Memorable Day of My Life
Essay on Knowledge is Power
Essay on Gurpurab
Essay on My Favourite Season
Essay on Types of Sports

Download the App

How to Cope With Stress: 10+ Strategies and Mechanisms

If so, you might be stressed.

Stress is an inevitable part of life, affecting individuals in different ways. Some people thrive under stress, whereas others struggle. Our thresholds for how much stress we can endure differ from one person to the next.

Learning how to cope with stress is essential to ensuring that individuals maintain their physical and mental health. It is improbable to have a life completely free of stress, so we must learn how to cope.

In this post, we explore how to cope with stress using stress coping techniques. We will start with the psychological theories about stress and, from there, look at several methods, informal and formal, that can be used. Our goal is that readers should have a solid understanding of stress-management techniques that can be easily implemented.

Before you continue, we thought you might like to download our three Stress & Burnout Prevention Exercises (PDF) for free . These science-based exercises will equip you and your clients with tools to better manage stress and find a healthier balance in your life.

This Article Contains

How to cope with stress according to psychology, healthy coping strategies and mechanisms: a list, 6+ techniques your clients can try, 5 activities, prompts, and worksheets, stress-management skills for work stress, 3 questionnaires, tests, and inventories, resources from positivepsychology.com, a take-home message.

There are various psychological theories about coping with stress, and it is essential to understand these theories to manage stress effectively.

4 Theories about coping with stress

One of the most popular and widely accepted theories is the transactional model of stress and coping, developed by Richard Lazarus and Susan Folkman (1984).

According to this model, stress results from an individual’s assessment of the stressor, its threat, and whether they have the necessary cognitive and behavioral resources to manage the stressor.

Based on this assessment, our coping mechanisms and psychological responses to stress are triggered. The model suggests that coping strategies can be either problem focused or emotion focused.

Problem-focused coping involves actively addressing the stressor, while emotion-focused coping involves managing the emotions associated with the stressor.

The transactional model of stress was expanded upon into the workplace, where it’s known as the job demand–control theory and the job demand–control–support theory (for a review, see Häusser et al., 2010; Goh et al., 2010).

In this theory, two dimensions influence the experience of stress: workload/job demands and the degree of control employees have over work tasks. The combination of high demand and low control increases the likelihood of high stress. Social support within the office has protective properties that moderate the relationship between demand and control.

The protective qualities of social support were recognized in the social support theory, another theory about coping with stress (Cohen & Wills, 1985). In this theory, social support is crucial for managing anxiety, because it helps ease feelings of anxiety and helps develop solutions to stressful environments. Social support is not limited to only immediate family and friends but includes colleagues and health care professionals.

The conservation of resources Theory (COR; Hobfoll, 1989) is another stress coping theory. This theory developed from the starting point that people feel stressed when they do not think they have the necessary resources to combat stress. However, in COR, additional emphasis is placed on the objective resources that are also available. These resources can be tangible (e.g., money, a house) or intangible (e.g., our relationships, self-worth), and individuals experience stress when their resources are threatened, depleted, or unattainable.

This theory is primarily used to explain workplace stress , and some researchers prefer it over the transactional model of stress because it:

Is more practical and realistic
Places less responsibility on the individual who experiences the stressor to change their mindset to combat stress
Has predictive qualities (Hobfoll et al., 2018)

Why is stress management important?

Chronic stress can adversely affect an individual’s wellbeing and lead to mental health disorders like anxiety and depression (Hammen, 2005).

Therefore, developing good coping strategies has multiple beneficial outcomes (Cohen, 2004), including:

Reducing the negative impact of stress
Improving an individual’s overall quality of life by enhancing resilience
Improving their social support network, allowing them to seek help and support from friends and family during stressful times

Here we provide a concise list of methods that can be used to cope with stress.

Healthy coping strategies include exercise, relaxation techniques, social support, and Cognitive-Behavioral Therapies (CBT). Exercise has been shown to have numerous health benefits, including stress reduction, improved mood, and enhanced cognitive function (Sui et al., 2019).
Relaxation techniques such as deep breathing, meditation, and yoga have also been shown to reduce stress and improve mental health outcomes (Pascoe et al., 2017).
Social support, such as emotional and practical support from family and friends, can help individuals cope with stress (Cohen & Wills, 1985).
CBT helps individuals recognize and change negative thought patterns and behaviors, improving mental health outcomes (Hofmann et al., 2012).
Additional strategies that can improve mental and physical health are getting enough sleep, eating healthily, and avoiding alcohol (or consuming it in moderation). They do not impact stress directly, but they provide the scaffolding so individuals are better positioned to cope with stressful experiences effectively.

Besides these healthy coping strategies, there are several psychological techniques or mechanisms that individuals can use to manage stress.

One mechanism is problem-focused coping, which involves addressing the stressor directly through problem-solving strategies (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984).
Emotion-focused coping involves managing the emotional response to stress through strategies such as positive reappraisal or acceptance (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984).
Meaning-focused coping involves finding meaning or purpose in the stressor or the experience of coping with it (Park, 2010).

These psychological techniques can be used alongside healthy coping strategies to manage stress more effectively and maintain overall wellbeing.

Download 3 Free Stress & Burnout Prevention Exercises (PDF)

These detailed, science-based exercises will equip you or your clients with tools to manage stress better and find a healthier balance in their life.

Download 3 Stress & Burnout Prevention Exercises Pack (PDF)

By filling out your name and email address below.

Email Address *
Your Expertise * Your expertise Therapy Coaching Education Counseling Business Healthcare Other
Comments This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

Stress can have a significant impact on both our physical and mental wellbeing. Fortunately, there are several psychological techniques and physiological strategies that can alleviate stress.

One such technique is mindfulness-based stress reduction ( MBSR ). MBSR has decreased perceived stress, anxiety, and depression in individuals who practice it regularly (Carmody & Baer, 2009).
Similarly, practicing mindfulness meditation has been found to reduce stress levels and improve wellbeing (Hoge et al., 2013). Mindfulness exercises can include simple techniques, such as paying attention to one’s breath or body sensations, or more structured practices, such as body scans or mindful eating .
Another technique is CBT , which helps individuals identify and challenge negative thoughts and beliefs contributing to stress (Beck, 2011).
Additionally, relaxation techniques such as progressive muscle relaxation and deep-breathing exercises have been shown to reduce stress (Hennefeld & Battle, 2019).
Another technique is visualization, which involves imagining a calm, peaceful place or scenario to reduce stress and promote relaxation (Chafin & Ollendick, 2001).

Move your body to improve your mood

Physical exercise and activity have also reduced stress levels and improved mood and overall wellbeing (Craft & Perna, 2004). Physical exercise reduces stress by releasing endorphins, improving mood, combating depression , and improving physical health (Belvederi Murri et al., 2019).

One simple yet effective activity is to take a walk in nature. A study conducted by Bratman et al. (2015) found that taking a 90-minute walk in a natural environment reduced neural activity in the sub-genual prefrontal cortex, a brain region associated with rumination and negative thought patterns.

Although exercise can be completed alone, consider doing it with friends or family or joining an exercise group or club. This way, you get double the benefits: exercise’s mood-boosting effects plus social support’s protective benefits.

Consider formal social support groups

Finally, joining a support group or taking part in group therapy can also help build a sense of community and reduce feelings of isolation.

Cohen et al. (2015) found that individuals who received social support had lower levels of stress hormones in response to stressors than those who did not receive social support.

The ABC sheet

One commonly used activity is the ABC sheet , which is based on CBT and helps patients understand the relationship between their thoughts, emotions, and behaviors.

The name is an initialism:

Antecedent is the event or stimulus that activates thoughts.
Belief represents the perception or evaluation of that event.
Consequence is the emotional or behavioral reaction that follows.

With this sheet, patients learn to identify irrational thoughts, negative beliefs, and consequences.

Once patients learn how to recognize these beliefs and behaviors, they can also learn how to challenge them, resulting in more favorable emotional and behavioral outcomes.

The Core Values Worksheet

Another worksheet is the Core Values Worksheet . With this worksheet, the underlying premise is that if we behave in a way that is incongruent with our core values, then we will experience stress.

Therefore, to reduce stress, we must identify our core values and how to align our behaviors to achieve, preserve, and satisfy them. These behaviors should be incorporated into our daily lives, not just reserved for big, life-changing decisions.

In this worksheet, the client will list their top values and then identify specific actions aligned with them. In addition to helping clients identify primary values, the tool can also help them identify incongruous behaviors that can lead to stress.

Journal prompts

Journaling is a valuable method for reducing stress and identifying patterns of behaviors and thoughts. One of the most significant advantages of journaling is that it is easy to implement and cost effective. All you need is a pencil and a notebook.

Several journal prompts can be used for coping with stress. In fact, we suggest having a look at our gratitude journal article for ideas. However, to whet your appetite, here is a short list to start with:

Gratitude journaling: Write about three things you are grateful for each day to increase positive emotions.
Positive self-talk: Jot down some positive affirmations or statements about yourself. This can help combat negative self-talk and increase self-esteem.
Reflection on achievements: Write about a recent accomplishment to improve your self-worth.

World’s Largest Positive Psychology Resource

The Positive Psychology Toolkit© is a groundbreaking practitioner resource containing over 500 science-based exercises , activities, interventions, questionnaires, and assessments created by experts using the latest positive psychology research.

Updated monthly. 100% Science-based.

“The best positive psychology resource out there!” — Emiliya Zhivotovskaya , Flourishing Center CEO

For most adults, work is a source of significant stress. Unfortunately, it is a common occurrence that can lead to substantial physical and mental health issues if not adequately managed.

Developing stress-management techniques for work will improve not only wellbeing, but also productivity. Stress-management strategies for work include time management, physical activity, and mindfulness meditation.

Effective time management is a critical stress-management skill, and it involves organizing and prioritizing tasks to optimize productivity and reduce stress. For example, employees who manage their time efficiently are less likely to experience work stress (Frost & Stimpson, 2020).

To do this, individuals should set realistic goals and establish a schedule that allows them to accomplish their tasks without feeling overwhelmed. Other methods within employees’ control are to avoid procrastination and work without distraction.

For example, do not accept all tasks or requests that come your way, learn to say no or delegate, do the most difficult task first, and use a time-management system. One example of an effective time-management system is the Pomodoro technique , where you work for 25 minutes, take a five-minute break, and then after three cycles, take a longer break.

If employees do not determine their deadlines or tasks, which can be unrealistic or untenable, they should discuss these challenges with their managers or team leaders.

Employers can also significantly reduce work stress by implementing policies promoting a healthy work–life balance and providing stress-management training and support resources.

Physical activity is another critical stress-management skill that can help employees cope with work stress. Regular physical activity has been shown to reduce stress, improve mood, and increase energy levels by reducing stress hormones in the body (i.e., cortisol and adrenaline) and promoting the release of endorphins, which are natural mood enhancers (Salmon, 2018).

Physical activity can also improve cognitive function and help individuals make better decisions, which can reduce work stress (Stults-Kolehmainen & Sinha, 2014).

Other simple physical techniques that may help combat work stress include getting enough sleep, eating healthily and regularly, and avoiding alcohol (or consuming it in moderation).

Mindfulness exercises, such as mindfulness meditation, may also protect against work stress. Mindfulness meditation is a stress-management technique focusing on the present moment without judgment.

This technique helps individuals reduce stress by promoting relaxation, improving cognitive function (Schmidt et al., 2019), and reducing feelings of anxiety even in the workplace (Biegel et al., 2009). Mindfulness meditation can be easily performed in the office or a quiet workplace.

These tools have good psychometric properties (i.e., internal consistency, test–retest reliability, and validity) and are often used in peer-reviewed research.

Perceived Stress Scale

The first questionnaire is the Perceived Stress Scale, a 10-item self-report questionnaire designed to measure an individual’s subjective perception of stress (Cohen et al., 1983).

Initially, it was designed as a generic tool to measure perceived stress in a smoking cessation study. The original version contained 14 items and can be found in the original paper.

It assesses how individuals perceive their life as unpredictable, uncontrollable, and overloaded. The Perceived Stress Scale , with scoring instructions, can be accessed via the link.

State–Trait Anxiety Inventory

A second, more general measure of anxiety and stress is the State–Trait Anxiety Inventory (Spielberger et al., 1983).

Originally, it was developed as two separate tools, each containing 20 questions; however, these are often administered together. This inventory is widely used, easy to administer, and freely available.

It is a 40-item self-report questionnaire that measures two types of anxiety: state and trait anxiety. State anxiety is the temporary emotional state characterized by subjective feelings of tension, apprehension, and nervousness. For example, when presented with an urgent deadline, we might feel acute but short-lived feelings of stress and worry.

In contrast, trait anxiety is a stable personality trait characterized by a tendency to experience anxiety across various situations. For example, some people tend to have higher anxiety in general that is not limited to a specific event.

Job Content Questionnaire (JCQ)

For professionals who work in industrial and organizational psychology, we recommend the JCQ (Karasek et al.,1998).

This is a 49-item self-report questionnaire that measures job stress in terms of its psychological demands, decision authority, skill discretion, and social support. Initially, it was designed for research on the relationship between job stress and cardiovascular disease.

A study by Kivimäki et al. (2012) found that high job strain (high psychological demands combined with low decision authority and low social support) was associated with an increased risk of coronary heart disease. The JCQ is in the manuscript’s appendix published by Karasek et al. (1998).

17 Exercises To Reduce Stress & Burnout

Help your clients prevent burnout, handle stressors, and achieve a healthy, sustainable work-life balance with these 17 Stress & Burnout Prevention Exercises [PDF].

Created by Experts. 100% Science-based.

For readers interested in journaling techniques and prompts, we suggest the following articles:

Journaling for Mindfulness
Journal prompts to improve self-esteem

For readers who want to read more about mindfulness meditation, especially in the workplace. this post is a good starting point and is quite exhaustive:

Mindfulness at Work

In addition to our blog posts and free worksheets, we’d also like to share these three tools specifically related to stress and burnout. The Stress & Burnout Prevention Exercise Pack includes the following useful worksheets:

Energy Management Audit
The Stress-Related Growth Scale
Strengthening the Work–Private Life Barrier

The worksheets are easy to administer and appropriate for clients experiencing stress in different domains of their lives. Two of these tools are designed for assessment and can help identify energy levels, the most effective ways to recharge, and how clients approach and reframe life events. The third tool is an exercise to help develop work–life boundaries.

Looking for even more tools? If you’re looking for more science-based ways to help others manage stress without spending hours on research and session prep, check out this collection of 17 validated stress-management tools for practitioners . Use them to help others cope with stress and create more balance in their lives.

Stress is a common experience that can have very serious negative consequences if left unmanaged. However, learning how to cope with stress is vital and will positively impact different spheres of life.

A large amount of stress is due to work demands. Finding a coping solution that works for you, especially one that can be incorporated into the work environment, is a great way to improve your mental health.

We encourage you to try these coping techniques to find the optimal one that will help you manage your stress levels.

Are there any stress coping methods you would recommend personally or that you have found highly effective in your practice? Please share them with us in the comments.

We hope you enjoyed reading this article. Don’t forget to download our three Stress & Burnout Prevention Exercises (PDF) for free .

Beck, J. S. (2011). Cognitive behavior therapy: Basics and beyond (2nd ed.). Guilford Press.
Belvederi Murri, M., Ekkekakis, P., Magagnoli, M., Zampogna, D., Cattedra, S., Capobianco, L., Serafini, G., Calgano, P., Zanetidou, S., & Amore, M. (2019). Physical exercise in major depression: Reducing the mortality gap while improving clinical outcomes. Frontiers in Psychiatry , 9 .
Biegel, G. M., Brown, K. W., Shapiro, S. L., & Schubert, C. M. (2009). Mindfulness-based stress reduction for the treatment of adolescent psychiatric outpatients: A randomized clinical trial. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology , 77 (5), 855–866.
Bratman, G. N., Hamilton, J. P., Hahn, K. S., Daily, G. C., & Gross, J. J. (2015). Nature experience reduces rumination and subgenual prefrontal cortex activation. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences , 112 (28), 8567–8572.
Carmody, J., & Baer, R. A. (2009). How long does a mindfulness-based stress reduction program need to be? A review of class contact hours and effect sizes for psychological distress. Journal of Clinical Psychology , 65 (6), 627–638.
Chafin, S., & Ollendick, T. (2001). A review of empirical studies of psychoanalytically oriented treatments for PTSD. Journal of Traumatic Stress , 14 (2), 249–263.
Cohen, S. (2004). Social relationships and health. American Psychologist , 59 (8), 676–684.
Cohen, S., Janicki-Deverts, D., Turner, R. B., & Doyle, W. J. (2015). Does hugging provide stress-buffering social support? A study of susceptibility to upper respiratory infection and illness. Psychological Science , 26 (2), 135–147.
Cohen, S., Kamarck, T., & Mermelstein, R. (1983). A global measure of perceived stress. Journal of Health and Social Behavior , 24 (4), 385–396.
Cohen, S., & Wills, T. A. (1985). Stress, social support, and the buffering hypothesis. Psychological Bulletin , 98 (2), 310–357.
Craft, L. L., & Perna, F. M. (2004). The benefits of exercise for the clinically depressed. Primary Care Companion to the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry , 6 (3), 104–111.
Frost, R., & Stimpson, N. (2020). Time management for health and social care professionals . Routledge.
Goh, Y. W., Sawang, S., & Oei, T. P. (2010). The revised transactional model (RTM) of occupational stress and coping: An improved process approach. The Australasian Journal of Organisational Psychology , 3 , 13–20.
Hammen, C. (2005). Stress and depression. Annual Review of Clinical Psychology , 1 (1), 293–319.
Häusser, J. A., Mojzisch, A., Niesel, M., & Schulz-Hardt, S. (2010). Ten years on: A review of recent research on the job demand–control (–support) model and psychological well-being. Work & Stress , 24 (1), 1–35.
Hennefeld, J., & Battle, C. L. (2019). Relaxation techniques. In The SAGE encyclopedia of abnormal and clinical psychology (pp. 2944–2946). SAGE.
Hobfoll, S. E. (1989). Conservation of resources: A new attempt at conceptualizing stress. American Psychologist , 44 (3), 513–524.
Hobfoll, S. E., Halbesleben, J., Neveu, J. P., & Westman, M. (2018). Conservation of resources in the organizational context: The reality of resources and their consequences. Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior , 5 , 103–128.
Hofmann, S. G., Asnaani, A., Vonk, I. J., Sawyer, A. T., & Fang, A. (2012). The efficacy of cognitive behavioral therapy: A review of meta-analyses. Cognitive Therapy and Research , 36 (5), 427–440.
Hoge, E. A., Bui, E., Marques, L., Metcalf, C. A., Morris, L. K., Robinaugh, D. J., Worthington, J. J., Pollack, M. H., & Simon, N. M. (2013). Randomized controlled trial of mindfulness meditation for generalized anxiety disorder: effects on anxiety and stress reactivity. The Journal of Clinical Psychiatry , 74 (8), 786–792.
Karasek, R., Brisson, C., Kawakami, N., Houtman, I., Bongers, P., & Amick, B. (1998). The Job Content Questionnaire (JCQ): An instrument for internationally comparative assessments of psychosocial job characteristics. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology , 3 (4), 322–355.
Kivimäki, M., Nyberg, S. T., Batty, G. D., Fransson, E. I., Heikkilä, K., Alfredsson, L., Bjorner, J. B., Borritz, M., Burr, H., Casini, A., Clays, E., De Bacquer, D., Dragano, N., Ferrie, J. E., Geuskens, G. A., Goldberg, M., Hamer, M., Hooftman, W. E., Houtman, I. L., … Theorell, T. (2012). Job strain as a risk factor for coronary heart disease: A collaborative meta-analysis of individual participant data. Lancet , 380 (9852), 1491–1497.
Lazarus, R. S., & Folkman, S. (1984). Stress, appraisal, and coping . Springer.
Park, C. L. (2010). Making sense of the meaning literature: An integrative review of meaning making and its effects on adjustment to stressful life events. Psychological Bulletin , 136 (2), 257–301.
Pascoe, M. C., Thompson, D. R., & Ski, C. F. (2017). Yoga, mindfulness-based stress reduction and stress-related physiological measures: A meta-analysis. Psychoneuroendocrinology , 86 , 152–168.
Salmon, P. (2018). Effects of physical exercise on anxiety, depression, and sensitivity to stress: A unifying theory. Clinical Psychology Review , 57 , 117–131.
Schmidt, S., Mrazek, M. D., & Haggard, M. (2019). Mindfulness in the workplace. Oxford research encyclopedia of psychology . Oxford University Press.
Spielberger, C.D., Gorsuch, R. L., Lushene, R., Vagg, P. R., & Jacobs, G. A. (1983). Manual for the S tate–Trait Anxiety Inventory . Consulting Psychologists Press.
Stults-Kolehmainen, M. A., & Sinha, R. (2014). The effects of stress on physical activity and exercise. Sports Medicine , 44 (1), 81–121.
Sui, X., Ladwig, M. A., Singh, G., & Friston, K. J. (2019). Exercise and the aging brain: Fit body, fit mind? Progress in Neurobiology , 172 , 45–56.

Share this article:

Article feedback

What our readers think.

Wanna know more about psychology.

Let us know your thoughts Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published.

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

Recognizing High-Functioning Anxiety & 6 Tools to Manage It

As our lives get busier and busier and more and more crises develop on the world stage, we are seeing reports of increasing incidences of [...]

Moving From Chronic Stress to Wellbeing & Resilience

Stress. It can be as minute as daily hassles, car trouble, an angry boss, to financial strain, a death or terminal illness. The ongoing stressors [...]

3 Burnout Prevention Strategies for Type A Personality

Highly driven, goal-oriented, and somewhat impatient? You may be dealing with a Type A personality. Having a Type A personality comes with a mixed bag [...]

3 Stress Exercises Pack

Bipolar Disorder
Therapy Center
When To See a Therapist
Types of Therapy
Best Online Therapy
Best Couples Therapy
Managing Stress
Sleep and Dreaming
Understanding Emotions
Self-Improvement
Healthy Relationships
Student Resources
Personality Types
Sweepstakes
Guided Meditations
Verywell Mind Insights
2024 Verywell Mind 25
Mental Health in the Classroom
Editorial Process
Meet Our Review Board
Crisis Support

How to Handle Stressful Situations

Identify the Source

Have the Right Attitude

Change what you can, build resilience.

You can't always avoid stress, which is why it is important to know how to handle stressful situations. Getting better at managing stress is a great way to become more resilient and able to confront future challenges.

Press Play for Advice On Managing Stress

Hosted by therapist Amy Morin, LCSW, this episode of The Verywell Mind Podcast featuring professor Elissa Epel, shares ways to manage stress. Click below to listen now.

Follow Now : Apple Podcasts / Spotify / Google Podcasts / Amazon Music

Often when people face a new and stressful situation—a job that’s a bit too challenging, a thorny relationship hurdle that will take a while to sort through, a change in lifestyle that feels like a step down from what they had—they feel overwhelmed at the thought that they may have to deal with this stress for an extended time.

People who worry about long-term stress have reason to be concerned: chronic stress , the type of stress that is continual and unchanging, can take a heavy toll. It can negatively impact both physical and mental health.

The good news is that you can mitigate the stress of virtually any situation, even if it is there to stay for a while. If you are facing a challenging life situation, or wondering if it gets easier and how to speed the process, try stress relief strategies that can help.

These techniques can help significantly if you face a life crisis or overwhelming stressor. But ff your stress feels unmanageable, seek help from a mental health professional.

Identify the Source of Your Stress

The first step toward handling stressful situations is to figure out what it is that is stressing you out. Understanding which aspects of the situation make things difficult for you can help you develop strategies to manage these feelings.

Identifying the cause isn't as always as easy as it sounds. While you might recognize that starting a new job or moving to a new area is stressful, being able to point to the specific aspects of the situation that are difficult for you is important.

For example, knowing you are stressed about meeting new people at your new job can help you cope with the social aspects of work.

Writing in a journal can often effectively decrease stress and anxiety. It can also be a useful tool for learning more about your stress sources and how you typically cope with stressful situations.

How to Keep a Stress Journal

Consider situations where you might feel anxious, stressed, or overwhelmed, and ask yourself:

What was it about the situation that caused you to feel stressed?
What did you think about the situation?
How did it make you feel?
What did you do in response to the stress?
What did you do to relieve the stress?

You can’t always control what you are facing, but you do have a choice in how you face it. You can choose the attitude you take, which can help determine whether you view each situation as a threat or a challenge .

Research shows that viewing something as a challenge helps you mobilize resources and bring your "A game" to the situation more easily. Viewing the same situation as a threat can lead to greater stress and worse performance.

There are a number of problems associated with avoiding the source of your stress. This approach is known as avoidant coping and while it provides temporary relief, it can actually make stress and anxiety worse in the long run.

Understand the Role of Attitude

Your attitude can help to determine how stressful a situation feels for you, and how you approach your options. In fact, attitude can affect which options you see and do not see, which can also affect your stress levels and the outcome of your actions.

Examine Your Thought Patterns

Your thought patterns may feel automatic, but you can choose where your focus lies. Research has found, for example, that thought patterns can contribute to increases in the stress hormone cortisol.

To begin to make that choice, it helps to become aware of your habitual thinking patterns. This exercise can help you to see these patterns more clearly and can help you to relieve stress in the process.

Practice Positive Self-Talk

Positive self-talk means using more optimistic language in your head, and focusing more on possibilities. It involves more than merely trying to look on the bright side, although that is part of it.

Learning how to shift your focus can help alter what is possible for you. For example, instead of focusing on the negative aspects of a situation that are out of your control, you might instead focus your attention on areas where you can make a positive change.

Sometimes there are certain aspects of a situation you can change, even if you cannot change the overall situation. Focusing on what you can control can help you feel more empowered and less helpless when you are handling a stressful situation.

For example, you may, for financial reasons, be unable to quit a job you don’t enjoy. However, you can connect with co-workers more, alter your attitude while you’re at work, and use your break time for stress management activities. All of these can alter how you feel when you are at this job.

Try Solution-Focused Coping

Solution-focused coping means taking action to change your life where you are able. Examples of solution-focused ways to handle stress include:

Finding ways to manage your time more effectively to make a stressful situation easier to handle
Taking steps to minimize aspects of the situation to make it less anxiety-provoking
Relying on conflict-management skills to deal with difficult interpersonal relationships that contribute to stress

These changes can be large in scale or small but targeted. Change can bring stress, so it’s important to choose the changes that matter most.

Find and Eliminate Tolerations

Tolerations are those nagging stressors in your lifestyle that you put up with almost without realizing it, but which bring you constant low-grade stress. The thing about tolerations is that they add up to bigger stress.

Cutting out tolerations can relieve stress so you can tolerate more things you can’t change.

Create a New Life Plan

Knowing where you want to go and having a plan for the future , can help to minimize stress in the present. Planning changes according to your values and priorities can be helpful and inspiring, even if you can’t bring those plans to fruition for a little while longer.

One study found that people who balance living in the moment and making plans are the most resilient in the face of daily stress and stressful situations.

If you can’t do any more to change your situation, you can still reduce the stress you feel as you manage your daily life. Certain activities can promote resilience , help you feel less stressed overall, and help you be less reactive to the stressors you face when they rear their ugly heads.

Practicing resilience-building activities can help you develop new skills for managing stress. The more they become an automatic habit, the less your stressors will bother you.

Everything feels more stressful when you are tired, hungry, and run down. It also means that you have fewer coping resources at your disposal. This means that you are more likely to react to stress rather than respond to it. Or you might let things snowball until things become even more overwhelming.

Focus on taking care of your body , and you will have a greater ability to handle frustration and stress in your life overall. Do things that make yourself feel good and cared for, whether that's getting a massage, reading a book, or enjoying a relaxing spa day at home.

Exercise is one of those wonderful stress relievers that can build resilience by helping you to blow off steam. Better still, regular exercise can help you to become less reactive toward stress.

Because of that and the obvious health benefits of exercise, this is a powerhouse of a stress reliever that should be worked into your schedule when at all possible.

Meditation can help you to remain centered in the face of stress and can help you to regain a sense of peace when you are feeling off-balance. Many meditation techniques work well, so try a few and stick with a favorite technique that feels right.

Over time, you should find yourself reacting to stress with less intensity and more able to remain calm and peaceful.

Positive Attitude

Maintaining a positive attitude is one thing you can do to make everything in your life feel easier. A positive attitude also helps you to get along better with others (which can lead to greater social support and less conflict) and can help you to remain feeling good, even when things around you are not so great.

A Word From Verywell

It would be great if you could simply avoid or eliminate the stressors in your life. Unfortunately, that's only possible to an extent. There will be times when you are all faced with unpredictable or unavoidable stressors when you need to rely on resilience. You may not be able to change everything in your life, but these tips can help you handle stressful situations.

Yaribeygi H, Panahi Y, Sahraei H, Johnston TP, Sahebkar A. The impact of stress on body function: A review . EXCLI J . 2017;16:1057-1072. doi:10.17179/excli2017-480

Smyth JM, Johnson JA, Auer BJ, Lehman E, Talamo G, Sciamanna CN. Online positive affect journaling in the improvement of mental distress and well-being in general medical patients with elevated anxiety symptoms: A preliminary randomized controlled trial . JMIR Ment Health . 2018;5(4):e11290. doi:10.2196/11290

Moore LJ, Vine SJ, Wilson MR, Freeman P. The effect of challenge and threat states on performance: an examination of potential mechanisms . Psychophysiology . 2012;49(10):1417-1425. doi:10.1111/j.1469-8986.2012.01449.x

Dijkstra MT, Homan AC. Engaging in rather than disengaging from stress: Effective coping and perceived control . Front Psychol . 2016;7:1415. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01415

Conway CC, Slavich GM, Hammen C. Dysfunctional attitudes and affective responses to daily stressors: Separating cognitive, genetic, and clinical influences on stress reactivity . Cognit Ther Res . 2015;39(3):366-377. doi:10.1007/s10608-014-9657-1

Linz R, Singer T, Engert V. Interactions of momentary thought content and subjective stress predict cortisol fluctuations in a daily life experience sampling study . Sci Rep . 2018;8(1):15462. doi:10.1038/s41598-018-33708-0

Lukić J, Lazarević S. A holistic approach to workplace stress management . Škola Biznisa . 2019;(1):130-141. doi:10.5937/skolbiz1-21872

Polk MG, Smith EL, Zhang LR, Neupert SD. Thinking ahead and staying in the present: Implications for reactivity to daily stressors . Pers Individ Diff . 2020;161:109971. doi:10.1016/j.paid.2020.109971

Schultchen D, Reichenberger J, Mittl T, et al. Bidirectional relationship of stress and affect with physical activity and healthy eating . Br J Health Psychol . 2019;24(2):315-333. doi:10.1111/bjhp.12355

National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health. Meditation: In Depth.

By Elizabeth Scott, PhD Elizabeth Scott, PhD is an author, workshop leader, educator, and award-winning blogger on stress management, positive psychology, relationships, and emotional wellbeing.

Stress Management - Essay Examples And Topic Ideas For Free

An essay on stress management can explore strategies and techniques for coping with stress in modern life. It can discuss the physical and psychological effects of stress, mindfulness practices, time management, and the importance of work-life balance in reducing stress and promoting overall well-being. We’ve gathered an extensive assortment of free essay samples on the topic of Stress Management you can find at Papersowl. You can use our samples for inspiration to write your own essay, research paper, or just to explore a new topic for yourself.

Self Care in Stress Management

Humans or individuals as living creatures created by God with all their abilities and advantages compared to other living things, for example having a mind that can be used to think we need to be grateful. Just like staying and caring for yourself (self care) by utilizing the abilities we have. Every individual with the right conditions and conditions in accordance with the basic conditions that have an instinct also the body's ability to be able to care for, protect, […]

Importance of Stress Management at Workplace

What is stress? Stress is the body’s way of responding to any kind of demand.it could be negative or positive. 1. Demands This includes the demands of the workload and the work environment. The times when employees feel work stress could be: • harsh deadlines and expectations • technology overload • unmanageable workloads • long work hours 2. Lack of Control Lack of control at workplace means how much authority employees have about the way they do their work. Lack […]

Causes of Teenage Stress: Understanding the Effects

Causes of Teenage Stress According to dictionary.com, stress is defined as “importance attached to a thing.” As teenagers, we are constantly bombarded with homework, college, and the future, and it can become very stressful. Stress has a lot of causes and effects on teenagers, and sometimes it can get a little overwhelming. As a teenager myself, I have found that sometimes when I get too stressed, I get flustered. Like other teenagers, I would like to know what causes so […]

We will write an essay sample crafted to your needs.

An Observation of Stress and Stress Management in a Modern World

Everyone experiences stress one way or another whether it be acute or major. According to Psychology by Sandra E. Hockenbury, stress is a negative emotional response to events that are perceived to be exceeding a person’s resources or natural abilities (Hockenbury 531). According to the cognitive appraisal model founded by Richard Lazarus, people only experience stress if the stressor or what causes the stress is perceived to uncontrollable (Hockenbury 531). Once a person deems the stressor to be uncontrollable, they […]

Stress Management Case Study Report

The stress management case study involves college student, Katya who has an upcoming chemistry exam, she normally tries her best to study as much as possible because she experiences anxiety before taking tests. Her lack of confidence causes Katya to believe that no matter how hard she studies it will not make a difference in her tests. Katya knows she has to do well in her upcoming exam or she may lose her scholarship. While studying for her chemistry exam […]

Stress Among Police Officers: Understanding and Addressing

Causes of Stress for Police Officers High expectations are placed on police officers to put everything and everyone aside when duty calls, and it can be tiring and stressful at times to meet this demand due to family and other personal demands. In the eye of the community, the police are expected to go above and beyond the call of duty, and this is demanding as they are only human. It can often be very stressful for an officer when […]

Stress Management: how Stress Can Cause Mental Illness and how to Treat it

Every day, people experience stress or a stressful moment, at least at one point in the day or multiple times. Stress is defined as “a general, not a specific, term and refers to any demand (physical or psychological) that is outside the norm and that signals a disparity between what is optimal and what actually exists” (Herbert, 1997, 530). From this definition, stress is an event that is mentally and physically draining and a very common cause for people to […]

Coping with Stress: Exploring Strategies for Effective Stress Management

Personal Stress Assessment People respond to stress in three different ways: emotionally, physiologically, and behaviorally (Weiten, Dunn, & Hammer, 2018). I completed the stress assessment (R. Roberts, personal communication, January 31, 2019) to determine how I handle stressful situations. Lower numbers, between 7 and 70, indicated a weaker response to stress. The assessment (R. Roberts, personal communication, January 31, 2019) indicated that I respond to stressful situations mentally more than physically or emotionally; I scored a 37 for the mental […]

Causes of Stress Among College Students: Exploring the Daily Life

Stress is the natural response of the human body that happens when challenges come by. As college students, they are bombarded with loads of stress on a daily basis. Starting college can hold a whole new experience, and it can be scary without the safety net of family, friends, or guardians to come home to days away from a support structure that loves you no matter what. Stress and Its Effects on College Students Students are exposed to stress by […]

Trauma, Violence and Stress Management in America

Attachment Therapy Intervention Child-parent psychotherapy is an intervention technique used in young children with attachment disorders. This approach looks at the parental role in a child's emotional attachments and how the child-parent relationship affects other relationships in a child's life. According to Hagan, Browne, Sulik, Ippen, Bush, & Lieberman (2017), the main goal of child-parent psychotherapy is to address the quality of attachments between a young child and their primary caregiver, and to discover how those attachments affect the child's […]

When Stress Turns to Panic: the Stress Management Techniques

When Stress Turns to Panic For many people, stress is the trigger for an even bigger health problem: anxiety and panic attacks. If you are currently suffering from anxiety and panic attacks, along with stress, then it can feel like you're in the rabbit hole – as if there’s no real hope of a solution. The stress management techniques are highly effective for relieving and even eliminating stress. However, if you are experiencing intense episodes of anxiety and panic, you […]

Do not Let Negative Feelings Destroy our Lives

Currently, many people suffer from negative feelings which have bad effect on people’s mental health and, more seriously, destroy someone’s ability to live a normal life. Therefore, it is necessary for everyone to learn how to deal with those kinds of negative feelings so that we can prevent them from developing into depression or we can know how to help ourselves even if we have already suffered from depression. However, most people do not really realize how negative feelings harm […]

Additional Example Essays

Reasons Why I Want to Study Abroad
The Cask of Amontillado Literary Analysis
A Class Divided
“Allegory of the Cave”
Cinderella Marxism
Failures and success in business
The Girl (Jig) Character Analysis in Hills Like White Elephants
Dental Hygiene Application Essay
Their Eyes Were Watching God Literary Analysis
August Heat Literary Analysis
Rhetorical Analysis: The Raven
Character Analysis: Nick Carraway in The Great Gatsby

1. Tell Us Your Requirements

2. Pick your perfect writer

3. Get Your Paper and Pay

Hi! I'm Amy, your personal assistant!

Don't know where to start? Give me your paper requirements and I connect you to an academic expert.

short deadlines

100% Plagiarism-Free

Certified writers

Greater Good Science Center • Magazine • In Action • In Education

How to Relieve Stress

This month, we feature videos of a Greater Good presentation by Robert M. Sapolsky, one the country’s foremost experts on stress. In this excerpt from his talk, the best-selling author and Stanford University professor explains the difference between bad stress and good stress, and how we can manage the effects of chronic stress on our lives.

In 1900, what do you think were the leading causes of death in this country?

If you were 20 to 40 years old and a woman, the single riskiest thing you could do was try to give birth. TB, Pneumonia, influenza killed a lot of other people. But few people under the age of 100 die of the flu anymore. Relatively few women die in childbirth. Instead, we die of these utterly bizarre diseases that have never existed before on the planet in any sort of numbers—diseases like heart disease, cancer, adult-onset diabetes, and Alzheimer’s.

Now, some of this has to do with nuts and bolts biology. But some of it has to do with issues that nobody ever had to think about before in medicine—totally bizarre questions like, “What’s your psychological makeup?” or “What’s your social status?” or “How do people with your social status get treated in your society?”

And this one: “Why is it that when we’re feeling unloved, we eat more starch?” Figure that out, and you’ve cured half the cases of diabetes in this country

Indeed, when you look at the diseases that do us in, they are predominantly diseases that can be caused, or made worse, by stress. As a result, most of us in this room will have the profound Westernized luxury of dropping dead someday of a stress-related disease. That’s why it’s so urgent that we understand stress—and how to better manage it.

How stress kills

Do you remember “homeostasis,” a term I guarantee you heard in ninth grade biology? Homeostasis is having an ideal body temperature, an ideal level of glucose in the bloodstream, an ideal everything. That’s being in homeostatic balance.

A stressor is anything in the outside world that knocks you out of homeostatic balance. If you’re some zebra and a lion has ripped your stomach open and your innards are dragging in the dust and you still need to get out of there—well, that counts as being out of homeostatic balance.

So to reestablish that balance, you secrete adrenaline and other hormones. You mobilize energy and you deliver it where it’s needed, you shut off the inessentials like the sex drive and digestion, you enhance immune defenses, and you think more clearly. You’re facing a short-term physical crisis, and the stress response is what you do with your body. For 99 percent of the species on this planet, stress is three minutes of screaming terror in the savannah, after which either it’s over with or you’re over with. That’s all you need to know about the subject if you’re a zebra or a lion.

If you’re a human, though, you’ve got to expand the definition of a stressor in a very critical way. If you’re running from a lion, your blood pressure is 180 over 120. But you’re not suffering from high blood pressure—you’re saving your life. Have this same thing happen when you’re stuck in traffic, and you’re not saving your life. Instead you are suffering from stress-induced hypertension.

We humans turn on the stress response with memories, with emotions, with thoughts, and the whole punch line is: That’s not what it evolved for. Do it regularly enough, and you’re going to damage your cardiovascular system. Increased blood flow hammers on the walls of your blood vessels, causing inflammation. Fat and glucose and cholesterol glom on and begin to clog your arteries. That’s bad news. You are more at risk for chronic fatigue, sleep disruption, muscle atrophy, and probably most importantly, adult-onset diabetes, this once obscure disease that’s just on the edge of being the number one killer in this country.

Chronic stress also does bad things to the nervous system. Stress kills neurons in the part of the brain called the hippocampus and weakens the cables between neurons, so they can’t talk to each other. This impairs the formation and retrieval of long-term memory. The opposite thing happens in the amygdala, which is where we see fear in a brain scanner. In the hippocampus, stress causes stuff to shrivel up. But stress feeds the amygdala. It actually gets bigger. Chronic stress creates a hyper-reactive, hysterical amygdala, and this tells us tons about what stress has to do with anxiety disorders.

Another domain: the mesolimbic dopamine system. Dopamine is a neurotransmitter that is about reward and pleasure. Cocaine works on the dopamine system. All the euphorians do. What are the effects of chronic stress on this part of the brain? Those pathways get depleted of dopamine, and this takes away your ability to feel pleasure. So if stress depletes your dopamine, what have you just set yourself up for? Major depression.

What about the frontal cortex? It’s the most human part of the brain; we’ve proportionally got more of it than any other species does. And what does the frontal cortex do? It does gratification postponement, self-discipline, long-term planning, emotional regulation. It’s the last part of the brain to fully mature—that doesn’t happen until you’re 25 years old, which explains a lot about the freshmen year of college.

This has a very interesting implication. If this is the last part of the brain to fully develop, by definition, then, it is the part of the brain least constrained by genes and most sculpted by experience. What does chronic stress do to the frontal cortex? Atrophy of neurons, disconnecting circuits. As a result, you make the most idiotic decisions, which are going to haunt you for the rest of your life, and yet you think they’re brilliant at the time. That’s another effect of chronic stress: Your judgment goes down the tubes.

How to manage stress

We’ve just gone on a quick tour of all the things that can go wrong from chronic stress. If you study the subject for a living, it’s amazing to you that anybody is still alive, that we haven’t just collapsed into puddles of stress-related disease.

Despite that, most of us do decent jobs at coping, and a subset of us is spectacular at coping. And thus from day one, stress researchers have wondered why some bodies and some psyches deal better with stress than others. In making sense of individual differences, what we’re essentially asking is, “What is it that makes psychological stress stressful”? And a huge elegant literature by now has shown precisely what the building blocks are.

The literature is built on experiments like this one: You have a lab rat in a cage, and every now and then, you give it a shock. Nothing major, but nonetheless, the rat’s blood pressure goes up and so do stress hormone levels. Up goes the risk of an ulcer. You are giving this rat a stress-related disease.

Now, in the second cage, there’s another rat. Every time the first rat gets a shock, so does the second. Same intensity, same duration, both of their bodies are being thrown out of homeostatic balance to exactly the same extent.

But there’s a critical difference: Every time the second rat gets a shock, it can go over to the other side of its cage, where there’s another rat that it can bite the crap out of. And you know what? This guy’s not going to get an ulcer, because he has an outlet for his frustrations. He has a hobby.

There are other stress experiments that involve torturing rats, which suggest ways for humans to manage stress. We can give the rat a warning 10 seconds before each shock, and we find it doesn’t get an ulcer. That tells us that you are less vulnerable to a stress-related disease if you get predictive information.

More on Stress

Take this quiz to learn how stressed you are.

Watch Dr. Sapolsky's presentation on stress and how to overcome it.

Check out this essay on men, stress, and sex, which draws on Sapolsky's research.

Christine Carter provides tips on "How Not to Have a Nervous Breakdown."

Are you an educator? You might be interested in "Stopping Teacher Burnout" and "A Training to Make Teachers Less Stressed."

Another experiment: If we give the rat a lever to press, and that rat thinks he’s in control of the shocks, that helps—a sense of control decreases the stress response.

Yet another experiment tells us it helps to have friends: If a rat getting shocks has a friend it likes in the cage, and they are able to groom each other, the rat doesn’t get the ulcer. So social affiliation helps control stress.

In short, you are more likely to get a stress response—more likely to subjectively feel stressed, more likely to get a stress-related disease—if you feel like you have no outlets for what’s going on, no control, no predictability, you interpret things as getting worse, and if you have nobody’s shoulder to cry on.

Okay, these are very powerful observations. They’re helpful. But please don’t assume that if you get as much control in your life and as much predictive information in your life as possible, you will be protected from stress. To understand why, let me share some of the subtleties of this field.

Look at the rat that got a warning. Timing is everything. He didn’t get an ulcer when he got a 10-second warning. But if the warning light goes on one second before the shock occurs, it has no positive effect whatsoever, because there isn’t time for the rat to adjust anything. Or suppose, instead, the warning light comes two minutes before. That will make the ulcers worse, because the rat is sitting there, ulcerating away, thinking, “Here it comes, here it comes, here it comes.” When it comes to predictive information, there’s only a narrow window where it works.

When does a sense of control work? When you’re dealing with a mild to moderate stressor, because in those circumstances you know how much worse it could have been and can imagine, rightly or wrongly, that you had control over that improvement. But if it’s a major disastrous stressor, the last thing you want is an inflated sense of control, because that sets you up to think that the disaster is all your fault. In the case of a major disaster, we tend to minimize people’s sense of control—by saying, for example, “It wouldn’t have mattered if you had gotten him to the doctor a month ago, it wouldn’t have made a difference.” And one of the worst things we do, societally, is attribute more control to victims: “Well, what’s she going to expect if she dresses that way?” or “Well, what are they going to expect if they choose not to assimilate?”

In short, a sense of control is protective for mild to moderate stressors, but it’s a disaster for major ones. In that domain, the most humane thing you can do is foster denial and rationalization rather than a sense of responsibility.

When is stress good?

Just as not all stress management techniques work, not all stress is bad. In fact, we love stress. We pay good money for it in a scary movie or on a roller coaster ride. We love stress when it’s the right amount of stress.

When is it optimal? When it’s only moderately stressful, at the most. And good stress is transient—it’s not for nothing that you don’t have roller coaster rides going for three weeks! The stress also has to be happening in a context that feels safe overall. Moderately stressful at most, transient, safe—what does that define?

That defines stimulation. That defines what play is. What is play about?

It’s when a higher rank dog says to a lower ranking dog: “I am willing to suspend our dominance relations right now and allow all sorts of unpredictable interactions. To show how much I’m doing that, I’m going to give you access to my throat or my genitals, and we’re just having a great time here playing.” In play, you feel safe, and as a result, you are willing to give up some control and predictability. We say, “Surprise me!” That’s good stress.

There’s another lesson we can learn from dogs and other hierarchical mammals, like baboons: Social rank can cause stress, especially where rankings are unstable and people are jockeying for position. But social rank is not as important as social context. What patterns of social affiliation do you have? How often do you groom, how often does somebody groom you? How often do you sit in contact and play with kids?

What’s clear by now is if you have a choice between being a high-ranking baboon or a socially affiliated one, the latter is definitely the one that is going to lead to a healthier, longer life. That’s the baboon we want to be—not the one with power, but the one with friends, neighbors, and family.

About the Author

Robert M. Sapolsky

Robert M. Sapolsky, Ph.D., is the John A. and Cynthia Fry Gunn Professor of Biological Sciences and a professor of neurology and neurological sciences at Stanford University. His most recent book is Monkeyluv: And Other Essays on Our Lives as Animals. A longer version of this essay appeared in Foreign Affairs.

You May Also Enjoy

How to De-Stress

6 Simple Practices to Handle Holiday Stress

Political Primates

How Stress Hurts Men’s Sex Lives

Robert M. Sapolsky on the Psychology of Stress

A Prescription for Stress Reduction

And the evidence for dominance as a function of canine relationships is…....?

Far as I can see dominance can be a property of a social interaction between domestic dogs. No evidence of dominance hierarchies or persistent social dominance within domestic dogs far as I’m aware but would stand to be corrected.

Sorry, devil in the detail

K9 Kommenter | 1:29 pm, May 11, 2012 | Link

Psychology Discussion

Essay on stress: it’s meaning, effects and coping with stress.

ADVERTISEMENTS:

Essay on Stress: It’s Meaning, Effects and Coping with Stress!

Stress is a very common problem being faced today. Every individual will experience stress in one or the other time.

The term stress has many definitions, Lazarus and Folkman (1984) have defined stress as “an internal state which can be caused by physical demands of body or by environmental and social situations, which are evaluated as potentially harmful, uncontrollable, or exceeding our resources for coping”.

According to David Fontana “stress is a demand made upon the adaptive capacities of the mind and body”.

These definitions indicate that stress represents those conditions under which individuals have demand made upon them, that they cannot physically or psychologically meet, leading to breakdown at one or other of these levels.

Stress is usually thought of in negative terms. But ii can manifest itself in both positive and negative way. It is said to be positive when the situation offers an opportunity for one, to gain something.

Eustress (the Greek word ‘eu’ means good) is the term used to describe positive stress. It is often viewed as motivator, since in its absence the individual lacks the spirit necessary for peak performance. Distress is the term used to indicate negative stress.

Almost any change in the environment- even a pleasant change such as a joyful trip- demands some coping, and a little stress is useful in helping us to adapt. But beyond some point, stress becomes a ‘distress’.

What acts to produce distress varies from person to person, but some events seem to be stressors for every person.

Examples of stressors are:

1. Injury or infections of the body, dangers in environment, major changes or transitions in life which force us to cope in new ways.

2. Physical stressors like noise, pollutions, climatic changes, etc.

3. Hustles of everyday life centering on work, family, social activities, health and finances.

4. Frustrations and conflicts.

The physical, environmental and social causes of the stress state are termed stressors. Once induced by stressors the internal stress state can then lead to various responses. On the other hand, psychological responses such as anxiety, hopelessness, depression, irritability, and a general feeling of not being able to cope with the world, can result from the stress state.

Stress cycles:

Stress has a number of immediate effects. If the stressors are maintained, long-term behavioural, physiological, emotional and cognitive effects occur. If these effects hinder adaptation to the environment or create discomfort and distress, they themselves become stressors and, tend to perpetuate a ‘cycle’ of distress.

Example, a patient spends more money on treatment, may experience continued stress even after the cure of the disease, because repayment of debt cause stress for long time in him or a patient whose leg is amputated after accident may continue to worry about it.

On the other hand, many people have developed ways of coping with stressors, so that they are able to respond adaptively. This is the ‘wellness cycle’. Teaching people adaptive ways of handling stress, so as to promote the wellness cycle is an important part of the newly emerging field of behavioural medicine.

Effects of stress:

Stress is not always harmful. In fact, it is recognised that low levels of stress can even helps for better performance. For example, a student can prepare well for forthcoming examination only if he has some stress. However, excess level of stress is undoubtedly harmful.

The effects of stress are divided into three categories:

a. Physiological effects:

Commonly appearing stress related bodily disorders are-peptic ulcers, hypertension, chronic fatigue, hormonal changes, increased heart rate, difficulty in breathing, numbness of limbs, heart disease and reduction in immunity, etc.

b. Psychological effects:

Anxiety, depression, hopelessness, helplessness, anger, nervousness, irritability, tension and boredom may be experienced.

c. Behavioural changes:

Decreasing efficiency, making mistakes, inability to take decisions, under eating or overeating, sleeplessness, increased smoking, develop addiction to alcohol and drugs, forgetfulness, hypersensitivity or passiveness, accident proneness and interpersonal difficulties are seen.

Stress is linked to disorders such as cancer and heart disorders. There are several mediating variables that determine whether stress becomes dangerous or not. For example, good coping mechanisms which can help to reduce stress, having good social support, often help in reducing stress.

Perception of stress or how a person views stress is also very important. For example, a person may not perceive a situation as stressful whereas the same situation may be perceived as highly stressful by some other person.

People with personality type ‘A’ are more prone to be affected by stress related disorders like cardiovascular diseases. Personality character like hardiness or emotional stability helps to withstand effects of stress.

Hans Selye, a renowned biological scientist defines stress as the nonspecific response of the body to any demand upon it. He termed the body’s response to stressors the “General Adaptation Syndrome” (GAS).

The GAS consists of 3 stages:

1. Alarm reaction:

It is an emergency response of the body. In this stage prompt responses of the body, many of them mediated by the sympathetic nervous system, prepare us to cope with the stressor here and now.

2. Stage of resistance:

If the stressor continues to be present, the stage of resistance begins, wherein the body resists the effects of the continuous stressor. During this stage certain hormonal responses of the body are an important line of defence in resisting the effects of stressors (For example, release of ACTH).

3. Stage of exhaustion:

In this stage, the body’s capacity to respond to both continuous and new stressors has been seriously compromised. The person will no longer be able to face stressor and he will finally succumb to it. The person may develop psychosomatic illness.

The stress leads to many psychosomatic diseases. Treatment for such diseases involves medical help for the physical problems and, at the same time, attention to the psychological factors producing the stress.

Coping with Stress :

There are different ways of coping with stress such as: confronting (facing), distancing (remoteness), self-control, seeking social support, accepting responsibility, escape or avoid (from the stressor), plan a problem solving strategy and positive reappraisal.

Usually two broad type of coping types are seen- Instrumental coping and Emotional coping.

In instrumental coping, a person focuses on the problem and tries to solve it. In emotional coping, the focus is more on the feelings generated by the problem.

Today, self- help remedies, Do to yourself approaches, weight loss clinics and diets, health foods and physical exercise are being given much attention in mass media. People are actually taking more responsibility to maintain good health.

However, some specific techniques to eliminate or to manage more effectively the inevitable, prolonged stress are as follows:

Good physical exercise like walking, jogging, swimming, riding bicycle, playing soft ball, tennis are necessary to cope with stress.

Relaxation:

Whether a person simply takes it easy once in a while or uses specific relaxation techniques such as bio-feedback, or meditation, the intent is to eliminate the immediately stressful situation or manage a prolonged stressful situation more effectively.

Taking it easy may mean curling up with a good book on an easy chair or watching some light programme on television or listening to a light music. Meditation is scientifically proved to be very useful, both physically and mentally to cope with stress.

Behavioural self-control:

By deliberately managing the antecedents and the consequence of their own behaviour, people can achieve self-control. Besides managing their own behaviour to reduce stress, people can also become more aware of their limits and of ‘red flags’ that signal trouble ahead. They can avoid people or situations that they know will put them under stress.

Maladaptive strategies, rigid strategies or relying on one type of coping method lead to increase in the stress. Social support helps reduce the effect of stress. People may provide help, advice, material support or moral support that helps to reduce stress.

In addition to the above, psychotherapy (Beck’s cognitive therapy, Ellis’s rational emotive therapy and Meichenbaum’s stress- inoculation training), skill training, environmental changes, Bio-feedback (control of physical signs such as Blood pressure, headache, etc), family therapy, group therapy, hypnosis, yoga, are found to be very useful. Finally, uses of drugs are some of the other strategies adopted in coping with stress.

Essay on Tension: Meaning, Causes and Effects
Stress: Meaning, Causes and Suggestions to Manage It
Essay on Stress: Top 7 Essays | Human Behaviour | Psychology
Emotions in Children: Meaning, Effects and Hints | Term Paper | Psychology

Home / Essay Samples / Health / Stress / How To Cope With Stress

How To Cope With Stress

Category: Life , Health
Topic: Feeling , Stress

Pages: 2 (997 words)

Downloads: -->

Develop a good attitude

Find solutions, self-awareness, regular exercise, social interaction, laughter as a sense of humor, avoid substance and alcohol abuse, enough sleep.

--> ⚠️ Remember: This essay was written and uploaded by an--> click here.

Found a great essay sample but want a unique one?

are ready to help you with your essay

You won’t be charged yet!

Cancer Essays

Physical Exercise Essays

Sleep Essays

Public Health Essays

Weight Loss Essays

Related Essays

We are glad that you like it, but you cannot copy from our website. Just insert your email and this sample will be sent to you.

By clicking “Send”, you agree to our Terms of service and Privacy statement . We will occasionally send you account related emails.

Your essay sample has been sent.

In fact, there is a way to get an original essay! Turn to our writers and order a plagiarism-free paper.

samplius.com uses cookies to offer you the best service possible.By continuing we’ll assume you board with our cookie policy .--> -->