•        Avoid drinking, smoking:
  • People think one of the easiest stress relievers is alcohol.
  • However excessive consumption, can lead to health and in many cases domestic problems.
  • Similarly, to many people regardless of age or income, legal and illegal drugs as well as cigarettes are an all too prevalent and dangerous way of dealing with stress in the short term.
  • Drinking and smoking to excess is not the only potentially harmful way of coping with stress.
  • Many people also find relief in over-eating, trying to numb their anxiety with too much ice cream or smother it in cheese sauce.
  • It’s very important to stay healthy in times of stress and make good choices when it comes to eating and drinking.
  • If this is a part of life is not in control, managing stress will be almost impossible.
•      Keep a Journal:
  • Journaling is a term coined for the practice of keeping a diary or journal that explores thoughts and feelings about all aspects of life.
  • Journaling, as a stress management and self-exploration tool, is not the same as simply recording events, such as keeping a log.
  • To be most helpful, feelings related to stressful events should be written in detail, as if in therapy.
  • Journaling allows people to clarify their thoughts and feelings, thereby gaining valuable self-knowledge.
  • It’s also a good problem-solving tool and can be used to hash out a problem and come up with solutions, which can happen more easily when on paper.
•         Breathing Exercises:
  • Deep breathing is an easy stress reliever that has many benefits for the body, including oxygenating the blood, which ‘wakes up’ the brain, relaxing muscles and quieting the mind.
  • Breathing exercises are especially helpful because can be done anywhere, and they work quickly so can de-stress in a flash.
  • Deep breathing is one of the best ways to lower stress in the body.
  • This is because when breathing deeply sends a message to the brain to calm down and relax.
  • The brain then sends this message to the body.
  • Those things that happen when we are stressed, such as increased heart rate, fast breathing and high blood pressure, all decrease on deep breathe.
•          Exercise:
  • Many people exercise to control weight and get in better physical condition to become more healthy or physically attractive, but exercise and stress management are also closely linked, of course.
  • Exercise provides a distraction from stressful situations, as well as an outlet for frustrations, and gives a lift with a surge of endorphins as well.
•        Meditation:
  • Meditation builds on deep breathing, and takes it a step further.
  • When one meditates, brain enters an area of functioning that’s similar to sleep, but carries some added benefits you can’t achieve as well in any other state, including the release of certain hormones that promote health.
  • Also, the mental focus on nothingness keeps mind from working overtime and increasing stress level.
  • Give yourself 10 minutes, either in the morning or at night before bed, to sit and calmly let your thoughts fade and mind relax.
  • Some people prefer to sit cross-legged or sitting back on their calves, while others like to lie on their back with arms to their sides.
  • Find a position that is comfortable for you and reap the benefits of an amazing stress reliever.
•        Yoga:
  • Yoga is one of the oldest self-improvement practices around, dating back over five thousand years.
  • It combines the practices of several other stress management techniques such as breathing, meditation, imagery and movement, giving you a lot of benefit for the amount of time and energy required.
  • Yoga helps strengthen, elongate and tone every muscle group in your body.
  • Laughter yoga is also offered in some places, helping you lighten up your mood but also get some get movement going.
•     Self-hypnosis:
  • Self-hypnosis helps enable you to communicate directly to subconscious mind to enhance abilities, more easily give up bad habits, feel less pain, more effectively develop healthier habits, and even find answers to questions that may not be clear to your waking mind. It takes some practice and training, but is well worth it.
•      Sex:
  • The physical benefits of sex are numerous, and most of them work very well toward relieving stress.
  • Sadly, many people have less sex when their stress levels are high.
•        Progressive Muscle Relaxation:
  • By tensing and relaxing all the muscle groups in your body, you can relieve tension and feel much more chill in minutes.
  • Start by tensing all the muscles in your face, holding a tight grimace ten seconds, then completely relaxing for ten seconds.
  • Repeat this with your neck, followed by your shoulders, etc.
  • You can do this anywhere, and as you practice, you will find you can relax more quickly and easily, reducing tension as quickly as it starts.
  • Tense then release your muscle groups traveling down the body, ending with your feet and toe muscles.
•       Music:
  • Music therapy has shown numerous health benefits for people with conditions ranging from mild issues, such as stress, to severe ones, such as cancer.
  • When dealing with stress, the right music can actually lower your blood pressure, relax your body and calm your mind, especially slow, quiet classical music.

Reference: http://madamenoire.com/115365/top-10-stress-relievers-to-try-during-this-busy-season

• Exercise
• Regular exercise can help deal stress better contrary to popular opinion, research shows that it’s probably not the release of endorphins that’s responsible for but rather the release of norepinephrine, which helps the body cope with stress.
• Whatever the cause, exercise does wonders to overcome and prevent stress.
• Meditation.
• Meditation can take many forms.
• Simply doing light stretching, deep breathing, yoga or tai chi can help.
• Take a break.
• If work project or the kids are driving you crazy, take a break.
• Sometimes taking a break and doing something completely different can help.
• Go outside.
• Changing surroundings can help reduce your stress.
• Have lunch outside.
• Instead of doing the conference call your desk, do it while taking a walk outside.
• Read that report in the shade.
• There’s something magical that happens when we are outside that just doesn’t happen under the glow of fluorescent lights.
• Take deep breaths.
• This one is so simple and so effective!
• Create triggers throughout the day to remind you to do this, like every time you make a phone call, stop at a red light, eat, take a drink, go to the bathroom, etc.
• Plan a vacation.
• Planning a vacation can give you a mental boost, even if you can’t afford to go on one.
• Research shows that the happiness you get from actually going on a vacation wears off much faster than you think (about two weeks).
• Sit down and dream a little.
• Plan a trip, whether it’s a month from now or two years from now but start thinking about it.

Reference: http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/columnists/ct-tribu-pagliarini-reduce-stress-column,0,5692914.column

-  Two-fifths of surveyed adults reported overeating or eating unhealthy foods because of stress.

-   Nearly one-third of respondents said they skipped a meal because of Stress.

-   More than four in ten said they had lain awake at night.

-   The most common physical symptoms of stress reported were irritability(45 percent), fatigue (41 percent) and lack of energy or motivation(38 percent).To manage stress, The APA recommends that you:

-  Understand how you get stressed. How are your behaviors or thoughts different under stress?

-  Do you have a harder time concentrating or making decisions? Do you lash out in anger? Or do you experience headaches, muscle aches or lack of energy?

-  Identify sources of stress. What triggers stressful feelings? Are these stress triggers related to family, health, financial decisions, work, or something else?

-  Find healthy ways to manage stress.

-  Participate in stress-reducing activities like exercising, meditating, yoga, or talking things over with friends or family. Reaching out for support from others is another important part of stress management.

-  Regular sleep, healthy eating and plenty of water.

Reference: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/stress-busters-2011-12-08 

Stress Spot: The Brain

-      Chronic secretion of the stress hormone cortisol damages memory centers, when excessively, we can be caught in perpetual stress, triggering anxiety disorders, depression and margaritas at lunchtime.

The Fix:

-      Don’t be so damned conscientious.

-      A Canadian study of 2,737 workers found that when people thought their poor job performance could have a serious impact on their coworkers, their company, or the environment, job stress increased.

-      Responsible workers who saw their jobs as careers tended to say their jobs were highly stressful, while people who were satisfied with their jobs or who didn’t think of them as careers were less likely to report stress.

-      The lesson: Take a day off. The company won’t go under if you’re out for nine hours. (Note: This does not apply to air-traffic controllers.)

Bonus Instant Feel-Good Fix:

-      Swear. Researchers at England’s University of East Anglia Norwich looked into leadership styles and found that using swear words can reduce stress and boost camaraderie among coworkers. (It’s also a good way to deal with pain, a separate British study found.)

Stress spot: The Neck, Head and Back

-      Pituitary, hypothalamic, and adrenal hormones flood the body, focusing your attention and alertness, sharpening vision, and preparing muscles to take action against a threat.

-      When the perceived danger does not go away, you lose the ability to return to equilibrium.

The Fix:

-      Create a three-legged life.

-      Add balance to your home, your work, and yourself to create a buffer against stress. “If one leg of the stool goes down, you have others to hold you up,” says Munir Soliman, MD, director of the Center for Wellness & Personal Growth at the University of California, San Diego.

Stress spot: The Hair

-      Researchers from the University of Western Ontario may have found a biomarker to measure chronic stress. It’s hair.

-      They took follicle samples from about 100 men, half of whom where hospitalized for heart attacks, and found that hair cortisol was highest in the heart patients.

-      Since hair grows about 1 centimeter a month, researchers used 3-centimeter samples to provide a record of stress levels over the previous three months.

-      Scientists believe the findings bolster the theory that chronic stress may contribute to heart attack just as acute stress does.

The Fix:

-      Focus on somebody besides numero uno.

-      “People who have a problem with anxiety often get lost in measuring and judging themselves,” says Mel Schwartz, a Connecticut-based psychotherapist.

-      “The critical voice is enslaving.”

-      Try focusing on others.

-      Showing respect and appreciation for others has an amazing ability to diffuse obsessive thoughts and behavior caused by preoccupation with the self.

Stress spot: The Sympathetic Nervous System

-      A release of norepinephrine causes the heart to beat faster, blood pressure to rise, sweat to stain your shirt, and breathing to quicken to deliver more oxygen and glucose to muscles and tissues.

-      Endorphins make blood vessels constrict to reduce bleeding in case of attack.

-      This is what causes the hairs on the back of your neck and skull to stand on end.

-      While stress hormones help us cope with danger, prolonged pressure can harm the heart and suppress the immune system, which may make us more vulnerable to everything from colds and flu to cancer.

The Fix:

-       Twist yourself into a pretzel and laugh.

-      Laughter Yoga practitioners swear that combining yogic breathing and stretching techniques and forced laughter helps them cope better with life stress.

-      Studies show that, separately, yoga and laughter do stifle stress.

-      For example: Two studies presented at the 2009 American College of Sports Medicine’s annual meeting found that the blood vessels of people who watched comedy films were more pliable and experienced improved blood flow for up to 24 hours after the chuckles started.

Stress spot: The Gut

-      Increased acids from stress churn your stomach and loosen your bowels (hence the soiling-yourself stress reaction).

-      It can even alter the way the body processes fat, causing you to store more of it in your abdomen.

The Fix:

-      Give yourself a hand.

-      Try acupressure for a quick stress release.

-      Massage the fleshy part between the thumb and index finger of one hand for 30 seconds with the thumb and first two fingers of your other hand.

-      A study at Hong Kong Polytechnic University found that acupressure with lavender oil can reduce stress by up to 39 percent.

-      Two other reports in the Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine identified 58 clinical trials showing that massage therapy and tai chi practice significantly reduce salivary cortisol, heart rate, blood pressure, and depression.

Reference: http://abcnews.go.com/Health/w_MindBodyResource/kiss-stress-goodbye-natural-ways-beat-fear-anxiety/story?id=14883870#.Trcy70-CJe4

]]> http://www.stressmanagement.in/blog/2011/11/kiss-stress-goodbye-natural-ways-to-beat-fear-and-anxiety/feed/ 0 http://www.stressmanagement.in/blog/2011/11/the-antidepressant-diet/ http://www.stressmanagement.in/blog/2011/11/the-antidepressant-diet/#comments Mon, 07 Nov 2011 10:40:42 +0000 admin http://www.stressmanagement.in/blog/?p=388 Debunking the myth surrounding carbohydrates and weight gain, the connection between carbohydrates, serotonin and antidepressant weight gain.

The triggers that make dieters and non-dieters reach for food are endless, and they range from a computer virus erasing data to caring for a chronically sick relative. Distress triggers can also arise from the hormonal changes of premenstrual syndrome, menopause, chronic pain, exhaustion from too much work, too little sleep or decreased sunlight. Regardless of its cause, stress often leads to the abandonment of a diet and overeating.

Consumer Reports recently published their evaluation of well-known weight loss programs. The top-rated program gave the participants free food and counselling for two years. Weight loss this comprehensive program produced over two years, the obese participants lost an average of 8kgs and this was the best program among the many tested.

Why such a miniscule weight loss? If the participants adhered to the diet for 104 weeks, shouldn’t they have lost more weight? Of course, if they had stayed on the diet for the entire time. But a 8kgs weight loss over two years suggests that they must have stopped dieting for part of the time, suspected it was due to stress.

The Consumer Reports study was not set up to answer this question, but it is reasonable to assume that if the dieters encountered the almost inevitable stresses of health, family as well as the daily annoyances of dealing with computers when seeking customer service, they may have turned to food to ease their frustration, anger or pain. Since it is doubtful that the foods they ate under such stress were on the diet plan, the healthful eating was probably abandoned until the stressful event was resolved.

Eating obviously doesn’t remove the cause of the stress. But if the right foods are eaten at the right time, the emotions associated with stress will diminish. In a study carried out at it was found that stressed volunteers had less anger, depression, anxiety and irritability after consuming a carbohydrate-rich beverage. When they drank a similarly flavored beverage containing protein, however, there was no improvement in their mood. The effect of the carbohydrate drink so astonished one of the volunteers, that he demanded to know what was in his drink because he was sure we had added a tranquilizer.

Carbohydrates help endure stress because eating any sweet or starchy food (except the carbohydrates in fruit) allows the brain to make new serotonin. Serotonin makes people feel calmer and as a result a belief that one can cope. Most diets insist on favoring protein foods over carbohydrate and rarely, if ever, allow carbohydrates to be eaten alone. Protein has no positive effect on lessening the emotional impact of stress, and if eaten alone or along with carbohydrate, can actually worsen it by preventing serotonin from being made. Thus the dieter no longer has the option of eating foods that will help them bear the stress-of-the-day; they are forbidden.

High-fat foods may obliterate the perception of stress. Some of the weight loss clients deliberately binged on fatty foods so they would not have to confront a difficult situation.

If dieters are told how to eat to make stress bearable and still lose weight, perhaps they would adhere to their diet more consistently. It is true that meditation, behavioral modification, counseling and exercise offered by many programs help the stressed dieter. They help the way physical therapy helps relieve the pain of a slipped disc… until it doesn’t. Just as the pain of an inflamed disc drives the patient to seek more potent pain relief with an injection into the spinal cord, the dieter, in pain from their stress, will seek relief by eating. And there goes the diet.

In the latest work, it was acknowledged that stress is probably going to happen and tell the dieter how to eat when it does. One of the diet plans offered allows the dieter to eat enough carbohydrate throughout the day to boost serotonin synthesis. The carbohydrate foods recommended are very low in both fat and protein. (Obviously protein, fruits and vegetables are on the diet, but the timing of their consumption does not interfere with serotonin synthesis.) What distinguishes this plan is that the dieter is given the option of switching to a specific stress relieving food plan when dealing with acute emotional distress, such as bad premenstrual syndrome or very bad news.

No diet will make stress disappear, and sometimes stressful events demand so much of the dieter that weight loss at that moment becomes irrelevant. But a diet that allows people to eat foods to diminish the distress of negative events will certainly improve the odds that they will reach their weight loss goal.

Reference: http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-antidepressant-diet/201106/carbs-will-diminish-stress-while-dieting

Some Helpful and simple ways to deal:

-      Having a social life helps the brain [So for those of in college who believe dog is the only friend, and reality television is a fine substitute for reality, probably are destined for a later life of desolate dementia.]

-      Another thing that helps: Eating healthy [Eat a stick of celery or something green].

-      Also exercising and promoting a healthy physique, rather than just lounging on the couch and talking are not a good way to spend the time.

-      The one thing that may be universal to everyone reading this is learning how to manage stress (Your way).

Reference: http://www.collegian.com/index.php/article/2011/09/tips_to_prevent_alzheimers_and_stressinduced_breakdowns

Some handy tress busters…Use an average of five a day.

-      Simplify: Cut your to-do list in half. Cut down the items which when not accomplished will not have a major impact, most of the time half of the items of the list get cancelled when prioritized.

-      Prioritize:

• Let’s say you’ve got five huge work projects due next week.
• But you record all the tasks on a sheet of paper/computer and
• Give each one a number between 1 and 10: 10 being the most important (life threatening) to one.
• Start with the 10s.
• If you never get beyond the 8s, that’s okay!

-      Use pencil, not pen:

• If you rely on your to-do list then you’ll want to start using pencil instead of pen.
• Because one important stress buster is to try to stay as flexible as you can.
• Things change! You will be able to erase a task or reminder at any time, as the day will be like.

-      Give away your cape:

• Realize you are not a superpower and don’t possess supernatural qualities and capabilities.
• Which means surrendering to limitations and conditions–like the number of hours in a day (24) and the amount of time it takes to get from point A to point B.

-      Collaborate and cooperate:

• There are lots of people out there with to-do lists that look very similar to yours.
• Why not let them do some of your tasks so that you all don’t have to do them?
• The moms around me have mastered this concept, as they have set up a babysitting co-op: one mom volunteers to watches a neighbor’s kid and by doing so earns babysitting points that she can redeem when a neighbor watches her kids.
• In the blogging world, I have begun to collaborate with some other mental-health writers so that we all don’t have to scan the same media outlets for depression-related stories.
• If I catch something I send it to them, and vice versa. It’s an effective system.

-      Laugh:

• Just as chronic and severe stress can damage organic systems in our body, humor can heal.
• When people laugh, the autonomic nervous system mellows out and the heart relaxes.
• Laughter also boosts the immune system, as it has been found to increase a person’s ability to fight viruses and foreign cells and reduce the levels of three stress hormones: cortisol, epinephrine, and dopac.
• And having fun is it’s own stress buster.

-      Exercise:

• Exercise relieves stress in several ways.
• First, cardiovascular workouts stimulate brain chemicals that foster growth of nerve cells.
• Second, exercise increases the activity of serotonin and/or norepinephrine.
• Third, a raised heart rate releases endorphins and a hormone known as ANP, which reduces pain, induces euphoria, and helps control the brain’s response to stress and anxiety.
• You need not to run a marathon or complete an ironman.
• A quick stroll in the morning or in the evening might be just enough to scatter the stress hormones.

-      Stop juggling:

• I realize some multi-tasking is inevitable in our rushed culture. But we do not really have to simultaneously cook dinner, talk and check e-mail etc.
• Try your best to concentrate on one activity at a time.

-      Build boundaries:

• Speaking of activities, get some boundaries, ASAP–meaning designate a place and time for certain things so that your brain doesn’t have to wear so many hats at the same time.

-      Think globally:

• A simple reminder that compared to other problems in our world today–abject poverty in Somalia or Cambodia–the things that we stress about are pretty minor.
• In other words, if you shift your perspective a little, you can see that there are far worse dilemmas than your poor royalty figures on a few books.
• Put another way: Don’t sweat the small stuff, and most of it is small stuff.

Reference: http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2011/04/28/10-quick-stress-busters/

Find below some tips about stress which the author believes could have helped to deal the stress better if it was known much prior in life:

-          Think like an athlete.

An ideal performance state is prolonged and sustained high performance over time. To achieve this, one must become adept at moving between energy expenditure (stress) and energy renewal (recovery).

-          Rejuvenate – often.

In order to get the energy renewal required to live and work in an ideal performance state one must rejuvenate.

Research shows small renewals are needed about every two hours.

• Walking down the hall to grab a beverage, stretching, listening to music for a few minutes, or shifting attention gives energy needed to finish important tasks in a productive manner.
• In addition to daily mini renewals, one needs to rejuvenate outside work.
• Make a list of the different ways you like to rejuvenate and do something from that list each week.

-          Know Your Stress Type

Noted stress researchers and Doctors have identified four stress types that specifically impact women. They are as follows:

• Flat and frazzled – Generally calm, but when stress hits, they have a big response. Extremely sensitive to stress.
• Life observer – This is the most rarest stress type marked by an extreme state where one feels like living in a bubble watching life pass you by.
• Constant overdrive – Hard time sitting still, often tap feet or hands and frequently clench or grind teeth.
• Sprint and crash – Stress keeps them focused and running, so can close deals, prepare for a big meeting and manage all of clients, but once the stress is reduced or eliminated, they crash.

-          Be a satisfier, not a maximizer.

We live in a culture that rewards perfection, which is a state that is not sustainable.

• The pressure is on to make the perfect decision, give the perfect sales pitch, or pick the perfect product (called maximizing).
• This feeling stems from the fact that we have too many choices in today’s modern world.
• Too much choice not only makes our decisions harder but also makes it more likely that we’ll end up regretting our selection.
• As a result, eliminate choices by setting standards – what is your “good enough” (called satisfying)?
• Remember – Our family, friends, and clients don’t want us to be perfect, they want us to do a good job and be you.

- Take Risks.

• At first glance, this piece of advice might seem like a big stress promoter, but not if you’re taking the right kind of risk. The happiest people work on challenging tasks regularly, and if you’re working on hard enough goals, you’re going to have to put yourself out there. While this means you will be out of your comfort zone, you will also have the amazing ability to learn and grow from your mistakes and gain confidence and momentum when you do well.

- Establish goals that promote flow.

• Flow happens when one finds the right level of task challenge for skill level and pursuing something that is intrinsically motivating.
• Otherwise a person gets bored (the task challenge is too easy) or anxious (the task challenge is too hard).

-          Pay attention to positive emotion.

• A research on positive emotion shows that those who most frequently cultivate it broaden and build their personal resources.
• Specifically, they have an increased capacity to find solutions to tough problems, improved health, and stronger relationships.
• To see the benefits that positive emotion can bring, one should be at or near a positivity ratio of 3:1 (positive to negative emotions).

The world needs more of strong, talented go-getters who are able to navigate the pressure that comes with being a high-achieving professional. These tools will help not only succeed, but also thrive, allowing to both live and work at a sustainable pace.

Reference: http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/pressure-proof/201104/7-stress-tips-i-wish-id-known-i-entered-the-real-world

Unexpected life developments, trauma and stress can toss people off pace mentally and emotionally. Thoughts and feelings arise from a traumatic or stressful life experience; writing about them is called expressive writing.

Expressive writing may help some people cope with the emotional fallout of such events. Though not a cure-all and it won’t work for everyone, it appears to be more effective for people who are not struggling with ongoing or severe mental health challenges, such as major depression or post-traumatic stress disorder.

Testing The Theory

The Psychology Department At The University Of Texas, Austin

- The Psychology department at the University of Texas, Austin, has conducted much of the research on the health benefits of expressive writing.

- In one early study, 46 healthy college students were asked to write about either personally traumatic life events or trivial topics for 15 minutes on four consecutive days.

- For six months following the experiment, students who wrote about traumatic events visited the campus health center less often, and used a pain reliever less frequently, than those who wrote about inconsequential matters.

Most Studies

- Most studies have evaluated the impact of expressive writing on people with physical health conditions such as sleep apnea, asthma, migraine headaches, rheumatoid arthritis, HIV, and cancer.

- Likewise, most of the outcomes measured are physical and the findings — such as blood pressure and heart rate — suggest that expressive writing initially may upset people but eventually helps them to relax.

More recently

Researchers have evaluated whether expressive writing helps reduce stress and anxiety.

- One study found that this technique reduced stigma-related stress in gay men.

- Another found that it benefited chronically stressed caregivers of older adults.

- And a study by researchers at the University of Chicago found that anxious test-takers who wrote briefly about their thoughts and feelings before taking an important exam earned better grades than those who did not.

The Standard Format

The standard format involves writing for

- A specified period each day

- About a particularly stressful/or traumatic experience.

- This may also use the exercise to understand how the traumatic event may revive memories of other stressful events.

Participants usually write nonstop while exploring their innermost thoughts and feelings without inhibition (and the writing samples remain confidential for that reason).

Why Writing May Help

- When the Psychology Department At The University Of Texas first started studying expressive writing, the prevailing theory was that it might help people overcome emotional inhibition.

- According to this theory, people who had suppressed a traumatic memory might learn to move beyond the experience once they expressed their emotions about it - But it’s not quite that simple.

- Instead, multiple mechanisms may underlie the benefits of expressive writing.

- The act of thinking about an experience, as well as expressing emotions, seems to be important. In this way, writing helps people to organize thoughts and give meaning to a traumatic experience.

- Or the process of writing may enable them to learn to better regulate their emotions.

- It’s also possible that writing about something fosters an intellectual process — the act of constructing a story about a traumatic event — that helps someone break free of the endless mental cycling more typical of brooding.

- Finally, when people open up privately about a traumatic event, they are more likely to talk with others about it — suggesting that writing leads indirectly to reaching out for social support that can aid healing.

- Timing also matters – few studies have found that people who write about a traumatic event immediately after it occurs may actually feel worse after expressive writing, possibly because they are not yet ready to face it. Thus clinicians and patients are advised to wait at least one or two months after a traumatic event before trying this technique.

Expressive writing is such an easy, low-cost technique that it may be worth trying.

Reference: http://www.health.harvard.edu/

]]> http://www.stressmanagement.in/blog/2011/10/writing-about-emotions-may-ease-stress-and-trauma/feed/ 0 http://www.stressmanagement.in/blog/2011/10/how-stress-can-help-a-marriage/ http://www.stressmanagement.in/blog/2011/10/how-stress-can-help-a-marriage/#comments Tue, 11 Oct 2011 06:15:21 +0000 admin http://www.stressmanagement.in/blog/?p=328 Here is something positive to say about STRESS IN MARRIAGE!

It seems that even if it were possible to banish stress from the lives of newlyweds, doing so might not be all to the good.

New Research

-      Suggests that in handling moderate doses of stress early in marriage, couples gain practice with stress that should help them surmount the tougher forms of it that may enter their future lives together.

-      Knowing they successfully have navigated stressful developments in the past gives couples needed confidence when stress arrives yet again on their doorstep, according researchers in the Department of Human Development and Family Sciences at the University of Texas in Austin.

-      For newlyweds, “a number of stressors tend to accompany the transition to marriage” such as relocation, starting a new job or completing educational programs.

-      It generally is thought that stress harms the quality of a marriage, researchers observed in a just-published report in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. “Traditionally,” they add, “it has been argued that stressful contexts render preserving a healthy relationship more difficult.”

-      But researchers go so far as to say that “beginning a marriage with little to no stress robs the couple of the opportunity to put their relationship resources to the test, and this can leave couples at risk for marital declines when future stressors, such as the transition to parenthood, are encountered.”

-      For newlyweds “who possess adequate initial resources for coping” with stress (that is, couples who begin with good communication abilities, supportive social networks, a willingness to see things from the other’s perspective, etc.), the experience of moderate stress provides “a training ground in which to hone their coping responses,” the report states.

-      This experience helps couples “build additional resources for facing future stressful events.” They grow more resilient in the face of stress.

Couples Need Stress Management Skills

-      “High levels of stress” in marriage “may sap couples’ energy and drain coping resources,” the researchers comment.

-      It is “important for couples to understand how stress may seep into marriage.”

-      Much of the study suggests that under conditions of high stress, the stress may overwhelm couples’ skills, even for couples who generally exhibit good relationship functioning.

Result

-      “Marriages may benefit if couples work on improving their stress management skills” in order to prevent stress from spilling over harmfully into their marriage.

-      Stress management skills reflects concern that couples experiencing high levels of stress often fail to utilize the communication or conflict-resolution skills they may have learned.

-      Some researchers find it ironic that “the very times when spouses need their relationship skills the most may be precisely the times when it is most difficult to draw upon those skills.”

-      “If stress drains couples of energy and self-control resources, it will be that much harder for couples to ‘do the right thing’” in the face of stress, for example, not to “snap back when a partner is short with you, etc).”

-      When stress impedes a couple’s “capacity to engage in the behaviors they know to be beneficial for the marriage,” they may need to add stress-management techniques to their basic communication skills.

-      These skills encompass awareness of the sources of their stress.

Couples Should Identify Outside Stressors

-      Often, the stress that spills over into a marriage really comes from outside the marriage; perhaps a husband’s or wife’s work is the source of the stress.

-      “As a first step toward successful stress management, couples may benefit from insight into how stressors encountered outside of the marriage may influence their thoughts and behaviors within the marriage.”

-      It is important that couples “identify the stressors surrounding their marriages” and “recognize the ways stress may influence” them as a couple.

-      The need is to “equip couples with better coping skills for managing or even reducing their stress,” as well as the need to “ensure that couples gain practice applying these skills to small stressors.”

-      A challenge posed for couples by this research – the challenge is to realize that all couples experience stress, and to take stress seriously, and to ready themselves as much as possible to cope with it.

-      But the good news seems to be that the practice newlywed couples gain with small and moderate levels of stress may have a certain “inoculation” effect. It can build up their defenses against future stress and help prevent stress from damaging their happiness.

-      Researches propose in their report that “weathering small challenges can enhance the durability of the marriage over time.”

Reference: http://foryourmarriage.org/how-stress-can-help-a-marriage

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