Treating Stress with Mental Activities

Avoid negative thinking.

Acknowledge the positive in your life and begin to re-establish some balance in your emotional register. Avoid focusing on only the bad things that happened during your day, but consider the good as well.

· Stop and count your blessings. Write down even the simplest things that you have and enjoy: a roof over your head, a bed to sleep on, quality food, warmth, security, good health, friends, or family. Acknowledge that not everyone has these things.

· Say something positive to yourself as soon as you wake up every morning. This will keep your energy and mind focused on positive thinking. Be thankful for each day that you have; you never know which one could be your last!

· Use positive self-talk. Reinforce your resolve through positive statements such as, “I can handle this, one step at a time,” or “Since I’ve been successful with this before, there’s no reason why I can’t do it again.”

Visualize positive things; this does not take long but can help you regain focus. Think about success, read about successful people. Don’t admit defeat before you’ve been defeated. You don’t deserve to beat yourself down so that you can punish yourself

Organize your life

Set goals for what you need to achieve during the day, then write a “to-do list”. Add some breathing room in the middle of the day that will give you time to recharge. Taking control of your time and priorities will significantly decrease the amount of stress you feel.

· Know your limits. Be realistic about what you can and can’t accomplish in a day. It’s not helpful if you bite off more than you can chew and then castigate yourself for not getting it done.

· Prioritize your tasks. Work on finishing the highest priority (most urgent/important) items first. Put low-priority items on the bottom of your list. Try to avoid multitasking, as this can decrease focus. Instead, try to focus on important tasks and eliminate distractions.

· Do your most unpleasant or most difficult task at the beginning of the day when you are fresh, thereby avoiding the stress of last-minute preparation. Procrastination feeds stress!

· Emphasize quality in your work, rather than sheer quantity. Take pride in having done something well as opposed to having done a lot of something.

· Schedule your day, if possible, so that stressful scenarios don’t overlap, reducing the number of stressors you must juggle at any one time. Stagger deadlines for large projects.

· Review your goals at the end of the day and think about everything you have achieved. This is cathartic and will help you sleep better. Check off the things that you accomplished on the to-do list.

Identify the things that put you under stress

Make sure you understand why you become stressed so that you can try to avoid these circumstances. Knowledge is power, and self-knowledge is especially powerful.

· If you notice, for example, that you regularly get stressed at a certain time with a certain person, go out of your way to prepare your brain for the upcoming stress. If the person is someone you love and trust, tell them how they make you feel in a non-threatening way. If you don’t feel comfortable sharing your misgivings, remind yourself that the occasion is momentary, the feeling will pass, and you’ll be in complete control soon.

Stop worrying about the things you cannot change

This especially comes with things such as politics, and often applies to other individuals. Learning to accept things as they are is an important coping mechanism, but not as easy as it sounds.

· Is the problem a real problem you’re currently facing, rather than an imaginary what-if? If the problem is an imaginary what-if, how likely is it to happen? Is your concern realistic? Can you do something about the problem or prepare for it, or is it out of your control

· Admitting to yourself that there’s nothing you can do about a particular issue will go a long way in helping you adjust. Acknowledge that maybe you feed off of stress as an adrenaline junkie feeds off adrenaline, but that in your case, it’s becoming unmanageable.

Take responsibility for making your life what you want it to be

It is less stressful to make decisions and take action than to feel powerless and react to others’ decisions. Decide what you want and go for it!

· Learn to say no on occasion. You cannot do everything you are asked, and even if you could, you probably wouldn’t want to.

· Resist the urge to be perfect at all times. Perfectionism can cause huge amounts of stress if you hold yourself to unattainable standards. Be realistic about what you can and can’t do. Don’t set yourself up for failure just because you want to stroke your ego.

· Don’t get down on yourself for failing if you tried your hardest. You gave it your all, and nobody would ask you for more. Hold yourself accountable, but don’t make being accountable impossible.

Be one of your own best friends. It may sound cheesy, like something out of a Leave it to Beaver commercial, but it’s true: Love yourself, depend (mostly) on yourself, and celebrate the things you do well. Loving yourself will ease the anxious question “Am I good enough?” and replace it with “I know I’m good enough.”

Develop a sense of humor

One of the barriers to stress reduction is the temptation to take things too seriously. It’s okay to back off from your intensity and see the humor in life’s situations. Laugh a little or better yet, laugh a lot! See the humor in stress.

· Learn to laugh at yourself. Don’t put yourself down, or lash your self-esteem, but try to be playfully deprecating about yourself from time to time. How are you expected to laugh at other things if you can’t even laugh at yourself?

· Help yourself learn to laugh by listening to some stand-up comedy throughout the day. This will help you cultivate humor and keep the tone of your daylight.

Learn to lean on friends and loved ones

This is one of the most important things, as keeping things bottled up can only cause more stress. Your friends, if they are true friends, will try to understand what you’re going through, and will accompany that empathy with a sincere desire to help out if at all possible.

· Ask your friends for help. If you want something done but can’t find the strength or the time to do it, it’s okay to ask your friends or loved ones for help. Express your gratitude and extend the offer of help as a kind of reciprocity. Learn to delegate to help decrease stress.

· Look for people’s respect, not approval — your friends included. Your friends will respect you because they love you, even if they don’t always agree with you. Your enemies (if you have any) will respect you because your motivations come from a sincere, heartfelt place. Resist the urge to be loved and accepted by everyone; it’s literally a Herculean task. You’ll find yourself a lot less stressed and a lot more satisfied if you do.

· Seek out positive people rather than negative ones. It sounds like a truism because it is: Surrounding yourself with people who are fun-loving, excited, and kind will help you avoid the stress you’d be feeling with pessimistic, cynical, mean people.

Have more positive self-talk

Nothing else helps intensify stress more than negative thoughts. When you start to have the feeling of defeat is the perfect time for a little reminder.

· You know yourself better than anyone else, and you are the perfect person to give you the reminder that it will get better.

· Remind yourself of all of the things you have accomplished in the past. All of those small accomplishments add up to very big ones over time.

· Change the words you use. Instead of saying, “I can’t do this,” say something like, “I’ve been able to get through this before, and I will get through it this time too.”