Managing Stress

In this blog over the years I’ve talked a lot about the management of stress. The skills ofresilience are really stress management skills. They are also the skills of emotional intelligence  These areas overlap a lot and have a lot to do with the issue of happiness as well.

Recently, I was asked to do an interview with a national magazine around the issue of stress management. The author wanted specific recommendations regarding how to manage stress quickly. We talked for about a half-hour and came up with a number of strategies; again, strategies very directly related to resilience as well as to the management of stress.

The management of stress has much to do with the beliefs that we hold about ourselves and other people. And about the world in general. In this blog, I’ve talked a lot about the issues of permanency and pervasiveness and personal blame. It is easy for us to get into this type of thinking which, as Seligman has defined repeatedly in his research, has much to do with pessimism and depression. So challenging our beliefs has much to do with resilience and with managing stress on a daily basis.  We make assumptions about how we should look, feel and behave. We also often get into black and white thinking. We say things like, ‘If I don’t get this promotion, I’m never going to get ahead in life.’  Or, ‘If this relationship fails, I will never find another person that I can love or could love me.’

Managing stress often involves challenging these assumptions and these beliefs. We need to argue with ourselves rather than simply accept these beliefs at face value.

We also need to find ways of channeling and expressing the stress that we are feeling. Sometimes we can do this by simply talking to others. Exercise can also be a very good idea. And engaging in creative activities, like drawing, writing or painting, can also work.

We also need to get our lives organized and directed. Before we can do this, we usually need to decide what is most important and what our goals really are right now. We can often make what may appear to be an overwhelming agenda manageable by writing it down and then realistically prioritizing the things that we can accomplish and making a plan to accomplish them.

So managing stress may be as simple some days as making a list and prioritizing the list, challenging our beliefs and what we must accomplish and finding ways to express our frustrations and often our anger specifically using creative activities as a channel.

Resilience has much to do with managing stress, and the skills of resilience and stress management are very, very similar to the ones that Goldman and others have defined as emotional intelligence and that those working in the area of positive psychology believe can lead to people feeling happier and more satisfied with their lives.