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Coping Strategies

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It is important to find ways to prevent stressful incidents and limit negative reactions to stress. Identify your coping strategies. Start by record a stressful event, your reaction and how you coped (or not) by describing the incident in a stress journal. With this information, you can work change unhealthy coping strategies into healthy ones. Always focus on the positive and what you can change or control in your life.

How to deal with stress by managing your time more efficiently:

-Save time by focusing and concentrating on the task at hand, delegate and schedule time for yourself.
-For a month or longer, keep a record of how you spend your time, including work, family, and leisure time. This will show you if you are wasting time without …show more content…

Spend more time on activities that are important and meaningful to you.
-Learn to say NO without feeling guilty. Manage your commitments by not over- or under committing.
-Stop procrastinating by using a day/week planner. Breaking large projects into smaller ones and set short- , mid- and long-term deadlines.
-Get rid of limiting beliefs - this way you will reduce conflict between what you believe and what your life is like.

Effective time management can free you to spend more time with your family and friends and allow you to increase your performance and productivity. Time management is a very effective way to reduce stress.

How to deal with stress by adapting your lifestyle

Certain behaviours and lifestyle choices affect your stress levels. Your lifestyle may not cause stress directly, but it can interfere with the ways your body seeks relief from stress. Try to:

-Balance personal, work, and family needs and obligations.
-Get enough sleep, since your body recovers from the stresses of the day while you are sleeping.
-Eat a balanced diet for a nutritional defence against stress.
-Get moderate exercise throughout the week.
Limit your consumption of caffeine and alcohol.
-Don't …show more content…

-Problem solving helps you identify all aspects of a stressful event and find ways to deal with it.
-Evaluating and improving your communication style helps you communicate in a way that makes your views known without making others feel uncomfortable, hostile, or intimidated. This reduces the stress that comes from poor communication.

It can be difficult to implement the steps above. Take it one step at a time, do not try to introduce several steps at the same time. If you feel overwhelmed, seek help early. Increase your knowledge and defence against stress by reading up about the subject so that you will recognise harmful symptoms early. Other possible options are to engage the services of an experienced stress management consultant to help you identify the cause of your escalating stress and develop strategies to manage it. You can even combine a stress management course with a relaxing holiday.

Remember, uncontrolled stress can seriously damage your health. If in doubt, see your doctor.

For those who are prepared to take some action and deal with the cause of their stress, the rewards can be

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