12 August 2022

There are two kinds of stress: ‘acute stress’ and ‘chronic stress’. Acute stress is an immediate reaction better known as the ‘fight-or-flight-instinct’, which is a survival tactic remnant from our ancestors to protect themselves from danger and predators. It’s just an instinctual reaction to immediate threat that tells you to ‘fight’ or ‘run away’.

Chronic stress on the other hand is the one we face every day, such as deadlines to meet or long-term family issues, and it can drastically affect an individual’s mental and physical health.

In this article, we will discover four ways to deal with this Chronic stress;

Shifting focus

Shifting your focus is a great way to eliminate stress and recenter yourself. To start, you can find some way to meditate. Some might call it procrastination but little things like chewing gum, singing or rocking in a chair can prove as a good distraction for the mind.

Something like watching a funny video or idly flipping through social media isn’t encouraged when you’re supposed to be studying, but you shouldn’t be afraid to take a break if you’re stuck. Doing something that isn’t related to the main task allows you to come back to it with a clean slate of mind.

Helping others is a good way to shift your focus and could offer a change of perspective. Helping others in need can help put your problems into perspective. Those who do so have a tendency to build up their resilience. It doesn’t have to be anything extreme, it can be as simple as doing a favor for someone each day. For example, it could be helping out in the kitchen or making a warm cup of tea.

Prioritise and delegate

You can’t do everything at once, so it is best to prioritize what you need to do first and trim your tasks down until it’s doable. One good way of doing this is going by following the rule of five: Very important, Fairly important, Important, Slightly important and Not very important. Make a list of the top five things to do and slowly go down your list. Once everything is organised, it would be much easier to proceed forward.

Increase oxygen flow

It is common for someone to say ‘take a deep breath’ to someone when they’re stressed out. The reason behind this saying is because the increased oxygen flow in the brain can calm down the regions that get activated by stress.

The best way to increase oxygen flow is through exercise. You can consider simple activities like jumping jacks, sit ups or getting up, and Zumba dancing. You can keep about 10–20 minutes for your sessions. Besides, lower intensity activities like doing yoga, meditation or even just going for a walk would work too.

An alternative way to increase oxygen flow is to learn a proper breathing technique, a simple one would be to inhale by the count of four then exhaling by the count of four. Another less obvious way to increase oxygen intake would be laughter.

Express your feelings

When things aren’t going as expected; homework from online lessons are piling up, the parents are nagging and the cat’s stuck in the tree; it leads to worrying, nervousness, dread and many more negative emotions. It’s not possible to live stress free.

The first step to overcoming these bad feelings is to recognise this as a normal process. You can talk about your feelings with people who care about you, such as your parents or your friends. If you feel like you need help, counsellor might be able provide what you need.

Another way to express your feelings is through creativity. If you feel like you don’t want to talk about it or don’t know how to express it through words, you can always turn your feelings into art — such as drawing or painting, making music to whatever else kind of creative expression that can get the negative feelings out of your mind.

Conclusion

Stress is perfectly normal. One needs to learn how to handle it when it happens. You’re not going to get rid of it immediately, that is why it is important to practice stress management. Don’t let it get you down, instead develop ways to bring it down.