Coping with stress

If you look at health advice columns in the yellow press, you will often find tips on stress management on the short term basis, non the less these are effective methods. And short term stress management makes sense! Certainly medium and long-term changes are necessary in order to find a way out of stress, but that would be a further (and wide) field on the subject of stress.


Breathing techniques and visualizations are taught. There might be on the agenda: specific forms of deep breathing, a wiping off stress or "negative energy", short forms of autogenous training or progressive muscle relaxation, and much more. The technique itself isn’t so important, but that it might be easily done and is carried out.


These techniques mean more improving self efficiency or reduction of experienced helplessness. So one can work actively against something. The beginning of religions is seen in magical spells. It is assumed that those who believed in a certain spell were also better prepared to survive the drought, cold, food shortage, etc.


Coping with stress on short term basis may mean:
     • deep, conscious breathing
     • enjoying some tea during a minute of silence
     • looking outside into the green
     • looking at indoor plants
     • looking with your closed eyes inside (meditating)
     • a flash relaxation of progressive muscle relaxation (Jacobson), also called traffic light relaxation
     • visualizing negative stress and wiping it off
     • praying
     • a motto
     • a poem
     • so many ways


Coping with your actual stress means new energy! Benefit from this new energy and reduce your stress as a whole in small steps.