Top 18 Effective Ways To Long-term Stress Relief That Actually Work

Stress is one of the most common diseases of modern men, and therefore we can not only talk about the undeniable relevance of this topic today but also find a lot of curious statistics on the subject.

It should be said that scientists believe that the number of people suffering from stress will only increase in the future. But let’s leave the future alone and focus on the present.

According to the Mental Health Foundation’s 2018 study, during that year, 74% of people have felt immense stress that they were unable to deal with . Also, everyday stress is experienced by:

The expert also stated that stress is a disease of the 21st century and has reached the proportions of a global epidemic. And this statement has the most compelling reasons because today life is loaded with a huge number of stress factors. All of this raises the question, what leads to the development of stress in modern people?

Causes Of Stress In Modern Humans

The Americans were among the first to study the causes and consequences of stress, so by digging around on the Internet, we found highly spoken data presented by the American Stress Institute [ What Is Stress, 2017].

According to the studies carried out by the above-mentioned Institute, it turned out that the main causes of stress are (in descending order of importance):

The study also notes that:

Among the physiological causes, it is possible to identify various things that adversely affects the physical condition of a person, for example:

Interestingly, physiological factors do not affect people in the same way, while in some people they may cause stress, others have almost no reaction to them. And this difference is often explained by the second group of factors — Psychological factors.

Psychological factors provoke powerful emotional outbursts that arise from all kinds of psychological problems, such as difficulties in communicating with people, insecurity, etc. But it is important to note that we are talking not only about excessive negative emotions but also about positive ones.

Among other things, stress is caused by external and internal causes. External factors are various life situations beyond a person’s control (e.g. the state of the environment, weather, etc.), and problems in interaction with society (blockages at work, problems in the family, conflicts, etc.).

And internal factors such as health problems, unjustified hopes, unachieved goals, frustrations, and other factors that affect a person without external influence.

Naturally, this is only a brief consideration of the causes of stress, but it gives quite a clear idea of what causes the deterioration of a person’s physical and mental state in general.

And in addition to the above, we should mention people who are primarily affected by stress:

Such people literally spend every day under the influence of stress factors of various magnitudes that cause the production of cortisol — the stress hormone, nervous and emotional overstrain, and various nervous states that do not allow an adequate and constructive response to events. Naturally, any comfort or high productivity here is out of the question.

Today it is quite difficult to find a person who has not experienced stress at least once. Moreover, stress is expressed mainly with the same signs, and they are also familiar to everyone. But we still think it will be very helpful to say a few words about the symptoms of stress.

Stress Symptoms

Stress manifests itself at different levels and is harmful to the physical, emotional, intellectual, and behavioral aspects. Let’s talk about all of them separately.

When stressed, the body seeks to mobilize all of its resources, and on the physiological level a whole range of changes is possible:

The next level is emotional, and here such changes are possible:

Next, we move on to the intellectual level, in which stress manifests itself as follows:

As for the changes in behavior, they manifest themselves as follows:

The above-mentioned symptoms are most often manifested in a complex way, not one at a time. You should not be alarmed if you suddenly began to notice one or two manifestations of stress in yourself or someone around you (although you still need to pay attention), but if several of them began to appear at once, it is already a reason for closer monitoring and taking appropriate measures.

As you may have noticed, even the symptoms of stress are already a serious shake-up for the body (by the way, stress does not always have only negative effects, and you can read more about this in our article “ Stress: Uses and benefits “). However, stress can lead to other consequences, which we will discuss this below.

The Effects Of Stress

The study we have already mentioned by the American Institute of Stress [ What Is Stress, 2017] also contains statistics on the impact of stress on a person, and this is what it shows:

Plus, there is some statistical evidence of how people think stress affects their lives:

In general, the researchers distinguish the following among the main consequences of stress:

Initially, the effects of stress on the body can be almost imperceptible , but after a while, the problems begin to take hold. Stress acts tricky, at first, cortisol is produced, which affects the immune system, then more and more adrenaline is released into the blood, and then the whole body suffers.

But, as you have understood, this matter is not limited to the body, the ability to work gradually decreases, the perception of everyday life situations are distorted, the person’s communication with others changes for the worse. People become more susceptible to destructive mental states (anger, aggression, depression, apathy, etc.)

It’s also very dangerous that the stress symptoms that we’ve just looked at can get worse and chronic very quickly. Not only does it result, on a physical level, in a variety of illnesses (angina, heart attack, stomach ulcers, colitis, and a host of others, including degeneration of brain cells), as well as on a psychological level, stress also manifests itself in an extremely dangerous way.

In addition to the fact that when the individual begins to feel ill, his or her condition begins to have an active impact on interaction with society. Relationships with friends, colleagues at work, relatives, and even the closest family members would be deteriorating. That’s why stress is so often the cause of family problems, from minor disturbances to divorces. Without mentioning the impact on achieving goals and success in life.

And perhaps most frighteningly, stress (in its most chronic and severe form, of course) can lead to loss of adequacy and capacity, and even death. It is therefore essential that stress should not be allowed to worsen and that it should be addressed as soon as possible.

First Steps In Dealing With Stress

To be successful in coping with stress, it is necessary not only to know what methods are being used to deal with it (we will talk about them in a moment), but also to understand how it works and to be able to determine the sources of pressure. Let’s talk about this in order.

Determining the stress stage

Understanding the stages by which stress develops is required to correctly determine the options for its subsequent treatment, as well as to realize how neglected the situation is. To describe the stages of stress progression it is best to refer to the concept of Canadian physician Hans Selye , first described in 1936 in his work describing the general adaptation syndrome [ A syndrome produced by diverse nocuous agents, 1936].

Selye named three stages of stress, each of which gradually flows into the other:

For each individual, each stage has its own duration. Moreover, all stages are individual for individual situations. They can last as long as a few minutes or weeks.

To know exactly in which case you are, ask yourself, “Regarding my stress, what did I feel so far?” and see what stage fully describes your situation.

This information is enough for the average person to measure the progress of stress in their own case. But this is mostly theoretical. The practice of dealing with stress begins directly with the identification of the source of stress and the possible elimination of stress.

Identifying the source of stress

Even the barking of the neighbor’s dog can be a source of powerful psycho-emotional excitement. However, such things are perceived by people as mundane, they fit harmoniously into the array of daily events, and therefore in most cases are not the main irritant.

A true stressor is usually presented to people as something on a much larger scale. This may be, for example, an endlessly yelling boss at work or the economic crisis in the country. But still, this is a misconception, and in reality, this is completely different than most people think.

If we start looking for a starting point, we will find it in a barking dog. When we are awake and full of energy, we perceive almost all external stimuli relatively objectively and adequately. But when we haven’t had enough sleep because of a barking dog, irritation begins to take hold of us, and through its lens, we begin to perceive everything that is going on.

As a result, after a while, we already begin to “boil”, commit rash acts, “break furniture”. And the neighbor’s dog has no idea that his barking presses on our psyche and that it is because of him our life is filled with problems, and relationships with loved ones are in distress.

We have described the simplest situation, although in real life not everything is so simple, and the causes of stress are often not so obvious. But still, in the vast majority of situations, you can do without the help of a specialist to understand the problem and find its true cause — the source of stress.

For a start, you can use the simplest technique to help you understand what is causing the pressure. You take a piece of paper and a pen and write down in chronological order all the negative events that have happened recently. After that, it is enough to do a little analysis of everything you have managed to write, to get to the bottom of the truth.

And to help find this truth, psychologists have even developed several special auxiliary questions to answer the basic question, “From where did it all begin?” To determine the primary source of stressful influences, it is necessary to ask yourself these questions (in this exact order):

On the same topic, we advise you to read the article “Questions to ask yourself to deal with stress “so that the search for the cause of stress was more thorough and painstaking. And remember that you need to answer these questions as honestly as possible, this way you can really help yourself, become a real friend and useful advisor to yourself.

Still, the real work is, of course, not thinking and answering questions, but applying effective ways to deal with stress.

Ways to deal with stress and develop resilience

Based on the fact that all people are different, there is no one universal way to deal with stress, and what works for one person may not be effective for the other. But there are still several methods that anyone can successfully use. They are listed below:

Even this small number of ways is sometimes enough to overcome the most severe stress cases. But we decided not to limit ourselves to them, and we offer you several more methods that have proven their effectiveness in practice (by the way, these methods are suitable not only for fighting but also for preventing stress and developing stress resistance in general):

In addition to the above, we want to present you with some of the statistics of how people are dealing with stress. Due to the lack of Worldwide data, we gather some statistics from The GfK Institute for Market Research in Russia.

So, here’s what Russians do to relieve stress:

This shows once again that each person reacts to stress individually, and this is quite normal. The only important thing is to recognize stress in time and start overcoming it, not allowing it to grow into a neglected and chronic form. And you already know what to do about this.

And to finish with a little more scientific evidence: in 2015, scientists conducted several experiments in Spain as part of the SUN Project [A longitudinal analysis of diet quality scores and the risk of incident depression in the SUN Project, 2015], which found that people who followed a diet with lots of fruits and vegetables had better physical and mental health than those who ate little such food.

Based on this, to prevent and increase resistance to stress, as well as to maintain high performance and productivity, scientists advise:

We are sure that following these simple recommendations is not difficult, especially if you really want to live a good life, have good health, and cope well with any difficulties.

The well-known German writer and spiritual speaker Eckhart Tolle wrote in one of his books:

Have you ever seen an oak in a state of stress, or a dolphin in a gloomy mood, a frog suffering from low self-esteem, a cat that cannot relax, or a bird? burdened with resentment? Learn from them the ability to put up with the present.

We see a fair share of wisdom in these words, and we advise you to re-read the previous paragraph again to immerse yourself in deep thoughts. One of the best ways to deal with any stress will be, perhaps, the ability to accept the present as it is at a given moment in time.

If you are more concerned about your personality, here is another deep thought from the famous writer and master of horror, Stephen King:

I think everyone has a sort of dung shovel that you use in times of stress and trouble to dig into yourself, into your thoughts and feelings. Get rid of it. Burn it. Otherwise, the hole you dug will reach the depths of the subconscious, and then at night the dead will come out of it.

This is precisely the value of his words, no amount of self-digging and self-flagellation will help us change ourselves or our lives. Accept the present and ourselves as we are.

This thought should also become a faithful companion for everyone who wants to conquer his stress.

We wish you a good mood and the power to always and everywhere stay positive!

And as always…

Many thanks for reading.

Originally published at https://www.galleryot.com.