Stress Managing Techniques

Stress managing techniques can provide us a wealth of relaxation. Stress is sometimes obvious, while at other times stress is underlying a root and waiting for the right moment to erupt. For example I study human behaviors, have been my entire life. I noticed a woman at a green light the other day waiting for a chain of vehicles to move out of her way so that she can reach her destination. I watched the woman take a deep breath and shake her head because she was in a rush. Where was this woman going? Was she late for work? At this time of day, I am going to assume that the woman was going to an engagement or to meet her husband. Obviously, stress was existing, but was she stressed because she was slowed down by the traffic?

Probably not, unless she is a very impatient woman and even then, it would be obvious that something in her beliefs, teachings, understanding, thinking, or behaviors was causing her stress. Now the woman did not appear to be a survivor of any major violent act against her, but she did show signs of troubled upbringing as well as stress from common demands in life. Now this woman probably could have prepared her self for the travel by focusing on reality. If her stress management scheme were in place, the woman would understand that delays are going to happen, since she is not the only person in the world that travels.

If the woman would have noticed the time and paid attention to traffic increase during these hours she would have been prepared to manage stress in that couple of seconds while waiting for the vehicles to move out of her way. She still had not reached her destination and no one can determine if there would be other delays up ahead, therefore this woman is frustrated now, she will know she is stressed if an accident is up ahead and causes a longer delay. Her stress management skill requires a readjustment to help her learn how to deal with her stresses and avoids stressors.

We are going to help this woman out so in the future she will be prepared to avoid stressors. Taking a look back noticing that the woman took a breath releasing her anxiety, which was a good thing. I noticed that she did this once, however, if she would have, took a few more deep breaths her stress level would decrease. Since, the woman did not appear overwhelmed by stress, rather at a below maximum area of stress we can help her to learn stress management by teaching her to understand that potentials exist.

Do not think about what you are expected to do, rather think about the entire surroundings of the demand. If you have to meet your husband at 3pm, it is 2:50, and your travel time is less than 20 minutes then you are in trouble. Meaning you are not going to reach your destination in time unless you make a bad decision and speed to reach the destination. More stress in the making if you choose this idea. Now if the woman prepared she would have choose a route that was common to her, left a few minutes earlier than the time allowed for her to arrive, and prepared for delays to occur. The wise person would include potential risks in the stress management plan.

Although you do not want to focus on the dangers, rather you want to keep in mind that anything is possible. Of course, none of us wants to meet danger, but it can happen at any time and this is out of our control. According to few 10% of the time, most people are at risk of meeting danger, while the other 90% provides us confidence that danger may or may not arrive. This is a failure statistic in stress management, since no one can say when danger will knock. However, it is a good statistic, since it helps a person feel more at ease in life. Now we see that stress management techniques require planning, preparedness, decisions, thinking ahead, and avoiding stressors.