By Stephenie Craig
I was sitting at the kitchen counter putting together the fall family calendar when I realized summer is over and life is about to get very busy. I got up to get a snack, and before I knew it, I had cleaned out the entire pantry and then moved on to the refrigerator. The deep cleaning went on the rest of the night and the following morning, when the stress energy subsided. When I start deep cleaning, my family starts asking, “What’s wrong? Are you upset about something?” It’s a known family fact that one of my stress behaviors is passionate cleaning.
While stress is a year-round struggle, fall is a high-stress season when school, activities, and commitments pick up pace after having a break during summer. It can be difficult to get your brain and body back on board with the alarm clock, the carpools, the games, the homework, and all of the other fall things that need to be done. Sometimes it’s obvious when you’re stressed and other times you can carry stress under the radar, not realizing you’re stressed until you become irritable with others, feel pain in your body, or you get physically sick.
When is the last time you were stressed? Do you tend to know when you are stressed, or do others in your life tend to point it out to you?
Awareness of your stress level and skills to regulate stress are valuable tools for navigating daily life. Lacking awareness of stress can lead to poor relationship behavior, forgetting to care for yourself physically, emotional distress, stalled motivation, and lack of regular enjoyment. Sometimes you can predict stress, like in the case of Back to School season and other times stress surprises you out of nowhere on an otherwise sunny day. Commonly, the first life structures to become compromised during stress are what you eat, whether you move your body, and your quality of sleep. Letting these foundational structures go often feeds stress and creates a cycle that can be hard to stop.
All people have stress behaviors. Some common stress signs are grumpiness, irritability, anxiety, exhaustion, driving angry, rushing, slamming things, sighing, carrying excessive body tension, headaches, stomachaches, and avoidance. When stress sets in, most people have go-to strategies, both healthy and unhealthy, for managing stress. Some common strategies include drinking alcohol, shopping/spending, gambling, sleeping, scrolling, controlling, eating excessively, and restricting food. Other strategies include cleaning, music, journaling, dancing, creating art, walking, running, gym workouts, sitting at the water, talking to a friend, and spiritual practices.
Knowing your personal signs of stress and understanding how to be more intentional in managing stress can be life-changing. So how do you do it?
7 Ways to Identify and Manage Stress
- Notice your stress cues. Where do you experience stress in your body? Check in with your stomach, chest, breathing, neck, shoulders. Notice the intensity of body movements, tone of voice, and words you are using. Try making a list of your top 3-5 signs of stress, like “jaw grinding, cussing in my head or out loud, audible sighing.”
- Rate your stress on a scale of 1-10. Notice if you are mildly, moderately, or intensely stressed and try to assign a number.
- Reflect on what is causing the stress, and whether there is meaningful action you can take to reduce stress, like having a conversation, using stress management tools, or setting a boundary.
- Notice stress management behaviors you gravitate toward. Do you want to drink, clean, sleep, scroll, or something else?
- Evaluate the health of your stress management behaviors. Ask yourself, “Is drinking, cleaning, shopping, or scrolling going to help reduce my stress? Is this behavior going to cause me secondary problems later, like a hangover or a hit to my bank account?” If you determine the behavior may be unhealthy, consider trying another option.
- Create a list of five healthy stress management tools that help alleviate stress and don’t cause you secondary problems later. Examples include: deep breathing, saying no, exercising, talking to a trusted friend, or sitting in nature.
- Use your healthy stress management tools until your stress level is down to a reasonable level on your rating scale. Many people find 4 or below manageable on a scale of 1-10.
Repeating consistent, healthy stress identification and management can change the overall quality of your life for the better. Repetition creates new patterns in your brain so be patient and consistent. Connect with us at Journeybravely.com for counseling and coaching support along your journey.
