How to Manage Stress in a Stressed Out Modern World

BY AMBER BATEMAN

6/29/2024

Every person will face stress at some point in their lives, and while in some ways those of us in modern Western societies have less stress than other cultures or other times in history, I believe there are cultural factors which make ours a particular flavor of stressful. Stress is inevitable.

But you and I – we are not powerless. We can fight back. There are things we can do. I’m not saying it’s easy or simple. There are many reasons people struggle with stress and anxiety, and I don’t attempt to diagnosis your specific struggles or give you a specific treatment plan. However, I do think there are some things we can try to stay on top of stress.

What is stress?

I define stress as the pressure the rise to a challenge or task. It could be an unforeseen circumstance, such as losing a job and needing to find another one quickly, or losing a loved one and needing to plan a funeral service. Stress does not always have to be the result of a negative situation. For example, planning a wedding or having a baby can be positive life changes, but still require one to ‘rise to the occasion’ if you will; to show up, to perform a certain way, to do certain tasks.

Stress—this pressure to act—is actually beneficial to us in some ways. If you are face to face with an alligator (remember I grew up in Florida), stress may help save your life. It will send extra blood to your limbs and cause you to run or otherwise protect yourself. Another example. If you are in 11th grade and you have a big exam coming up, a little bit of stress can motivate you to actually study and prepare for the exam. But too much stress is sure to have negative effects on your body and mind.

I don’t know much about sports, or military battles. What I do know is that a good team or army will have an offensive and defensive strategy. You need both to be successful and to win. I think of managing stress in a similar way.

The Offensive Strategy

On the offensive side of things, we need to reduce stress. Our goal is to systematically cut out and prevent unnecessary stress. Here are some practical offensive strategies:

1)      Take a good long look at your weekly schedule and ask yourself: is there anything on this schedule that is unnecessary, not that enjoyable, or just otherwise doesn’t need to be a priority? If there is something, consider taking if off. This is like grasping your sword and slashing through the enemy barricades. And this next part is really important… resist the very American urge to replace the space on the calendar with another activity. Just leave some margin.

An example: your son’s classmate’s birthday party is on Saturday morning. You said yes to be polite but your son really isn’t that close to him and would be fine to miss it. You text the child’s mom and respectfully decline the invitation and make a mental (or physical) note to yourself not to say yes to birthday parties of people you don’t know well.

2) If there are activities on the calendar that you can’t take off but you anticipate could be stressful, ask yourself: is there anything I can do to better prepare for this activity? Is there one step I could take to help reduce the stress of this event? If there is, take the steps to do it. It sounds simple and it is, but we often don’t slow down and take the time to just mentally and emotionally prepare for stressful situations. This is like taking time before the battle to sharpen your sword and be ready to cut through quickly.

Note: worrying is not the same as preparing. I’m not suggesting you ruminate on all the ways a situation could go wrong, but rather to take steps to prepare yourself. Taking action is the key difference.

Example: You don’t like flying because you have gotten nauseas on planes before, so for your upcoming trip you leave enough time to get something to eat before the flight and order ginger ale right away when the flight begins. The nausea is less and therefore your level of stress decreases as well [may or may not be a true story…].

The Defensive Strategy

In our defensive strategy, we are turning our attention to how to respond to stress. Our goal is to respond promptly and intentionally, so as to reduce the effects stress has on us. We are attempting to build resiliency, the ability to bounce back to a state of calm and “non-crisis-ness”. We’ll look at a two-step process for doing this.

1)      Increase self awareness: Slow down and bring your attention to your current thoughts, emotions, and physical sensations. What are you feeling in your physical body? What thoughts or images keep coming to you? Approach your own body, mind, and soul from a place of curiosity, rather than judgment.  

2)      Identify your physical, emotional, relational, and spiritual needs and think of ways to meet those needs in a healthy way that aligns with your values.

Let’s look at two responses to the same scenario.

Response A: You receive criticism at work for something you dropped the ball on. You storm out of the office and attempt to stream the football game while driving home, and when you get there the dogs are barking and kids are yelling and you get so irritated you find yourself fussing at them and then your wife gets mad at you and you spend the rest of the evening completely frustrated and subsequently can’t enjoy the evening game anyway [run-on sentence intentional].

Response B: You receive criticism at work for something you dropped the ball on. You drive home from work in silence, taking the time to gather your thoughts and feelings about the work criticism. You identify that you are angry and embarrassed for not performing well and decide to call an old friend and discuss the situation with him. He listens and offers a few comments, and you feel like you have a little more clarity. You get home and tell your wife it’s been a hard day and that you feel like you need a few minutes alone before having dinner with the family. You take a quick shower to help you physically relax and turn your attention towards looking forward to watching the game with your son after dinner.

Response B utilizes stress managing defense strategies, and is more likely to help you recover from the stress at work, while also minimizing future stress at home. This concept of recognizing our needs and getting them met in a healthy way is so simple, yet can take practice for most of us. There’s a lot more we can talk about here, but I think this is a good place to stop. Hang in there. I’m rooting for you.