Stress is becoming a part of everyday life for more and more people home and abroad be it at work or at the home front.
While it cannot always be avoided, you can try to avoid situations that are triggers and control how you respond to it in these 3 ways:
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Time management
Are you always in a hurry? You are to finish a certain task by 2 pm and you start it by 1:30pm. What do you think will happen? Of course you wonโt finish and your stress level will shoot up, while trying to rush. Look at your tasks for each day, your schedule for the week, what are the really urgent thigs that you need to do first, focus on them first, as time management is just a way of finding time to do more of the things you need and want to do. This helps you decide wats urgent and whatโs not, thus making your life less stressful.

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Getting rid of negative thoughts.
Negative thoughts have a way of triggering stress. Allowing stressful events make you feel bad about yourself and those events is harmful to you. This is because it can make you insecure, depressed and even reduce your feeling of self-worth. They need to be dealt with in order to reduce stress. Get help from a counsellor or you can
- try being assertive. This helps you express yourself and your thoughts and feelings in a thoughtful and tactful manner. Inability to talk about your thoughts, feelings, needs and concern creates stress and can make it worse as well.
- change the way you think. this is called Cognitive-behaviour therapy. Changing how you think affects how you feel.
- try implementing your problem-solving skills. This would help you identify all the aspects of a stressful event, pinpoint things that can be changed and done better and deal with those that cannot be changed.
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Assess your lifestyle from time to time
Is there a balance between your personal life and work? Are there a lot of insignificant things you ought not be doing anymore? Do you have a sense of purpose in life? Do you get enough sleep on the regular? Do you eat well, that is a healthy meal always? Do you drink alcohol? Do you limit your alcohol intake? Do you exercise? Your answers to these questions can go a long way in helping you avoid stress. If our answers are yes, good for you J, if they are no, then your lifestyle might be causing or preventing you from recovering from stress.
While stress is not totally avoidable, doing the above as well as knowing that your friends, family and your community (which could include people from church, mosque, work, a counsellor, etc.) are always there to give you support when you need it can go a long way in helping you avoid and even reduce stress. This can help you stay healthy.
Do you know other ways of avoiding stress? If yes, do share in the comments section.
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