How increasing your awareness can help you to manage your stress

Stress may be the result of major life changes or events such as separation, loss of a job, career change, getting married, having a baby, illness, or loss of a loved one, for example.  Or it may be the cumulative effect of life’s daily hassles, pressures or demands in an increasingly busy world. It may even be a mixture of the two.

It’s not possible to avoid or eliminate stress and nor would you want to. Stress can be helpful in keeping us safe. For instance, if you’re crossing the road and a car comes speeding towards you out of nowhere, your automatic stress response (which I like to think of as a stress reaction) kicks into gear to motivate you to take action to get out of the way. You can think of this automatic stress reaction as your built-in survival mechanism.  

If you tried to avoid everything in life that might cause you stress, then you would also be avoiding things that are meaningful to you. For example, going on holiday can be very stressful. Having to make sure you have everything you need, lists upon lists, packing, booking the taxi to the airport and hoping it turns up on time, checking in at the airport, dealing with any delays, particularly if you have tired children with you. But would you want to give up your holidays to avoid stress? I expect most people's answer to this question will be no.  

Or maybe you’ve been asked to lead a project at work, an opportunity you’ve wanted forever, but the increased responsibility and demands of the role will be stressful for you.  Do you say no to the opportunity?  

Stress is a normal part of everyday life that you experience sometimes multiple times a day. Acute episodes of stress are helpful to keep us safe when faced with a real threat or danger (such as a speeding car coming towards you). However, in today’s modern world, many of our stresses are things that we ‘perceive’ to be a threat. For example, the threat of feeling humiliated or embarrassed if a presentation does not go well. The threat of what others will think if you are late to a meeting or if you are late getting your kids to school.  

The body cannot distinguish between a real threat and a perceived threat and reacts the same to both. So, when multiple things are perceived as threats on a daily basis, you are continuously activating your automatic stress reaction, and this can lead to long-term, persistent and chronic stress.

What happens when you get stressed?

Your autonomic nervous system (ANS) is made up of two parts – the sympathetic nervous system (SNS) and the parasympathetic nervous system (PNS). When you perceive a threat, your SNS kicks in like the accelerator of a car, putting you on high alert and readying you for action. Once the threat has passed, the PNS takes over, acting like the brakes of a car, calming everything down and facilitating a state of rest and digest.

In the example given above with the car speeding towards you, you perceive the threat, your SNS kicks in, preparing you for action to either fight or flight (run out of the way) of the speeding car. Whilst you are in the state of fight or flight, your body prioritises the bodily functions that will help you in an emergency and effectively puts on hold those considered non-emergency or not necessary for helping you deal with the imminent threat.  

The following physical effects take place in your body: your breathing rate, heart rate and blood pressure increase; tunnel vision and dilated pupils help you to focus on the threat, you may feel shaky, you may experience a flushed face and dry mouth, your digestion slows, and your bladder relaxes. When the threat or danger has passed, your PNS calms everything down, facilitating the return to a restful state and continuation of those non-emergency bodily functions.

When you are in a state of prolonged or chronic stress, your body remains on high alert, primed and ready to fight or flight. This is when it can begin to negatively impact your health, work, relationships, sleep and day-to-day life.

 What can you do about it?

The first step to managing your stress more effectively is to increase your awareness of what causes you to feel stressed (your stressors) and how you currently react to it physically (bodily sensations), in your mind (your thoughts) and in your actions (your behaviour). 

One way to increase your awareness of your stress is to keep a stress diary in which you can record stressful situations or events. Make a note of the situation that triggered your stress (where were you? What were you doing? Who were you with?). Make a note of what was going through your mind at the time you felt stressed (What thoughts were you having? What were you saying to yourself? What images (if any) were popping into your mind?). Then make a note of your actions when you felt stressed (What did you say and do?). 

Keeping a diary of stressful events will help you to identify any patterns in your automatic reactions to stress (thoughts and behaviours). Ask yourself how helpful is your current way of responding to stress? It is possible that the way you currently react to your stress is maintaining it or even making it worse. 

With increased awareness, you can notice your early warning signs of stress, allowing yourself time to pause and consciously respond in a more helpful way, as opposed to automatically reacting in a way you may later regret. Through noticing the early warning signs, you can take early action to do what you need to do in that moment to prevent stress from escalating and becoming worse.