Lifestyle Changes for Stress Management

Ways to improve your resilience to stress

Change your attitude - positive thinking

A key step in stress management is to try and change your attitude towards the source of stress. Positive thinking involves paying attention to the negative messages that you send yourself and turning them around to be more positive. Learn to recognise negative thought patterns and replace them with more realistic and helpful thoughts. Make a conscious decision to keep yourself in a positive frame of mind, to prioritise your workload and not be too hard on yourself.

Exercise

During periods of stress or anxiety, hormones are released into the bloodstream. By remaining sedentary, these hormones stay in the blood stream longer, cause waste products to build up and increase feelings of irritability and anxiety. Try to take at least 30 minutes of moderate exercise a day. This doesn't need to involve expensive gyms; a brisk walk at lunch time will be enough to boost your immune system, give you more energy and improve sleep patterns.

Lifestyle

Be aware of unhelpful coping strategies; skipping lunch because you're too busy and instead relying on lots of coffee and sugary snacks will leave you feeling lethargic and depleted. Instead, drink plenty of water and replace vitamins with healthy food choices, such as fruit.

Rest and relaxation

We can all benefit from taking part in relaxing activities. This could be spending time with family and friends, listening to music, reading a book or deep breathing exercises. The important thing is that it makes us feel good. The key to using relaxation techniques is to do them two or three times a day.

Expressing emotion

Stressful situations can be harder to cope with when you try to do it on your own: sharing your problems, whether it's talking to family, friends or using an employee assistance programme, can help put them into perspective and make coping a less daunting prospect.