Recognizing and coping with stress

What is stress?

„I am stressed!“, „Today was a stressful day!“

You probably have felt like that as well at some point in your life. In the following text, you will learn whether this really has always been a sign of stress and how stress develops.

First of all, stress is a phenomenon that is rooted in your head. As humans, we estimate every situation depending on whether we can manage it or not. This process of evaluation happens very quick and almost unconscious. When we classify a situation as possible, we generally already accomplished it before at a certain time or at least have the needed skills to master the situation. An alternative is to know where we can get support. In this case we will rather feel good or at least we will not be stressed since we sense a certain security. However, when we do not know how to solve the situation, we can experience stress. The following image will illustrate this principle once more.

It is important to know that everybody assesses the same situation in a different way. Evaluations are always subjective and therefore, the development of stress is individually different. You might solve situations in no time at all where others would struggle and the other way around. The way we estimate stress and the situations bringing up stress depends on variable factors such as your current mood, previous experience and personality traits, for example.

When dealing with the topic of stress, the most important piece of information is very clear: stress development is individually different and depends on your conception of yourself and the situation you are currently in. The good news is, that this means, that since stress depends on your estimation, you can control your stress level by yourself to a great degree.

Recognizing stress – understanding stress

With the following information and tips you can develop your own personal stress profile. The first step to better prevent and fight stress is to recognize how stress is formed for you personally. This basically means to listen very closely to the signals your body is sending you.

1.       Download the stress traffic light and fill out the first box on the top left. Think about it: Are there circumstances that provoke stress? When do you feel stressed out, are there specific situations? Fill in everything you can think of.

2.       This first question is about the general typical situations causing stress for you. This can be summarized as potential stressors. For us humans there are a) physical stressors such as noise, heat, cold or wetness, b) bodily stressors like pain, hunger and disability, c) performance stressors such as time pressure and mental over- and underload as well as d) social stressors like competition, isolation, conflicts and separation, which can potentially be causing stress. There are two factors for these stressors to actually turn into stress: unpredictability and a lack of control. This then is the stress disaster beyond all expectations. You should deliberate the things you wrote into the box. When are these situations most burdening for you? Most likely when you can only interfere little with your own behaviour or when you can’t decide by yourself when and how long these circumstances will last.

It is important to remember that everyone judges different situations in their own way. Whether a potential stressor turns into an actual stressor depends on your individual evaluation of the situation, as well as your estimation of your own external capability to deal with it. Or in other words: what bothers one person might not be relevant for others.

3.       Besides these situations that potentially cause stress it is very important to know how our character is build. The manifestations of personal aspects have a great influence on how much stress we experience. The things causing the most stress are for example perfectionism, the inability to give work to others, impatience, a high need for control, difficulties to relax, a lone fighter mentality, a strong need for social recognition and social connection, to avoid problems rather by working than to deal with them directly, a low self-esteem and fear of failure. Additionally, and partly because of these aspects, there are certain thought patterns that could increase the stress experience. Those are denying the reality (“That can’t be true!”), concentrating on negative experiences, as well as possible negative consequences to situations (like believing that you will not pass the exam) or to permanently feel personally attacked (like a student looking angry and you believing that he/she doesn’t like you).

4.       Some of these points will probably hit closer to home than others. Maybe not 100% but all of us have parts of those in us. So write down in the second box on the left which behaviour patterns and trait, as well as mental structures lead to your experience of stress.

5.       In the next step think about how stress affects you. Pay attention to both physical and cognitive symptoms, as well as behavioural symptoms. What is going on inside your head and how do you behave? How does your body react to stress? Fill in your insight in the last box on the left side.

6.       The stress reaction is how you think, feel and act in a stressful situation. On the behaviour level you might experience yourself as impatient, unsettled, working uncoordinated and yelling at people surrounding you. On the cognitive-emotional level, you might feel an inner unease, you are irritable, nervous, feel rushed, unsatisfied and/or angry. Maybe you even suffer from fear of failure, self-blame or even blackouts. On the physical level you might experience stress by having cold hands or feet, sweating, red spots on your face or neck, diarrhoea, a dry mouth, a restrained libido and/or a temporary tolerance to pain. During longer periods of stress we usually don’t get sick. A cold usually hits us right after the end of the exam period.

All these are possible reactions to stress and here people are very different as well. The reactions of your body are not necessarily a danger for your health but rather a natural answer of your body to a threat. It only gets difficult when you find yourself more and more in situations of stress and it gets harder to get out of them. This individual reflection about your experience of stress is a first step to train your stress competence. Only those who know when they experience stress and are sensitive about themselves can do the necessary steps to regulate their stress preventative.

Coping with stress

Fact is: in the long term, stress will make us ill. However, short periods, like exam periods in university, are manageable challenges for our body and soul. But if you are experiencing stress or are feeling burdened throughout the whole semester, it is time to look for a new path. The good news is that you can already protect yourself from stress preventatively, take care of yourself during stressful times and reward yourself after those stressful phases.

Stress can be encountered in three different ways:

1) Instrumental stress management

Instrumental stress management basically refers to self-organisation, priority management and the skill to set boundaries.

First of all, we will focus on priority management which is probably more commonly known as time management. However, this term should actually be avoided as you cannot manage time, it just passes on its own. The original idea of time management that “you simply have to get better organized in order to achieve everything in a certain time frame”, is not very helpful and only creates pressure. It is much better to take time and think about which tasks really deserve our attention and which don’t. A tool that is very helpful for organizing your priorities is the so-called Eisenhower Method.

Ideally, you begin by listing all your tasks. Then you start to sort them into the following matrix:

• Tasks that are both urgent and important are A-tasks.
• Tasks that are important but not urgent are B-tasks.
• Tasks that are urgent but not important are C-tasks.
• Tasks that are neither urgent nor important are T (for trash) –tasks.

A-tasks are the ones you should do first. You then go on with the B-tasks and that is the great part of this method. Sure, their deadline is further away but if you always continue with the C-tasks, you keep pushing away a huge pile of work. It is best to either delegate the C-tasks to somebody else or at least reduce them a little bit. The T-tasks show you that you usually would have burdened yourself with tasks that are not even important.  

How do you know which tasks have priority?

In order to answer this question, it is useful to take a look at your own distant future. Where do you want to be 15 years from today? Depending on this ultimate goal or vision of your future – which doesn’t have to be specific yet – you can set tangible goals for the year, week as well as each day. This way, you can estimate whether a certain task will really bring you closer to your ultimate goal or whether this is something that others imposed on you. Of course, you don’t always have to give 100% and lead every day towards your ultimate goal but it can help you to rearrange your priorities every now and then.

You don’t have to write down all your private and university tasks with the Eisenhower method. You can also use the trusted to-do-list or a week planner. But always keep an eye out that unimportant tasks stay in the background.

It could also be helpful to have an overview for the year on the wall above the desk with highlighted exam periods, vacation, deadlines, etc.

To be able to say no is a skill that can help you restrict others and therefore create freedom for yourself. To reduce your stress you have to able to also restrict yourself. Part of that is to only check your mails at certain times and to make room for private things. You see, even here you cannot avoid good planning. There are also some useful Apps to help you with that:

(https://www.any.do/, https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.tambucho.miagenda.trial&hl=de, https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.weeklyplannerapp.weekplan, https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.xla.school).

Now fill in the measures that seem helpful for you in the top right square of the stress traffic light.

2) Mental stress management

You have already learned that the development of stress highly depends on your thoughts. The way you assess a situation and evaluate the available resources play a big part in contributing to your stress level. The process of changing those thoughts in order to achieve less stress development is called mental stress management. Mental stress management means creating a distance from thought patterns that increase stress and to question attitudes and belief systems that cause stress and replace these with supporting and motivating ones. But it is important to note that positive thinking alone is not enough. It is hard work to replace belief systems and attitudes that you have build and nurtured for years. So, everything will not just be fine because you believe in it. However, what we can do is to take our thoughts out of our head and observe them completely neutral. Let’s say you have the thought: „I cannot do this!” You can keep thinking that and let this thought determine your actions. But you could also try something new which is to pause, look at this thought closely and then try to mentally distance yourself from it: “I observe that I believe: I cannot do this.” This new way of looking at the thoughts that are provoking stress will already make a difference. If you managed that, you can step by step replace these stress provoking thoughts with more positive and motivating ideas. This is what is called mental stress competence.

As you can see in the image above, mental stress competence consists of three factors.

The acceptance of reality in situations of stress is what allows a constructive analysis of the situation. Accepting a stressful situation doesn’t mean to approve of them and by that surrender to the situation but to understand it and accept the physical reactions and emotions that come with it. Going from „That cannot be!“ towards „That can be!“.

There are different useful tips to change your perspective towards stress-inducing situations to take a step away from the threat and towards the challenge:

• You can examine stress-inducing situations regarding their possible chances: What is the good in the bad? This is not about sugar-coating the situation but to widen the tunnel vision that is typical for stress situations.
• A realistic estimate of the situation can contribute to experiencing less stress and consequently viewing the situation as challenging rather than threatening. A helpful idea could be a fictive and neutral observer asking: “How can this situation be explained?“ or to see things from another person’s perspective that is involved and to see how this person would estimate the situation.
• By relativizing a situation or simply distancing yourself from it you can reduce their threat. It can be helpful to think how relevant the results will be in a month or a year from now or whether these results even have a priority for you personally at all.
• Finally, you can reduce the threat by visualizing the positive consequences of the stress-inducing event. How are you going to feel when you successfully managed the task? It is also possible to think of the worst case scenario if you don’t manage to do the task. How bad would that really be and how likely is it that this will happen?

The term self-efficacy means that you are personally convinced to be able to reach a certain goal even if there might be obstacles in the way. The level of self-efficacy and the actual successes are in close connection. You can increase your own self-efficacy by remembering and reflecting past successes when you are facing new challenges and collect new experiences. You learn from failure and know what to do better the next time because this time you mentally prepare for challenging situations and visualize your success.

Another tip is to find out what your personal amplifiers of stress are. Take another look at the stress traffic light and check what you wrote there. Maybe you are a perfectionist or you are impatient. Whatever it is, it has its advantages and disadvantages. This is not about dropping your personality but rather to find a way to deal with it. For example, in the case of a perfectionist a development towards more forgiveness of mistakes can be helpful for yourself and others.

Now, take your stress traffic light and fill in the second square on the right side with the things that seem helpful for you.

3) Regenerative stress management

Relaxation does not necessarily lie in doing nothing, but rather in what we not usually do!

Regenerative stress management encompasses all measures we can take to relax and recharge our batteries after a stressful phase. Relaxation does not necessarily have to be connected with quiet. Regenerative measures always depend on the activity we want to relax from or how we feel because of this activity.

Good sleep and going on vacation are two basic measures to recharge our batteries. If you want to know more about this topic and what mistakes you should avoid you can watch our video. (#video verlinken)

Next, we have a quick exercise: What kind of nice moments did you experience in the last 24 hours, what made you happy, what did you enjoy or where did you feel comfortable?

Basically, you should have one of those events on each day. And this is not about the big, fantastic events but mostly your ability to take room in your day to be open for beauty. This could be the sunshine coming through the clouds, the cry of the seagull, a good conversation or a nice meal.

It is important that you experience these things consciously. The awareness towards the beauty of everyday life can help you to recharge your batteries.

If you manage to embrace and perceive such small things every day for at least five minutes you take another step towards a better wellbeing.

These 8 commandments of enjoyment can help you to stay cautious:

1. Allow yourself enjoyment!
2. Take time to enjoy!
3. Enjoy consciously!
4. Teach your senses to enjoy!
5. Enjoy in your own way!
6. Rather enjoy less but enjoy right!
7. Planning offers anticipation!
8. Enjoy the little things in life!

Relaxation exercises are another great way to regain energy. They help you to cope with the change of tension and relaxation. It is possible to learn the ability to physically relax and switch off mentally.