Stress Management Techniques and Approaches

The best advice that can be given to someone who finds themselves in a highly stressful situation that they are really struggling with is to find a way of getting out of that situation.  For many reasons this is not always possible, if you are doing a very stressful job and need the money then it may be difficult to find an effective way removing the stress from your life.  Using stress management techniques can compliment counselling and it may also be an option for people who feel that they do not have the time, energy or resources to start a course of counselling.

1) Get the basics right - eating healthily, not drinking too much, doing what you can to get good nights sleep, avoiding stressful situations where possible, getting good physical excersize will all make a positive difference to your ability to cope and manage stress

2) Find ways of getting stress release - we are all different in what de-stresses us whether it is a massage, meditation, going on a retreat, boxing, jogging, talking about your problems with friends etc -  all of these can make a real difference to your stress levels and your ability to cope

3) Learn Stress Management Techniques - There are loads of techniques that can work really effectively that you can either teach yourself or have a counsellor work through with you.  These include Progressive Relaxation, breathing techniques, visualisations, applied relaxation training, self hypnosis, autogenics, biofeedback and thought stopping among many others

4) Self Development/ Life Coaching - If your stress is routed in how you relate to people, how you respond to situations, how you set goals for yourself or how you manage people or tasks then you may find that self development or life coaching could be effective in changing how you see situations or finding better ways to cope with them

5) Assertiveness training - For many people they can find themselves in situations because they are not able to effectively assert themselves and they area either aggressive in ways that may make a situation worse or they do not express their needs or how they feel so they end up in a situation that they cannot cope with.  Assertiveness training is a way of overcoming these problems

6) Be good to yourself and give yourself time to yourself - The body and mind are very good at finding ways of coping with difficulties but they need time to recharge and process.  If you are very busy and not giving yourself time to yourself then stressful situations can build up.  Even giving yourself small periods of time that is just for you or to connect with your own feelings and needs can make a huge difference

Unfortunately one small article is not enough to cover all of these areas in enough depth for you to be able to do too much with them.  Here are some links that you may find useful to explore individual areas in more depth:-

http://www.umm.edu/sleep/relax_tech.htm#a

This is a short article highlighting how to go about a progressive relaxation activity.  There is also a few audio download you can listen to as well as some other relaxation and de-stressing activities on this link

http://www.stress-relief-tools.com/autogenic-relaxation.html

This is a short guide to autogenic relaxation.  The website also has a host of good resources on stress including visualisation techniques, muscle relaxation and biofeedback

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q6f-tovTi4E

This is a video on autogenic relaxation that you can follow

Not all of these approaches will work for you.  At Lighthouse Counselling and Psychotherapy we have counsellors who can support you in finding the right approaches for you.  You can also experiment and try different approaches. It is very easy to be a bit dismissive of something that is a bit strange to you but we would emphasise that some techniques can take a while to learn how to use effectively and for you to be comfortable with them.  

To know more about how Lighthouse Counselling and Psychotherapy can help click here.