I know a few people going through some tough workloads right
now so I thought I would change things up a bit with this post and maybe try
and offer some insight/advice.
Everyone everyday deals with stress in his or her life. No
matter how big or small the problem seems to an outsider it always somehow
seems to be a big deal to you. I know I have been guilty of comparing my
problems and others to say problems that others would face in war-stricken
countries. Sure it might help ease your
mind and help put things into perspective, but does it mean that your problems
don’t matter? First let’s look at what the body does…
The human nervous system is pretty bad at giving you information on an absolute scale. Take temperature for example. Say that you have three buckets of water, one cold, one hot, and one lukewarm. You put one hand in the cold and the other in the hot, and then you put both hands in the lukewarm bucket. The hot hand will say that the water is cold, and the cold hand will say that the water is warm. Your nervous system interprets its surrounding on a relative scale. Now this same concept can be applied to the issues that we experience in our day-to-day life. Whether you are camping in a forest where you know there are bears in the area or if you have a test to write one day, I believe your primary stressor will affect you nearly the same regardless of how big it is. So what matters is that your problems really do matter, to you.
How can we manage this? First off I want to make the point
that people get down and out thinking that they are the only one going through
a tough time. I think we can all take some solace in the fact that everyone has
their own problems and are stressed about them no matter what face they are
putting on in front of you. So know that you aren’t in it alone. But remember
these issues are relative to what is important to you, so this is where the
comparison issue comes in. You can’t expect someone else to care about your
issues if they believe they are or someone else is facing something worse.
Having a good friend or family member that you can talk to is always a good
place to go though if you want to talk it out with someone.
Ok, since it is relative and it is important to you and may
only be important to you then maybe you should try and get rid of the stressful
situation. Maybe it is just a test at school or possibly asking that person you
have a crush on out on a date. Something like that can ‘easily’ be taken off
your plate by completing the task. Other things like a past history or
something else you can’t just remove from your environment will take more work.
For this you will need to give yourself on-going care,
especially if you find yourself to be someone who stresses over everything.
Exercise is a great option because it has tons of health benefits and has been
shown to have similar effects to taking anti-depression drugs. This will help
with the important part of keeping that mood up and your outlook positive. If
you aren’t a big exerciser, then just find something else that you like to do,
a hobby, that gets your mind somewhere else, somewhere it can relax. Also sort
of mentioned above, going out and being social with friends is another great
way to blow off some stress. Forgetting about your problems for a few hours can
help reset that relative scale and make it think, “hey if I forgot about it, it
can’t be that bad”. Also getting a good
laugh in can help lots with this I find. For me, a good Will Ferrell movie or
skit can completely flip my mood around.
I know personally, I have used cycling to get rid of my
stress. I knew my problems weren’t ever that bad, but they still affected me.
The more you feel about your issues, the harder you can push on the intervals
and get the pain out in a way that will actually be beneficial for you. So even
if your problems are only big to you, they still do matter. We all have these
issues and maybe we all need to be more open to this fact that we are all
fighting our stresses and they feel just as big as ever. It is up to you to find a way to manage these
stressors and to keep a smile on that face.
If you have any good ways to fight your stresses, feel free to leave them in the comments!
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