Strategies for Coping with Stress
Jack C. Scott, Ph.D., Texas Christian University

 

The following list presents only a few strategies an individual can use in coping with stress. Several books may present other useful ideas.

1. Maintain nutritional needs. Eat a balanced diet and get sufficient physical rest. The needs of the body must be maintained for healthful living. When we are feeling well physically, stress can be coped with more readily and economically. Our outlook and interpretation of events are influenced by how we feel physically. Thus, attention to physical needs, as well as psychic needs are a must. For some people in stress, a physical examination may be in order. Physical well being is given high priority in the process of effective management of tension.

2. Employ constructive time management procedures. Plan your day’s activities. Construct a plan for the week. Although we only have and know the here and now, scheduling in the present for what we plan to do in the future helps us to “stay on top” of work and play. Be knowledgeable of the responsibilities and opportunities before you. Plan ahead with flexibility but do plan ahead.

3. Exercise your body regularly. The benefits of physical exercise are well documented. A planned and implemented program of physical exercise constitutes one of the most effective means for maintaining tension and coping with stress. Exercise is an excellent preventative. Many enjoyable and profitable forms of exercise are available such as jogging, swimming, bicycling, tennis, racquetball, golf, volleyball, basketball, tumbling, soccer, handball, and softball. These activities help but are not the only means for exercise. You can easily use periods during the day to stretch various muscles of the body; after sitting, stand and stretch; when dressing or showering, bend to the floor a few times; instead of the elevator, use your own lift power.

4. Pursue active interests for recreation. The number of activities and the means of expression for pleasure and enjoyment are almost staggering. A few opportunities and activities are: reading, sailing, hiking, visiting a park, stamp collecting, gardening, photography, building furniture, painting, playing a musical instrument, fishing, beekeeping, and sewing. These recreational activities are only a few of the large number of events for pleasure. Inventories and schedules have been constructed by psychologists that include as many as 320 different types of pleasurable events.

5. Learn and use the relaxation response. A flight or fight reaction to tension serves a useful purpose under some conditions. However, in the 20th century culture, most of our flight/fight patterns need to be replaced by a relaxation response, which is an effective stress management procedure. Since a person cannot be anxious and relaxed at the same time, making a relaxation response in a stress evoking situation promotes calmness and control.

6. Be progressive in activities. After you have done as much as is appropriate or possible in any particular time period about a possible stress situation, move on to other activities. If necessary, consciously discipline yourself to block your thoughts about the stress situation. Immerse yourself in other activity. Worry and rumination drains energy for the future as well as the present.

7. Expand your awareness of the stress-precipitating situation. Think of alternative ways of reviewing what is happening. The ways you think about a stress related incident has an important influence on how you are feeling as well as how you behave. Ask yourself this question, “What is the worst thing that could really happen if….?” These strategies assist you to think in a more realistic and reasonable perspective.

8. Save and use some “alone time”. Having time by yourself and for yourself can be very helpful in the management of tension. Use the time for reflection, for single person activity or for just “doing nothing.” In other words, at various times, get in touch with your “you.” Experience who you are by thinking, feeling, and doing “you” in alone time.

9. Change your usual routine. On occasion, variation of our usual daily procedures stimulates and refreshes us. For example, in the morning get out of bed on the other side. Shower first and brush teeth and hair later. When leaving your residence, go to class or to your office by a different route. For lunch or dinner, try a “far-out” or at least different place. Try something you have not done before. Vary your routine; stay out of the habit rut.

10. Expand, explore, and experience your environment. Many of us live in very small worlds when other worlds are only a few steps away. Visit a place in the community where you have not been recently or at all. Get acquainted by using your senses of vision, hearing, taste, etc. Be aware of your thoughts and feelings as you experience the new environment. Examples include visits to a laboratory, play rehearsal, courtroom, hospital emergency room, chapel, or cattle auction.

11. Look within yourself. Get in touch with your thoughts, feelings, sensations, and actions. Carl Jung (1933) said that the personality is vast and mysterious; our inner world is like a universe. Jung believed that the greatest joy in life is self-exploration, an inquiry into our inner world, which is a never-ending adventure of discovery. Awareness of the self promotes aliveness, and aliveness combats stress.

12. Assert yourself. Many stress states occur and linger because people react to tension in a passive or aggressive way. Learning to clearly express your own thoughts and feelings without violating the rights and needs of others can help you feel more positive about yourself and less pressured by the expectations and requests of others.

13. See the movie in your head. If you are a person who can use imagery, use your imagination for a break from the routine of daily tasks. More precisely, relax yourself, get in a comfortable position, close your eyes, and imagine a favorite spot or a fun filled time for a few minutes. Let your system go and be aware of the scene. Smell, taste, and touch those parts of the scene which are appealing to you. After doing this activity for a few minutes, slowly return to your present location by counting backwards from ten to one and then opening your eyes. The movie you create and direct provides a nourishing and refreshing break.

14. Make a fearless inventory. List the busy work you do which is not really essential to or a real part of your schedule and throw the list overboard.

15. Develop a social support system. We all need to give and receive love. Friends are necessary for our lives.

16. Address your strengths. Attend to the positive inner resources in your life. Express thanksgiving for your strengths and give them notice. Too many times people hide their positive resources more from themselves than they do from others.

17. Select and participate in a volunteer program. Involve yourself in services for others in an organized program. For example, adopt a grandparent in a rest home.

18. Remember that growth involves risk. Living does involve risk taking. This statement does not mean or suggest that a person take unnecessary or dangerous risks. However, to live means to be vulnerable. Consider your risk-taking behavior in the context of your current stress related situation. Productive gains are possible only by commitment to a venture. Change is inevitable but growth does not come automatically, without effort or without some risk.

19. Use time for “other directed” involvement and assistance. Constant introspection and preoccupation with your own thoughts and feelings can be counterproductive. Get in touch with other people and their life processes. Move from your “internal” to another’s “internal.” Respond to others’ needs.

20. Develop a sound philosophy. Epictetus, a first century A. D. philosopher, said, “People are disturbed not by things but the views which they take of them.” Adherence to a particular system of principles for conducting one’s life provides a stabilizing, functional structure. Psychologists of the rational-emotional approach to therapy emphasize that we are what we believe ourselves to be.

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