Stress Management

Stress management is a wide spectrum of techniques and psychotherapies aimed at controlling a person's level of stress, especially chronic stress, usually for the purpose of and for the motive of improving everyday functioning.

What Is Stress Management?

Our increasingly busy lives cause our minds a lot of stress. Stress is mental tension caused by demanding, taxing or burdensome circumstances. Stress doesn't just affect our mental state and mood; it affects our physical health as well. When we are very stressed, a hormone called cortisol is released into our bloodstream, suppressing the functioning of our immune, digestive and reproductive systems. That is why it is so important to practice stress management in order to keep our minds and bodies healthy.

Stress management consists of making changes to your life if you are in a constant stressful situation, preventing stress by practicing self-care and relaxation and managing your response to stressful situations when they do occur.

Before we move on to stress management techniques, it's important to note that not all stress is bad. Stress is actually a survival response when our body thinks that it is in danger. That is why our sympathetic nervous system kicks in and makes our heart rate increase and gives us a burst of the energy hormone, adrenaline, so that we can deal with whatever situation is being thrown at us. This is also called our flight or fight response.

The problem is when we deal with constant stress and worry, or when we don't know how to properly manage a stressful situation. That's why stress management is tremendously important for our health, quality of life and relationships.

What you will learn in this topic:

• Assess individual and team stress levels

• Adopt a positive, balanced mindset to reduce stress

• Calm down and refocus in challenging situations

• Build resilience at work

• Cultivate well-being through healthy habits