stress management based on own experience
Preface:
I decided to write about informing others on stress management, due to the amount that I feel to be experiencing in my own life. Although it may seem like a mundane subject to discuss, I am sure that it is something everyone must manage within their daily lives, making it easily relatable and maybe even helpful. The audience I intend to reach, is anyone of all ages and statures struggling with the demands of life in general. I imagine my essay being encountered in a couple of different places, perhaps in a health class referring to the effects stress has on the mind and body, or maybe in an environment where others are feeling stressed and would like to handle it better. I include some cultural context in my essay regarding how certain circumstances relating to a person's environment or family can affect their behaviors in either a negative or positive way depending on the choices that they make. There is a lot of social context in my essay as well in regards to the social settings or situations that can either develop stress or diminish it. My intended tone is to be unbiased on the subject and to express myself in a formal manner. If it is approved I intend to use one source for scientific insurance on any of my claims, not that they aren't things most people know already. My objective is to only state the information that I know on the subject to let others make their own observations and conclusions on the matter, and to hopefully provide enlightenment on something we can all relate to.
Essay: (very rough draft - feeling stumped)
Many of us have days where we ponder to ourselves the special way that life has of constantly flinging problems in our direction. You may wonder if life will ever get easier or less demanding, but truthfully there will always be obligations and hardships. There tends to be a constant balancing act between each part of our lives that can't always be easily managed and leads us to becoming stressed. Finding ways to prevent and cope with stress holds the potential to better your life entirely.
Common life stressors most often include work, school, family, finances, or chronic illnesses. Between all of these obligations you may find it difficult to not prioritize one thing over the other. Due to this, many people struggle with creating a healthy work-life balance, especially in jobs where work comes home with you. Add to that, an assignment that needs to be completed in five hours, one or two crying children in the background, a stack of bills that need to be sorted, and you've got yourself a weight of stress on your shoulders.
With increased stress comes many forms of side effects that can take a toll on you mentally and physically, thus making your daily tasks feel more like a burden. Mentally, stress can cause or increase anxiety, depression, insomnia, and irritability. On the physical side, stress can cause heart palpitations, body or muscle aches, fatigue, and can even weaken your immune system. All of these things combined form a weighted encumbrance when you already have a heavily weeded garden of problems to tend to.
In some cases when people feel stressed, they don't deal with it as well as they could. For example, if you're feeling like a shopping splurge will uplift you, it probably will but only temporarily before realizing you've yet to pay your car insurance, mortgage, or previous credit card bills. Other times people will resort to heavily drinking after a bad day or week and sometimes even partake in recreational drug use. Another guilty pleasure people may make use of is practicing bad eating habits by relying on fast food for dinner every night out of convenience or eating a lot of fried and high in sugar foods for comfort. These kinds of actions are all coping mechanisms that can have negative effects on your health, relationships, and work or school performances and often lead to increasing the levels of stress in your life.
There are healthier ways of dealing with the stress that life promises. You may often forget to allocate time for yourself in the midst of juggling your duties. Setting aside an hour or two at least once a day to either watch an episode of your favorite television show or taking a walk with your beloved pet can give you a moment to pause before tackling your next objective. Another way to relieve stress is to include some exercise into your weekly schedule. Exercising improves your health while also releasing endorphins that leave you with positivity flowing through your body. In addition to exercise, a different way to diminish stress levels is to incorporate meditation or yoga into your life. Both activities are a helpful way to relax your mind and body from the chaos that ensues in the world around us. These simple suggestions provide you with beneficial ways of reducing stress and enhancing your life.
Of course, there are means of preventing daily stress from tightening its grip on you before finding yourself smothered by it. Keeping yourself organized is a surefire way to be prepared to handle any onslaught of issues that may arise and having a clean personal space to retreat to after a troublesome day, is like inhaling a breath of fresh air and exhaling a sigh of relief. Knowing where things are when you need them plays into another important tool to utilize, time management. Time management is important for many aspects of life, getting from point A to point B, work projects, school assignments, and sleep schedules. Consistency in managing and planning your time will make stressful surprises easier to manage as well. Another approach to avoid stress is practicing expression. Writing in a journal or talking out your hardships with a close friend gives you an opportunity to express your thoughts and sometimes find a solution to something that's been troubling you. Using these methods, you can effectively eliminate the way that high amounts of stress can break you down and leave you feeling drained.
At the end of the day, stress continues to be an unavoidable part of being human. While it is unavoidable, it's not impossible to deal with. By practicing healthy lifestyle choices and staying on top of your responsibilities, you can adequately reduce the effects that daily stress can have on you.
