Stress Management When we feel unwell, we often look up our symptoms on the internet to understand what is happening. "What causes headaches?", "Why does nausea occur?" and so on… In the answers to all these questions, stress sometimes appears. Stress affects our success and motivation in working life; it also negatively impacts our social relationships and health, and can even cause chronic diseases. For this reason, we need to manage our stress not only to focus on our work and succeed, but also for our health and social relationships. Stress is not always bad. On the contrary, sometimes it is the stress that keeps us motivated and helps us focus. When our body comes under stress, it feels the need to perceive potential dangers and possible mistakes and can work more effectively. But too much of this stress that keeps our body and mind alert has the opposite effect on us. Because of stress, we cannot focus on what needs to be done for fear of possible mistakes, we may not sleep well, and as a result we cannot concentrate and may experience many other negative effects. For this reason, stress management does not actually mean staying completely away from stress. A stress-free life is not possible for anyone; there will always be topics in our lives that worry us or that we think about too much because they are very important to us. What matters at this point is keeping our stress level at a certain level and making stress an emotion that motivates us and drives us to action. Prolonged exposure to stress has psychological and physical symptoms. Looking at psychological symptoms, we experience concentration problems, become more absent-minded, and adopt an irritable and anxious state of mind. Besides this, we feel sad, angry and under pressure. Looking at its physical effects, in people under stress, nausea and heartburn, digestive system problems, headaches, rapid breathing, heart palpitations, trembling and sweating in the hands, and an increase in body temperature can be observed. Although these symptoms are presented this way, of course, everyone's response to stress and the symptoms they show can be different. Individuals who are chronically stressed and struggling to deal with the effects of this stress are advised to seek help from a professional.

How Should Stress Management Be Done?

When starting stress management, we first need to recognize the situation that is stressing us. After recognizing it, we need to analyze this situation well and, by understanding why it is stressing us, take action to minimize the negative effects of the stress-causing factors on us. This action-taking is called stress management.

Positive Thinking

Actually, positive thinking comes first. Our mind always pushes us towards negative possibilities, and this makes us more stressed. However, the likelihood of the negative possibilities that our mind tells us about actually coming true is low. At this point, it is very important to push our inner voice to speak more positively and to practice proper risk management.

Time Management

Time management is also one of the methods to deal with stress. Constantly postponing a task and trying to catch up at the last minute causes us to become more stressed and as a result, we experience concentration problems. The quality of the work we produce in this case decreases, and the stress situation we find ourselves in negatively affects our psychology and body. Good time management, breaking down our tasks and completing them regularly, will help reduce our stress levels.

Exercising

Exercise helps us release the happiness hormone and clear our mind. Here, it is not necessarily about doing very intense workouts; a short walk to clear our mind can also be beneficial. Pilates is one of the exercises particularly recommended for people working at a desk. By making exercise a habit, you can keep your stress under control.

Meditation

It is important to rest and listen to our spirit, and move away from negative feelings. Meditation allows us to rest our spirit; by moving away from all thoughts for a while, it is important to feel the present moment and realize that there is a world flowing outside of us. There are many types of meditation, and one of the most preferred is yoga. Yoga can help reduce your stress by focusing on both spiritual and physical health. Information on how to practice meditation is easily accessible through social platforms. There are even applications that help you meditate.

Connecting with Nature

While living in city life, we cannot spend much time in nature. However, nature has a side that makes people feel peaceful and energized. You can take long nature walks or plan a vacation immersed in nature. If you enjoy spending time in nature, there are many camping routes in Turkey. Especially recently, İğne Ada – Longoz Forests have become quite popular. It can be a nice route to relieve stress and get away from city crowds on weekends.

Hobbies

How we spend our time outside of work is also quite important for relieving work stress. Experts emphasize the importance of engaging in activities we enjoy outside of work and dedicating time to ourselves. By finding something we enjoy doing, we can spend our time outside of work more pleasantly, and by focusing our mind on another thing we enjoy, we can reduce our stress.

Open Communication

One of the factors that causes stress in people is communication with others. Often, we can become stressed because we cannot express ourselves. At the same time, conflicts can arise in the workplace, and this can cause the work environment to be stressful. At this point, it is very important to communicate clearly what we want, our expectations, and our problems to the other party. With open communication, we can prevent conflicts from occurring and express ourselves better. All of these are recommended methods to keep our stress at a certain level. But what if we are in a stressful moment and cannot manage this crisis? First, we should breathe deeply and, if possible, take short breaks to relax ourselves. Asking for help is never wrong; if there is a task we cannot do and cannot get out of, we should ask for opinions from those around us and seek help. Listening to soft music can also help reduce our stress. Stress is a topic that everyone feels at many moments in their lives and struggles to deal with. The feeling of stress develops quite instinctively, is natural, and is an emotion that keeps us alive and motivates us. In stress management, what should be focused on is not eliminating stress completely; rather, it should be coping with stress and keeping our mind and body balanced and healthy in times of stress. Prepared by - Nilsu Kotil