STRESS MANAGEMENT

BY BONNIE FLOYD

Undoubtedly, stress is a part of our everyday lives. There are so very many daily demands that compete for our attention. We typically juggle many different types of responsibilities, both at work and at home. On a regular basis, there are bills to pay, laundry to wash, groceries to buy, and gas tanks to fill. At work, we face important deadlines for projects, phone calls to return, and decisions to make. We may face the unique challenges of finding ourselves as members of the sandwich generation: we find ourselves torn between caring for our own children, as well as addressing the demands of aging parents.

How we choose to cope with this diverse range of stressors makes a critical difference for our physical, emotional, and mental well-being. Excessive stress levels are downright dangerous if they are sustained for prolonged periods of time. Our minds and bodies are well-equipped to deal with acute stressors that occur. They are much less prepared to deal with the negative consequences of high levels of ongoing stress. Sustained stress levels cause our bodies to hypersecrete cortisol, a hormone that allows our body to respond effectively to an immediate stressor. In turn, excessive cortisol levels are associated with a diminished immune system response. Whereas we may have minimal control over external stressors, we do retain control of how we choose to respond to such stressors. Placing our specific stressors into perspective makes a huge difference. Very often, the things that we find ourselves feeling very stressed out about won’t necessarily matter in the long run. As one popular book states, “Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff.”

Women frequently have the tendency to place their own well-being at the bottom of their extensive to-do lists. We typically serve as the primary caregivers for our children, whether we are also employed outside the home. Attempting to competently manage such diverse roles is very demanding. After all, we all possess finite resources. None of us has an unlimited amount of physical energy, time, or financial resources.

Very often, women neglect adequate self-care when juggling their home and work responsibilities. However, you can’t pour from an empty vessel. It’s essential to take the best possible care of ourselves, so that we’re able to competently fulfill the multiple roles that we face as women. Women sometimes struggle with feeling guilty for taking adequate care of themselves. They may erroneously conclude that doing so is selfish. Practicing good self-care is essential, as opposed to optional. If we have children, engaging in good self-care is also a very important form of role modeling, both for our daughters and sons.

An essential component of adequate selfcare is stress management. To prevent the development of more serious consequences, each of us needs to learn how to better manage our overall stress level. How we specifically manage our stress levels is different for each woman. What works for your friend, neighbor, or co-worker may not necessarily be effective for you. Some women relax by choosing to exercise, engaging in meditation, or practicing guided imagery.

There are several different strategies for achieving more effective stress management. One of the most important rests upon being fully honest with ourselves about just how much we can achieve in any given day. When we take on more than we can comfortable manage, our stress levels invariably rise. It’s not possible to simultaneously be the perfect partner, mother, caregiver, employee, neighbor, volunteer, and friend.

Another effective method for improved stress management involves learning to feel comfortable with asking for help, whenever necessary. Our society remains heavily oriented towards the importance of individualism, as opposed to connectivity with others. Consequently, many of us struggle with asking someone else for help with completion of a task. We may view doing so as a reflection of some degree of inadequacy on our parts. However, we are all interdependent upon one another to some degree. Enlisting others’ help may serve to powerfully lessen our overall stress level.

Those women with perfectionistic tendencies are particularly susceptible to experiencing the negative consequences of high stress levels. This is true whether they find themselves facing demands at home, or at work. Perfectionism depletes our finite resources, since attempting to complete a task perfectly exhausts both our minds and our bodies; in turn, this creates an even high stress level. Consequently, women with such tendencies find themselves in a downward spiral.

A final method of effective stress management concerns our ability to say no to excessive external demands. We may fear disappointing others by turning down their request for assistance. Nevertheless, effective stress management demands that we fully appreciate the delicate balance between our demands, and our capabilities of meeting those demands. After all, just how effective can we possibly be if we find ourselves over-extende