3 Emotional Control Techniques To Combat Stress

Stress is a natural defence against demanding situations, but keeping it prolonged affects your life. Practice these exercises and take care!

Stress is a state of physical and mental tension that is generated as an automatic response to external situations that are perceived as threatening or demanding. It is known that in itself stress is not something "bad" because it drives us to achieve goals and can even be healthy if you know how to handle it effectively.

At first, the stress response is necessary and adaptive, but if it is prolonged or intensified you can experience serious physical and/or emotional disorders affecting the daily performance of a person in their different spheres of life.

Three Phases Of Stress Development

Stress has been divided into three main phases, and you can also see them in the best stress monitor application:

• Alarm Or Flight Phase:              

It occurs when our body is prepared to produce maximum energy, with the consequent chemical changes. The brain sends signals that activate the secretion of hormones, which through a chain reaction cause different reactions in the body such as: muscle tension, sharpening of the senses, increase in the frequency and intensity of heartbeat, elevation of blood flow , increase in the level of insulin so that the body metabolises more energy, etc.

When the alarm signal passes, our organism relaxes, and we recover the state of rest. If the situation is maintained continuously, we move on to the next phase.

• Adaptation Phase:

It is also known as resistance phase and occurs when the alert situation is maintained without there being relaxation. It is then when the organism tries to return to its normal state, and a new physiological response occurs again, keeping the hormones in a permanent state of alertness. This phase reaches its limit when the energy is exhausted.

• Exhaustion Phase:

It happens when stress becomes chronic, and it is maintained for a period of time that varies according to each individual. In this phase, weakness is experienced, and a sense of anguish and anxiety appears that ends up affecting the physical and/or emotional health of the person.

The main signs and symptoms that are observed in an individual in this phase are apathy, colitis, gastritis, ulcers, insomnia, irritability, heart disease, depression, etc.

Among the most common causes of stress at work are the following:

• Excessive workload.
• Interpersonal problems with colleagues and superiors that affect the work environment.
• Lack of specialised knowledge to develop the functions.
• Continuous threat of clipping or organisational restructuring.
• Family and personal situations that hinder and interfere with work performance.

Anti-Stress Factors

However, not all people face stressful situations in the same way. What for some is a stressful situation for others may not be. This is due to certain factors such as:

• Attitude: It has to do with the way we interpret the reality that surrounds us, so for someone, a situation can be perceived as demanding and threatening while for another it represents an interesting challenge or an opportunity for development.
• Physical well - being: The poor diet and nutrition stress the body, and minds hurting exceedingly who is in this state. A person under stress requires more nutrients, vitamins, and minerals. Likewise, the inadequate physical activity can cause a stressful state for the organism.
• Support Networks: We are social beings that we need from others, and therefore most people require someone in their lives to trust in a difficult time. When support networks are lacking, stressful situations become more difficult to manage.
• Relaxation opportunities: Recreational activities provide spaces to release tensions. When a person lacks external interests, hobbies or a means of relaxation, it is very likely that he will not be able to handle stressful situations because he will not be able to discharge the stress that they cause him.

In this way, it can be established that a person who has negative attitudes, poor physical health status, lack of social support and little opportunities to relax, has high probabilities to experience stressful situations with greater anxiety.

Techniques of emotional control against stress

There are basic emotional control techniques to cope with stress, and these can be used before, during or after a stressful event.

1º Deep Breathing:

This technique is very easy to apply and is useful to control physiological reactions when facing emotionally intense situations.

• Take a deep breath while mentally counting up to 4.
• Hold your breath while mentally counting up to 4.
• Release the air while mentally counting up to 8

2nd Stop Thinking:

This technique focuses on the control of thought and to put it into practice you must follow the following steps:

• When you begin to find yourself uncomfortable, nervous or upset, pay attention to the type of thoughts, you are having and identify all those with negative connotations (focused on failure, hatred towards other people, guilt, etc.)
• Repeat to yourself "Enough!"
• Repeat to yourself "Enough!"
• Replace those thoughts with more positive ones

The problem with this technique is that some practice is needed to identify negative thoughts, as well as to turn them around and turn them into positives.

3º Muscle Relaxation:

This technique requires previous training following the following steps:

• Sit quietly in a comfortable position. Close your eyes.
• Slowly relax all the muscles of your body, starting with the toes and then do the same with the rest of the body to reach the muscles of the neck and head.
• Once you have relaxed all the muscles of your body, imagine yourself in a peaceful and relaxing place (for example on a beach). Whichever place you choose, imagine that you are totally relaxed and carefree.

Practice this exercise as often as possible, at least once a day for about 10 minutes each time. If you have been convinced of the usefulness of the exercise, remember that you must practice it to automate the process and get relaxed in a few seconds.

Finally, it is important to consider that stressful situation are present in our daily lives and evading, denying or suppressing them could be triggers of serious long-term physical and emotional health problems.