With rising economic pressures and focus on short term results, Australian’s are working under prolonged conditions of stress with little support on how to manage and reduce it. Stress is not only the silent killer creating disease and illness but is also a major cause of poor productivity, low morale and attitudinal derailment.
The challenge in today’s times is how to master our stress management and feel calmer and emotionally composed when so many demands and constraints are placed upon us.
In stress management the notion of stress is extremely subjective; what may be stressful to one person may not seem stressful to another. What is important is that most of the stress we feel, regardless of what causes it, is harmful.
If we can reduce it we’ll not only live happier, healthier and more contented lives, we’ll also be able to carry out our work with more focus, performing closer to our highest potential, one of the ultimate stress management goals!
We often believe that the events in our lives are responsible for our feelings of stress and that our circumstances determine the way we feel.
In doing so, we become a victim to our circumstances allowing them to control our emotions and our mental wellbeing. To challenge this notion, we first need to understand how the process of how stress actually comes about.
Here is an important formula for stress management;
- We first experience an event, situation or circumstance
- We then have a thought about the event
- We then experience an emotion about it