Tuesday, January 27, 2009

The vicious cycle of stress/anxiety 2


The good news with stress and anxiety vicious cycle are that you can turn around this cycle to create a positive cycle that will help you overcome stress and anxiety. This will lead to increased comfort zone, improved sense of confidence and better quality of life.

Key point 1: the way you think.
There are too many types of negative thoughts: "I am not able to beat my anxiety and I will never will", " I must avoid this situation", even worst " I am going insane", or " I have a serious disease", "I am the only person on earth with this problem" or "I am going to die". Your fears, the way you feel now, leads to unbalanced, negative thoughts. So challenge these thoughts with more balanced ones, refocuse on positive and constructive thoughts. Relabel troubling symptoms as a surge of adrenaline. You won't get crazy and you won't die.

Key point 2: the way you act and react to triggers and situations.
It is very difficult to tackle your biggest fears first. A better approach is the graded exposure to triggers. Expose your self to uncomfortable situations gradually, then work your way up to more difficult and challenging ones. Increase your comfort zone, build your confidence.

Initially you will be more anxious-which is normal. Changing the way you think and the way you react, challenging your fears, adopting new habits: these are not easy tasks. There are relievers that will help with your increased anxiety: breathing exercises, relaxing music, massage, beautiful scenery, etc.. By doing all these changes in a structured and repeated way, soon you will experience a decrease in physical symptoms.

By now you have increased your comfort zone, you have built your confidence, you have experienced a decrease in physical symptoms. You are feeling better, your copying abilities are greater, you can face triggers and situation in a more positive way.

You are feeling less stressed and anxious.

Monday, January 19, 2009

The vicious cycle of stress/anxiety


Suffering from negative emotions caused by problems in your life, home or workplace, will lead to stress and anxiety. After a prolonged period of stress and worry in your life, your body starts to experience physical symptoms like headaches, shortness of breath, dizziness, other symptoms like short temper etc.

All these stress symptoms may have a significant impact on how you behave and go about your daily life. Attitudes and behaviours towards others becomes altered by these physical ailments, which were originally caused by stress. Or you may try to avoid feeling stressed/anxious and escape from distressing experiences by paying more attention to possible signs of potential threat. If you cannot avoid the situation, you may use other methods like an exit plan for potenially-anxious situations (standing close to a door to make a quick escape for example). You may also take tranquillisers to deal with distressing situations. Or you make sure you have someone else with you.

The realisation that your behaviour towards others has altered leads to further bouts of stress or anxiety. Or when you become more dependent on avoiding methods or safety behaviours, it can be more distressing if one day they are not available to you.

These further bouts of stress/anxiety result in negative reactions, which then appear as negative emotions, which by their turn lead to more stress and anxiety and so it continues, and this cycle can go on.

The question is how can you reverse that vicious cycle, to create a positive cycle that will help you overcome stress/anxiety?

Sunday, January 11, 2009

Analyse your Stress Diary


So you have decided to keep a stress diary. You have taken the commitement to making daily entries into your diary over a period of time. Once you have kept a stress diary for a number of weeks, now is the time to analyse it.

By now you have a number of entries. All these entries will give you information about stressors, causes of stress, situations that have caused stress, your reactions to stress, your feelings, stress symptoms you have experienced, other valuable information about nutrition, lifestyle, habits, etc.

How will you handle all these entries? Well... list them all.

  • List the types of stress that you have experienced by frequency, with the most frequent stresses at the top of the list.
  • List the most unpleasant stressors you have experienced with the most unpleasant at the top and the least at the bottom.
  • List the causes of your stress.
  • List also the situations that cause you stress by frequency.
  • List your reactions to stressfull events. How well have you managed them?
  • List your feelings.
  • List all the stress symptoms you have experienced.
  • List any lifestyle changes, nutrition, habits that have reacted with your stress symptoms.

Now you have all the information you need to understand the causes of your stress.
Now you may recognize your stress patterns.
Now you can understand what circumstances make stresses particularly unpleasant.
Now you know the levels of stress at which you operate most effectively.
Now you know how you react to stress, whether your reactions are appropriate and useful, and whether your strategies for handling the stresses are effective or not.
Now you may determine how you can handle your stress and how to react to your stressors.

Monday, January 5, 2009

How can you keep a stress diary


Every time you make an entry, record the following information:

- Date

- Time

- How happy you feel now.
Define on a scale of 0 to 10 how happy do you feel now (0 no happy at all & 10 your happiest period of your life) about yourself, family, friends, job, lifestyle.

- How stressed you feel now.
Another subjective assessment, on a scale of 0 to 10 ( 0 no stressed at all & 10 the most stressed period) about yourself, family, friends, job, lifestyle.

- The most resent stressful events:
1. what, when, where and how happened.
2. What factors made the event stressful.

- The symptoms of the stress felt (lightheaded, stomach, breathlessness, headache, etc.)

- How did you handle the stressful situation.

- The fundamental cause of the stress.

- The events outside your control that causes your stress.

- Which stressors are self induced.

- Other factors that make your symptoms worsening. For example special foods, coffee, alcohol, drugs, sleeping habits,changes in your lifestyle, travels etc.

For a sample of a simpler and not so detailed stress diary, you can check this link:
http://istudy.psu.edu