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Everybody has some level of stress in their lives.  In order to better manage stress, it helps to sit back and examine your natural excuses, habits, and attitudes that crop up when you’re exposed to stress.

Understanding your reactions is key to managing stress levels.

Sit down and think – when life comes to be too much, what do you do when you need to “get away from it” for a while, even if it’s only five minutes? 

Having a coping mechanism is not at its heart an unhealthy thing – in fact, the healthiest people in the world often have several coping mechanisms to turn to when they feel overwhelmed in their lives.

The problem is that many women have developed unhealthy reactions to stress that come when they feel overwhelmed.  The question here is an important one to answer: what are your coping mechanisms?  Are they ultimately helpful or hurtful? 

Check out the following list of common unhealthy coping mechanisms. 

• Smoking or Drinking alcohol
• Using pills or drugs
• Sleeping too much or too little
• Procrastinating or becoming lethargic
• Withdrawing from family, friends, and activities
• Over scheduling yourself to avoid thinking about problems
• Overeating or Under eating
• Taking stress out on others by becoming irritable and resentful

Do any of them look familiar?

When faced with stress, do you have a tendency to explain it away as a “temporary” state, even though you can’t remember the last time you really took a break and stepped away from your work and obligations to relax? 

Do you explain it away as part of your normal behavior (“this is the way it is”) or just as a natural part of life (“my life is always busy and crazy”)?

These are common ways that women look at to explain away their stress which does nothing to reduce the amount of stress you hold.  All it does is put the fact that you are stressed on the back burner which ends up causing more stress which can lead to illness.

It’s important to be able to have alternative ways for your stress that are healthy.

A better option is to find coping mechanisms that better your health and outlook while avoiding the ones that ultimately end up causing more problems.   Be sure to include simple ways to make your life less stressful!

Here are 5 fun and healthy ways to deal with stress:

1)    Make time for rest and relaxation each and every day.   Studies have shown that when people take fifteen minute breaks during their day to go outside and stand in the sun for a bit, their satisfaction level rises and their stress goes down. 

2)    Set aside time in your schedule to relax.  This doesn’t mean that you need to neglect your commitments for an entire day. You’ll find that even listening to relaxing music or curling up with a book a half hour before bed does wonders for your stress level.

3)    Connect with others.  People need others to be happy and healthy.  When you can build a strong support network around you – both local and far away – you’ll find that you are happier and more confident.  Everybody needs friends!

4)    Do something you like every single day.  This can be something as simple as cooking a good meal or going out for a ride on your bike.  Make time for things that you enjoy among the many responsibilities that you have in your life.  This way you have something to look forward to.  Even the grayest day can have a silver lining when you know that there’s a reward sitting in there waiting for you to get to it.

5)    A sense of humor is extremely important.  Make time to laugh and remember that the world is, first and foremost, a ridiculous place.  When you can take stressful situations and look for humor, you’ll find yourself smiling more often and feel the tension being lifted from your neck and shoulders.

You don’t want your ways of dealing with stress today to end up causing you even more stress tomorrow! Take active steps toward dealing with stress in a more proactive healthy manner and notice how much better you feel.

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