Helping your partner cope with stress can help you too to overcome anxiety.
Research shows that even if you can leave the office or workplace stress away from home, it still impacts how you behave at home.
Thus impacts of stress don’t confine themselves to only its users, but it deploys catastrophic consequences on family members or loved ones.
Indeed, knowing that your loved one is having stress or mental illness is heartbreaking. But instead of leaving such a person to be the victim of chronic stress, you should help them cope with mind-boggling mental issues.
Below is a brief overview of how you should help your loved one overcome stress and live a productive life.
Educate Yourself About Stress
Prevalence of stress, anxiety, and depression is common today. Stats show that 284 million people worldwide have an anxiety disorder. Likewise, another research reveals that one in five American adults says that mental health is decreasing. So if your loved one has stress, then don’t panic, as it will make things worse.
Stress is a body reaction to a specific overwhelming demand. So as the belonging of a person having stress, you should educate yourself regarding different aspects of stress and stress management techniques.
Here is your checklist for educating yourself about stress
- Learn underlying causes of stress
- Learn earlier symptoms of stress
- Learn about the coping strategies
- Explore free resources stress
Bottom line: Explore resources on stress management and help your loved one cope with stress
Address the behaviour
To cope with the stress, changing the behavior that leads to mood swings, destructive thoughts, and substance dependence is crucial. For changing the behavior of a stressed person, having a healthy conversation is essential.
After having a hectic day, people coming home have expectations that someone listens to him/her at home. But it is seen that their partner restricts them from doing so or listens passively. This adds stress to an already depressed person.
Apart from normal daily conversation, it would help if you spare time to have a result-driven discussion with your partner in a week.
During the conversation
- Set appropriate time for conversation
- Prepare your points, what you want to say
- Be an active listener
- Don’t be judgmental
- Consider chronic stress a disease
- Don’t look down on them
Talking with a loved one can lessen the burden and feel of guilt in the stressed person. But suppose you’re observing chronic stress symptoms such as frequent Sickness, chronic Pain, headaches, digestive issues, and loss of appetite. In that case, you may consult with therapists for personalized behavior-changing therapies.
Bottom line: Spend time with your partner to have a healthy conversation
Don’t push
Chronic stress impacts the user brain’s portion that controls thoughts, anger and regulates the working memory. Swinging behavior is the most common symptom of chronic stress. Such a person can turn violent on minor things and even become aggressive with belongings. Instead of pushing a stressed person to come out of anxiety, negotiate things and try to elevate the burden from a loved one.
Bottom line: Don’t push your loved one to have good behavior as it’ll make things worse rather than good.
Provide moral support
“Hey, come here, don’t feel alone, I am with you.”
“You destroyed my life, it was the worst decision of my life to be with you.”
Now, compare these two lines. They represent two different approaches to how you deal with a stressed person. The second approach will make things worse as you’re declaring your loved one guilty.
Remember, chronic stress is not a personal choice; it is a disease.
Bottom line: You should provide moral support to your loved one for overcoming chronic stress
Have realistic goals
Had a conversation with your loved one yesterday and expect things to get entirely better today? While helping loved ones cope with stress, setting realistic goals is significant. Don’t get angry with them on minor things, as their road to recovery from chronic stress is a bumpy one.
Bottom line: Have realistic expectations, be polite, and help loved ones cope with stress.