According to a study, one in five people are victims of work-induced stress. Whether it’s the fear of an approaching deadline, the dread of a boss who won’t stop shouting, or the anxiety which some of us feel when asked to give a presentation in front of an audience, stress is ubiquitous.
Unfortunately, since stress comes in many forms, most of us get overwhelmed by its presence. That means that even when we know that our brain isn’t responding to the events around it in the most optimum manner, we feel we cannot do anything about it.
In other words, stress doesn’t allow us to ‘get a grip’ in our life. It takes away from us the things we cherish the most – like enjoying small pleasures of life – and ‘gifts’ us the ideas that we dread – like the feeling that someone is chasing us.
To help you get rid of these feelings and overcome your stress, I’ve listed down some of the most common stress triggers. Additionally, I’m going to reveal some hacks using which you can prevent your brain from taking things that happen around you, and to you, too seriously.
#1: Trying To Do Everything
Although you might know it already, the study of human brain has also proved that multi-tasking promotes stress. It does that by draining glucose from our mind. And since glucose is the fuel on which our brain runs, its shortage decreases the efficiency of our brain, and makes us feel tired.
How to Avoid:
As much as you’d like to blame your boss for inundating you with work files, multi-tasking is an indication that we suck at time management. Provided we can prioritize our tasks, do the crucial jobs first and learn to delegate our work, we can save ourselves from multitasking and, by extension, stress.
#2: Not keeping your thoughts in check
Is the glass always half-full for you? Do you regularly find your ideas wandering to the worst possible scenario? Are you one of those people who take the news too seriously? If your answer to any of these questions is in the affirmative, then you’d know how your thoughts make you feel bad.
How to Avoid:
In his new best-selling book “The 5AM Club”, world-renowned author Robin Sharma gives us a solution to this problem: observe your thoughts. That’s right, keep a watchful eye on whether your thoughts are leading you towards positivity or otherwise. If it’s the latter destination that they’re leading you towards, break their momentum by getting busy.
#3: Scrolling for hours on social media
In contrast to other stress triggers mentioned in this article, social media stress is both a cause as well as an effect. Put simply, while seeing how your friends are enjoying on the beach whereas you’re stuck in office can make you stressful, the resulting stress can make you more addicted to social media. The resulting spiral will trap you in a way that you won’t be able to rescue yourself from it.
How to Avoid:
Luckily for all of us, there are numerous ways for us to cure our social media addiction. The most common among them include installing apps that tell us how much time we spend on social media. You can also put your phone on silent and put it on the charging table so that you don’t hear a beep every time you get a notification.
Conclusion
Although stress is a standard part of our life and can serve a useful purpose, like forcing you to work hard to prepare for an upcoming examination, you cannot deny that excess of everything is bad. If you don’t get a grip over it, it won’t only make you feel bad about yourself but can also ruin your health and your relationships with the people that matter the most to you. It’s therefore imperative that you know how to put roadblocks in front of stress.