Let the feelings out. Talk, laugh, cry, and express anger when we feel we need to. Talking with friends, family, colleagues, a counselor, or a member of the church about our feelings is a healthy way to relieve stress. As talked later in the paper, oxytocin is one of the stress hormones that is released during stress and it actually pushes us to seek support from other and to provide support for those in need.
Do things that we enjoy. Often people may feel that they are too busy to do these things. But making time to do things we enjoy can help us relax and may also help us to get more done in other areas of our life. These activities could include traveling, playing and caring for pets, or picking up a hobby such as gardening, playing an instrument, or pursuing creative activities such as writing, crafts, or art.
Focus on the present. Meditation and guided imagery are two ways to focus and relax the mind.
• Meditation. When we meditate, we focus our attention on the present moment. Paying attention to our breaths is one way to focus, another is transcendental meditation which repeats a mantra. Mindfulness-based stress reduction is another form of meditation that is very helpful with managing stress and learning how to better cope with it.
• Guided imagery or visualization. With guided imagery or visualization, one forms mental images to take a visual journey to a peaceful, calming place or situation. During visualization, one should try to use as many senses as possible, including smell, sight, sound and touch. With guided imagery, the guidance can come from audiotapes, books, or a teacher.
Behavioral
Work related stress is the most common cause of stress. Oftentimes workload overwhelms us due poor time management. To get better at time management people can take many freely available time management quizzes to identify where they can improve, and make sure that they use time management tools such as To-Do Lists, Action Programs, and Eisenhower’s Urgent/Important Principle to manage their priorities. They can then use tools to think about what’s most important in their role, in order to prioritize their work more effectively. This will help people reduce stress, because they get the greatest return from their efforts, and minimize the time spent on low-value activities. Another way to reduce stress to avoid multitasking. Many studies have shown that multitasking actually wastes time and reduces work quality, and more importantly increases stress levels (Woolston, 2017). One can avoid multitasking by checking email only at certain times, by not doing other work during calls or meetings, and avoid using electronic devices for a while before going to bed to fully “switch off”.
