How to beat Stress? Pinpoint your stressors.

As the old saying goes, "knowing is half the battle", and indeed, it is true, including when trying to beat stress in your daily life. Stress is normal. It happens to everyone, even to the most saintly person in this whole world. After all, stress is really a God-given / natural response that triggers our body to fight or flight. At the most basic level, stress can spur us to act when there is an emergency or when our life is put at risk.

However, when stress lingers or gets triggered even by the smallest or the most mundane of things, then stress itself could be a danger to us. In the long run, it can cause severe illnesses like heart attack, migraine, high blood pressure, even the common cold. It can rob you of your creativity, make you forgetful and disorganized, and simply make your life miserable. When stress becomes like this in your life, it's time to take action and beat it. But how?

One way to beat stress is to know where it's coming from. Are you stressed out when you're procrastinating? Is stress a result of your being unemployed, or having an unresolved conflict with someone, or being disorganized, or from being obsessive-compulsive or a perfectionist? Is your dead-end job stressing you out? Is it your parents? Your in-laws? Your friends? Your social network? Whatever the source of your stress is, you have to be able to pinpoint it out so you can start thinking of a solution for it.

As for me, lately, I have been stressed about my upcoming trip to Cagayan de Oro. It's all those ugly memories I've had with my grandparents that are coming to the surface and stressing me out. They've hurt me so much in the past that even if I've already forgiven them, I just can never forget. My solution? I now adapt a little paradigm shift by looking at the fact that my grandfather is almost 90 years old and that he needs to be with his grandchildren now more than ever, before it's too late. I am also looking at this trip as an opportunity to travel with my parents which we haven't done in a very long time. And lastly, I will have a chance to see my bestest friend, Mer, as well as my other high school friends should time permit it.

If I wasn't able to pinpoint where my jittery feelings, anxiety and stress are all coming from these past few days, I'd probably be having a sour mood everyday and my husband would likely be the recipient of my bad behavior. Now that I know where they're coming from, I am able to control my emotions and separate them from what is real and happening right now.

So try this technique. Pinpoint your stressors and beat stress now.