Recognize and Reduce Self-Inflicted Stress

Identifying and Eliminating Stressful Habits Yields Better Health

Jun 1, 2009 Mary King

Everyone experiences unavoidable stress at one time or another, but what about routine stressful situations that pile up day after day? Recognize, reorganize, and relax.

Parents aren't the only people that tend to take on more than they can handle. Single adults and couples are just as guilty, cramming routine activities, personal obligations, and chores into every available moment of the day. Some people thrive on this type of lifestyle, but others find the load overwhelming and stressful. The practice of recognizing, reorganizing, and relaxing is a simple structured method for reducing self-inflicted stress and putting control back into one's life.

Recognizing Self-Induced Stress

Take a step back to see where all the stress is coming from and make a list of the sources. Very often it's not the big inconveniences that cause so many headaches, but is instead the small blocks that cause tension to build to an unmanageable level. Listed here are a few common examples of stress contributors:

Spending too much money, putting one in a financial bind.
Being disorganized, making it difficult to find anything.
Not eating right and mistreating one's health.
Giving in to the schedules of others, especially younger family members.
Allowing material possessions (clutter) and even dust to overtake the home.
Giving in to adult peer pressure. (A.k.a. the inability to say, "No.")
Bringing work home.
Feeling responsible for everyone's happiness.
Putting one's needs and desires last.
Worrying about things that might happen, such as the loss of a loved one or loss of a job.
Obsessing over one's status with a spouse, family, or coworkers.

Reorganizing Daily Habits to Reduce Stress

Alleviating self-induced stress seems almost too simple a way to better one's health. However, according to Tricia Ellis-Christensen, contributing writer for the WiseGeek Web site, chronic stress can lead to debilitating health problems. In the article, "What Effects Does Stress Have on the Body?" (2003-2009), Ellis-Christensen states " ... chronic stress can lead to poor heart health, high blood pressure, and increased risk for heart attack and stroke." Chronic stress does not just happen all at once; it builds over a period of time. Using a few of the examples above, see how changing habits can reduce stress one step at a time:

Set a budget and stick to it. The reward is two-fold in that one will eliminate overspending and feel a new sense of pride for getting finances under control.
Assign specific locations for important items. Whether it's keys, eye glasses, the TV remote, or anything else that usually ends up misplaced, a conscious effort to put items in the same place every time will soon become a habit.
Eat right to improve health. Attention to diet and overall health improves one's physical appearance and raises self-esteem. With so many prepackaged healthy food choices, preparation time is not an issue.
Clean a cluttered and/or dusty home. Coming home to a clean house is rejuvenating after a hard day at work. Elizabeth Scott from the Web site, About.com, offers the article, "6 Ways that Cleaning Can Alleviate Stress" (2008), and states, "While the end result of a major cleaning session – a beautiful and clean home – can be a great stress reliever, the act of cleaning your house can be a stress management technique in itself. If you incorporate mindfulness into your cleaning, the work can actually be a form of meditation, leaving you more relaxed after you finish."
Just say, "No." This applies to coworkers that insist on monopolizing one's free time with social events, and family members that can't seem to do for themselves. Taking time to indulge in favorite activities or doing nothing at all is a great way to relieve stress for some people.

Relax for Stress Relief

Some people simply do not know how to relax. Women – particularly mothers – tend to feel guilty about taking any time for relaxing, much less take time to de-stress. People with high-profile jobs and those with certain personality types also may have trouble relaxing and finding ways to reduce stress.

The University of Pittsburgh Medical Center provides the Web page, Healthy Lifestyle Program, and article information titled, "Stress Coping: Relaxation Techniques" (2009). The article states, "Relaxation techniques train your mind to become less responsive to stress and readjust your mind so that your baseline level of stress is lower." Links to various types of relaxation techniques are provided on the page, as well.

Rearranging schedules to eliminate some routine errands, sharing work within other household members, and allowing time for relaxation, all might seem too stressful an idea in the beginning. An over-stressed body will have to learn to adjust to a less stressful lifestyle. The bottom line is, it takes a bit of work but the results are worth it for a healthier life.

Self-induced stress can be successfully eliminated when one makes a conscious effort to make lifestyle adjustments one small step at a time. While it is impractical to think one can completely do away with all stress, even the slightest changes can make a difference. Allowing children to do more work at home, saying no to persistent coworkers, and removing the clutter from a messy home, are but a few ways one can reduce stress. Recognizing, reorganizing, and relaxing provide a simple technique for reducing unwanted stress. To gain a healthier lifestyle, one only needs to put the plan into action.

The copyright of the article Recognize and Reduce Self-Inflicted Stress in General Medicine is owned by Mary King. Permission to republish Recognize and Reduce Self-Inflicted Stress in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.