Stress could lead to incurable diseases. Here are 10 keys to protect yourself from stress.
10 Ways to Protect Yourself from Stress
For modern psychology, stress has two faces: a bad one and a good one. The positive stress, or eustress, is the one that stimulates us to face the problems. It allows the person to develop his creativity, to take the initiative and to respond with fluency to those obstacles that the life presents in the day today. Instead of feeling helpless and failed, positive stress floods us with vitality and energy to finish with satisfaction those projects we set out to do. On the other hand, negative stress, or distress, is that which has become a chronic torment, capable of provoking negative moods, such as irritability, anxiety, difficulty in concentrating, and a feeling of failure, even to the point of triggering clinical conditions, such as asthma, ulcers, gastrointestinal diseases, or cancer.
Recently, as every year, the CareerCast website published the results of an online survey that determines how people feel about their current jobs in relation to stress. The survey, which was created by CareerCast to analyze what it considers to be the most stressful workers in terms of work in the United States (military, firefighters, airplane pilots, police officers, event coordinators, public relations officers, company executives, television drivers, journalists, and taxi drivers), went so far as to identify the reasons why these workers consider their jobs to be highly emotionally demanding. Of the 100%, 53% were assigned exclusively to the type of responsibility required by the job.
To the question “Why do you consider your job to be stressful”, the interviewees responded:
- Unpredictability: 25%
- Work environment: 21%.
- Delivery dates: 20%.
- Safety of others: 16%.
- Duration of the working day/week: 7%
- Personal welfare risk: 5%
- Possibilities of promotion: 3%
- Travel: 1%.
- Other 2%
The big question is, how can these people reduce their stress without having to give up their responsibilities?
10 STRESS PROTECTORS
For UPC Graduate Professor José Josán, there are ways to protect against stress without having to give up your job, with what he calls “stress protectors”. Professor Josán divides them into three parts: Well-being, Productivity, and Energy.
Wellness Protectors
- Eating on time: in moderate amounts and in good company.
- Sleep well: just enough for the body to recover energy.
- Exercise: generate a feeling of joy and euphoria.
Protectors of Productivity
- PPP: Planning, Priority, and Pomodoro Planning the day, choosing the main priorities and managing time efficiently according to the Pomodoro technique: 25 minutes of work and 5 minutes of rest for each activity.
- One thing at a time: Doing several things at the same time is not doing any of them.
- Doing: Doing + Attitude. Good things happen when you do them because as long as you don’t do them, nothing changes. And, in doing, work with passion and a positive attitude.
Energy Protectors
- Thank you: thank you at the end of the day for the 5 good things that have happened.
- Thinking positive: Everything, even the most negative, has a positive side. Find it.
- Connecting with energy sources: listening to the sea, watching a sunset, reading a novel or listening to music. Discovering what connects us to our inner energy.
- Creating: Writing, drawing or assembling something or planting. Leave problems aside.
Professor Josán’s Decalogue is part of the curriculum of two important centers of study. In fact, many of these lessons are present in the 13 Tips for Achieving Happiness of Professor Tal Ben Shahar of Harvard University’s Positive Psychology elective, which attracts over 1400 students each semester. The class focuses on happiness, self-esteem, and motivation as tools for achieving success and facing life with joy. Shahar, considered the “guru of happiness”, proposes to improve the quality of one’s state and lead a positive life, based on simple actions such as exercising, facing challenges, wearing comfortable shoes, greeting and being kind, listening to music, spending money on experiences, among others.
He is not alone. At the University of Berkeley, there is the “Science of Happiness” course that can be followed at home through the internet and at no cost. This elective, which is followed through the MOOC platform (Open, Massive and Virtual Courses) of EdX, tries to explain what happiness is and why it is important in life. “Learn how to increase
program presentation.
Now that you know that fighting stress and achieving happiness is possible no matter what the job, do you know what you will do to find your energy center?