Stress Management Tips

Activating your senses can be a quick way to start relieving your stress in a variety of settings. By connecting with your senses—sight, touch, sound, smell, and taste—you'll be able to calm your stress response by focusing on the present moment.

A simple way to activate your sense to help you manage stress is to use the 5-Senses technique. Start by taking a deep breath, then notice:

• 5 things you can see
• 4 things you can touch
• 3 things you can hear
• 2 things you can smell
• 1 thing you can taste

If you can't taste anything, name one of your favourite flavours.

As you activate different senses, start being aware of how quickly your stress levels drop. The more specific you are, the better, as it can help you develop other stress relief activities. For example, if you respond well to sound, you could make a playlist of music that instantly calms and relaxes you.

Let's face it, if you're feeling overly concerned or stressed about a problem or issue, counting to 100 and back again is going to be a quick way to distract you and calm your stress response.

Depending on how well you know your times tables, you could even mix it up a little by counting in multiples of two, three, or four.

When your 'fight-or-flight' stress response is activated, your body goes into autopilot because it's getting prepared to protect you from danger. One way to calm your nervous system and bring your stress response under control is to focus on your breathing.

There are a few helpful breathing techniques you could try, including:

• The 4-7-8 technique
• Box breathing
• The physiological sigh

These quick techniques can be done anywhere. At home, at work or out and about. You can also do them while sitting, standing or lying down.

Just don't try them underwater, of course! 😉

Solving the cause of your stress is going to be the best way to reduce it. But problem solving is a skill that takes practice. A simple and easy-to-use approach to problem solving is the ICAAR Model.

The steps are as follows:

Identify and define the problem you're facing by asking questions like, "What's the problem?" or "What is it I want to change?" If unclear, invite others to see how they'd define it.

Create a list of possible solutions that could solve your problem by asking, "What might fix this?" Get as many ideas down as possible – you're not looking for 'the' solution.

Assess the pros and cons of each the possible solutions you listed. When listing the pluses and minuses for each, think about which idea(s) could be most helpful.

Apply and practice the idea or ideas you think would be best at solving your problem. Trying your ideas out is important to knowing if they work or not.

Review the outcome of your chosen idea(s) and try others from your list if you find what you're doing isn't working as well as you'd like.

Spending lots of time sitting at a desk or on your computer can lead to tension in your muscles and fatigue. Progressive Muscle Relaxation (PMR) is a simple way to relieve muscle tension and reduce stress.

It involves tensing and then relaxing each of the muscle groups in your body, starting from your hands and ending at your toes.

Ideally, you'll want to be either lying down or sitting comfortably, but you can do PMR almost anywhere using the following steps:

1. Take a few deep breaths.
2. Focus on one muscle group at a time.
3. Tense the muscles for 5–10 seconds.
4. Relax the muscles for 10–15 seconds.
5. Repeat steps 5 and 6 for each muscle group in your body.

Although you can practice PMR for as short or as long as you like, a good rule of thumb would be to start with 5–10 minutes, then gradually increase the time as you get more confident and comfortable with it. 

The good thing about PMR is that it can be done anytime of the day and in most locations. But it's especially helpful to do before going to bed or during breaks to help you relax and de-stress.

Distraction can be a useful short-term approach to managing stress. It works because it is only possible to fully concentrate on one thing at a time.

By giving attention to something that positively affects your mood, you'll turn away from the thoughts that cause you to feel stressed.

Some examples you could try include:

• Focus your attention on your surroundings by noticing what you can see, hear, taste, touch, and smell.
• Engage in an engaging mental exercise, like reciting something from memory, doing some mental arithmetic, or reading some text backwards.
• Imagine a detailed scene in your mind. It could be a landscape, a redesigned home, or a venue or location you've either visited or would like to.

The key to choosing your distraction is making it specific, interesting, and something that demands lots of focused attention and brain capacity.

It's also important to remember that distractions are a short-term approach and that you'll still need to figure out a way of dealing with your stressor long-term.

A short brisk walk can help regulate the chemicals in your brain that are linked to mood. Just by walking for 10 minutes, endorphins and dopamine are released into your body.

Endorphins relieve pain and create a feeling of wellbeing, and dopamine activates your brain's reward system, so it's no surprise they're known as the 'feel-good hormones'.

For an extra boost, you could combine walking with having a phone call with a friend, listening to an inspiring podcast, or listening to a favourite piece of music.