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One Secret to Stress Management
Want to manage your stress? Learn to be assertive. The assertive person gets more of what he or she wants, finds out how to put life into order, and can ask others to fill his or her desires. Some stress victims are over-achievers and perfectionists who never rely on others. Asking for what you want can sometimes make life easier! In 1978, the President's Commission on Mental Health estimated that one in four people in the USA suffered from "severe emotional stress" without a diagnosable mental or physical disorder. Stress frequently occurs in the work environment. The activating events can be change, pressure, competition, and ambiguity. Management philosophies change, re-organizations occur, leadership changes, and companies move. Corporate life frequently demands hourly adaptation to stressful situations. Unchecked overloads are often life-threatening. We feel some of the best mechanisms for managing stress are acceptance, frustration tolerance, and support of others. The use of family and friends as buffers to stress is sometimes a helpful approach. Don't be afraid to share your overloads, your stress points, and your burdens. That means being assertive! Assertive employees take the risk of asking their bosses to consider new options, to assist them in planning, in giving necessary feedback and encouragement. Assertive wives ask their husbands to listen, to express their love in expanded emotional ways, even when it is not comfortable. Assertive husbands ask their wives to make out a shopping list of hints for their birthdays, and they ask their loved ones to compromise when they feel the situations have slipped away from their own interests or preferences. Ask for it! This will take practice. You may feel clumsy at it. The other person may say "no." Plant the seed. It may not bloom immediately. Keep asking. Your assertiveness may help reduce your pressure. Try it. You will like it and may feel better. If after a reasonable period you still feel stressed, call us. Our staff can offer assertiveness training, relaxation techniques, time and resource management and a more relaxed, less anxiety-ridden outlook. Sometimes our patients learn to cope with work, marriage and emotion-related stress in five to ten sessions. Hundreds have benefited greatly. |
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