When was the last time you felt stressed? Stress is an individual's response to threats or challenges. It has a good side, which will make us more motivated and efficient, but if the pressure is too great, problems will arise. Being in a state of high pressure for a long time is harmful to our physical and mental health and will reduce our immune ability. Many people suffer from migraine, hypertension, gastroenteritis, depression and so on.

Research shows that the pressure of the younger generation is much greater than that of our parents in the past. More intense academic and workplace competition, more overtime hours and higher housing prices are all sources of our stress. If we are middle-aged people with children, we have to face the pressure and anxiety of parenting and the increasing cost of education.

Stress can be said to be an inevitable thing in our modern life.

Is there any way to relieve stress? Yes

Next, I would like to share a few tips that have been proved effective by myself and visitors to relieve stress, hoping to help you relieve stress.

1. Establish the thinking habit of actively interpreting events.

Three and a half years ago, I moved from Shanghai to Kunshan, Suzhou. At that time, the child was still very young, just over half a year old. I am exhausted every night, because I have to nurse my baby at night and put him to bed. During the day, the child also slept for 45 minutes before waking up. I'm worried about her sleep. At that time, I joined the sleeping slag group and was very eager to improve my child's sleep.

My husband, David, wants to have more time to help me with my children after moving, decorating and changing cities. He resigned and stayed at home, ready to find a new job.

At that time, the decoration cost a lot of money, and because of taking care of children and breastfeeding, the working hours were less and the income dropped sharply.

Decoration, moving, adapting to the new environment, both of them have no jobs, need to spend money without income, and have to fight with sleeping children. All these things add up, which makes me feel very stressed and often in a state of extreme depression.

I still remember that on the first day of living in the new house, the sleeping slag baby 1 1 didn't sleep, but woke up before 4 o'clock and woke up at 1, 2 o'clock and 3 o'clock respectively. I held her in the living room of my new home and looked out the window at the rising sun and the river in the distance. There is no joy in seeing the scenery, but extreme despair. At that moment, I had a heart to jump into the river.

Realizing that my pressure is really too great, I began to adjust.

The first thing is to change your negative thoughts.

Psychologically, people are divided into two types of personality according to their susceptibility to stress and different manifestations: susceptible personality and self-healing personality.

People who are prone to illness are very sensitive to stress. They are usually not easy to relax, so they are prone to some deviant behaviors. They use negative emotions and ways to fight against stress, and then the pressure will react on them. Such as insomnia, dizziness, indigestion, etc.;

However, self-healing personality can control stress healthily, maintain emotional stability, the pace of life will not change much, and it is not easy to get sick.

People who are prone to illness and personality will be used to explaining stress events from a negative perspective, and will lose their normal reason and exaggerate the facts.

For example, my explanation for the child's sleep disability is: "It's over. The child has not slept well for half a year. When will this day end? "

The explanation for the situation that our husband and wife have no job and no income is: "After all, both of them have no job and no income, and their savings will soon be spent. What should I do if I can't afford to raise children in the future? "

My idea is called "catastrophic" or "exaggerated" irrational cognition in cognitive behavioral therapy, that is, looking at things negatively and aggravating and exaggerating the negative results of things.

In fact, both cases are temporary. Children's sleep will get better and better with age. After moving and settling down, the husband can find a new job in the new city. I can continue to do consulting work when the children are older.

When we interpret "temporary" problems as "permanent" problems, the pressure will be great. On the contrary, if we interpret difficulties and problems as "temporary", our stress will be reduced.

Adler said that what happened in the past is not important, what matters is the present interpretation of the past.

Emotional ABC theory, also known as Ellis rational emotional therapy, was founded by American psychologist Ellis. A (activation event) refers to the induced event; B (belief) refers to the corresponding belief of an individual after encountering an induced event, that is, his view, explanation and evaluation of this event; C (consideration) refers to the emotional and behavioral results of individuals in specific situations.

Ellis said that it is not Event A that really hurts us and causes our emotional and behavioral reactions, but our views and explanations on this matter.

Similarly, it is not the stress events themselves that bring us stress, but our views and explanations of the events.

This can also explain why some people feel great pressure when they encounter the same things, such as unemployment and mortgage, while others feel nothing, because their internal interpretation styles may be completely opposite, one negative and the other positive.

Besides seeing that the problems I face are temporary, I try my best to face the pressure in my life with a positive interpretation style.

Although the decoration cost a lot of money, we finally live in a new house and don't have to pay thousands of rent every month. Children can also crawl around on the spacious and clean floor.

Although neither of them has a job or income at present, the savings can at least guarantee our basic life for half a year. It is a great thing for two people to take care of the baby together and accompany the baby to grow up. These days will be very good memories for two people.

When I look at life with a positive perspective and a positive interpretation, when I see more beautiful things I have, I feel much less stressed.

This is a long-term training. Many times when we encounter some difficulties or challenges, we will suddenly fall into a pessimistic, negative and negative thinking mode. It doesn't matter. When we see such a negative self, we will embrace ourselves, encourage ourselves, continue to work hard, change our thinking and climb out of that dark trap again.

After repeated training, we can gradually form a positive way of thinking and an optimistic attitude.

Also, our views on stress itself are also very important. Kelly McGonigal of Stanford University found in a study on stress that "those who learn to think that stress response helps performance are less worried and nervous. There is less anxiety and more confidence. Those who are stressed but don't believe that stress is harmful to health are less likely to die. In fact, such people have the lowest risk of death compared with research participants with relatively less stress. "

In short, when we change the way we look at stress and become more positive, the physiological stress response will also change.

So she suggested that we should learn to be friends with stress, which would make us feel less stressed, in a better state and perform better.

2. Re-prioritize goals and life, grasp the key points and learn to give up.

There is a visitor A, because he doesn't get along well with the leader at work. For several months, it was hard for naked resignation to find a job on impulse. I wanted to use the time I was looking for a job to get a driver's license, but I applied for driving school and failed the second test twice. Also, because she had an argument with the coach during driving practice, she wanted to change coaches, and changing coaches and increasing driving practice time required extra fees. Because I didn't plan my money properly, I kept buying it at buy buy during my resignation, resulting in a current deposit of less than 2,000 and living on flowers and credit cards. At that time, she also had problems getting along with her cohabiting boyfriend. They often quarrel over trifles and are on the verge of breaking up.

Unemployment, unsatisfactory job search, failure in driving test, problems with her boyfriend, and economic pressure all add up, which makes her under great pressure and breaks down and cries from time to time.

Of course, I can discuss why she doesn't get along well with leaders, coaches and boyfriends, and what's the problem.

But this requires long-term and repeated counseling, which is not helpful to solve her current pressure dilemma. Most importantly, she may not have the money for psychological counseling in the future. So, we changed the goal of counseling to relieve her pressure. One of the most important ways is to prioritize her life and see what is most important to her at present.

The first is to find a job as soon as possible. The second is to reduce conflicts with boyfriends and see how to improve the relationship between two people. Because of the breakup, she will face multiple blows of unemployment, lovelorn love and loss of residence.

You can consider giving up your driver's license. Finding a coach, practicing driving, booking an exam and facing the exam results will all cost her a lot of time, energy and money, and will also affect her mood and waste her energy.

The focus of her life at this stage is to spend time and energy on finding a job, while giving up things that will waste her time and energy and trigger her negative emotions.

Later, she really chose to give up the driver's license test and put all her time into finding a job. Soon she found a job and her financial situation was alleviated. Because of my job, my relationship with my boyfriend has improved.

In consultation, I often give a piece of advice to those who have to work overtime, do research, buy a school district for their children, or go to work, plan a wedding, prepare for pregnancy, and change careers to learn a new skill: streamline their goals and life events, grasp the key points, and come to the same.

Wu Danru, a writer in Taiwan Province Province, wrote in his book The Happiness of Time Management: Life should know how to choose, dreams should be gradually realized, and "five children should get into the topic" slowly, so as not to drive yourself crazy while achieving life goals.

There is a world-famous "life event pressure gauge". Not only "bad things" such as divorce, separation and death of relatives will give people pressure, but also "good things" such as getting married, moving to a new home and having children will give people pressure. If there are many things going on at the same time, the pressure will be so great that people will explode.

I don't know if you have this experience. If there are too many things, people will easily get confused and grab their eyebrows and beards. As a result, many things can't be done well. Because things are not done well, people are prone to frustration and anxiety, so they fall into a vicious circle.

If you want to relieve stress, you must learn to prioritize, learn to give up and give up selectively.

You can do this exercise:

Take out a pen and paper, or a mobile phone notepad, write down what you want to do in a day (a week or a month), then list the most important 3-5 things, put others aside for the time being, just do these 3-5 things, and then divide these important things into small goals step by step, and do them bit by bit to promote them. Finally, you will find things that you thought were difficult before.

Prioritizing life and goals, grasping the big and letting go of the small, learning to give up selectively, and focusing on the most important things can not only simplify life and make it easier, but you will also find that the pressure is reduced and things are done better.

Our life is made up of countless choices. If you choose to really spend time and focus on important things, you will be more likely to reap the life you want.

3, have a good sleep, the pressure will be less.

There is a visitor B who leads more team members because of the increase in things to do after promotion and salary increase. She often 10 comes home from work. At home, she always eats snacks, brushes her mobile phone, watches dramas and entertains gossip until two or three in the middle of the night, because she wants to relax herself. Several times, she even went to bed 1.

The next day, I got up early to go to work and worked overtime in the company. Day after day, my situation is getting worse and worse.

There are not a few young people like B who procrastinate in sleep. A recent set of big sleep data shows that almost half of people sleep between 12 and 2 o'clock, commonly known as "staying up late party".

I am one of them. From the age of 2 to 2.5, because I have to work and take care of my children during the day, I have no time for entertainment, so I don't go to bed until after 1 1, and I don't start entertainment, watching plays and reading articles until 1 and 2 o'clock in the evening. I got up early the next day. If the child wakes up at night or I can't sleep well, I feel the whole mental state is not very good during the day, my temper is easy to be impatient, and I am under great pressure when I encounter things.

What is even more frustrating is that every time I make up my mind to change, I always fail.

Later, I tried to change slowly week by week and reduce the number of staying up late week by week. Later, I basically stopped staying up late, and my mental state and stress resistance gradually improved.

Sleep is very important. I think this is well known. A good sleep can help us recover our physical strength and health.

But one thing you may not know is that sleep can also help us improve our self-control.

The book Self-control tells some examples of fatigue and loss of control caused by lack of sleep. The book "Transient" also said that many times it is difficult for us to change and control ourselves because we are exhausted and tired. "It seems that we are lazy to change, but we are exhausted."

Willpower, self-control and energy are limited and will be consumed and filled constantly. Regular work and rest, diet and leisure can help us replenish our willpower.

Fighting pressure requires our willpower and self-control. If we don't get enough sleep or are exhausted, our self-control will easily decline, and our tolerance for stress will also become worse.

I think everyone has this experience, that is, when you are very tired, a small matter, such as a husband forgetting to take out the garbage, a child doing a wrong question, or a phone call at work, will become the last straw to crush the camel.

So, try it. If you are stressed and have the habit of staying up late, you might as well reduce your stress by reducing staying up late. You don't need to stay up all at once. You can set a small goal, from sleeping seven days a week (1, 2 o'clock) to sleeping two days a week 12 o'clock, or going to bed half an hour earlier as far as possible, three times more than in the past.

Then continue to change a little bit, so that you can gradually develop healthier sleep habits.

Sometimes when you wake up after a good sleep, you may find that the so-called stress is nothing at all, but it seems that it is not easy to fall asleep when you are stressed. Alas, life is really bitter!

4. Try to relax yourself.

When you are stressed, it actually means that you need to relax. Generally speaking, doing deep breathing exercises, meditation, exercise and body massage are effective ways to relax for most people, but there are differences among individuals.

A friend of mine said that when she was under great pressure, she played music at home, jumping around like crazy and super decompressing.

Another friend said that she likes cooking, cooking a good meal for herself, and then eating it quietly will be super decompression.

For me, the best way to relieve stress is to walk in nature. While walking, I look at flowers, trees, mountains and rivers, and feel my pressure is released a little bit.

Everyone has different ways to relieve stress. Some people dance, some people cook, some people chat with friends ... you need to find ways to relieve stress and relax yourself. When we release pressure, we can appreciate the beauty in life and rekindle our passion and love for life and work.

There are peaks and valleys in life, and life is stressful and relaxing. When you are under great pressure, you should know that pressure means you are alive and working hard for the better life you want. At the same time, we should learn to care about ourselves, take good care of ourselves, learn to handle stress better, make friends with stress, make friends with time, keep a positive and optimistic attitude and take practical actions. I believe all the problems will be solved!

Note: The picture comes from the Internet.

Original title: "When the pressure is high, use these four skills to get it done."