Managing Stress: Top Tips to Optimize Emotional and Behavioral Wellbeing

Life brings minor irritations and significant emergencies, all contributing to stress. While the circumstances may be beyond your control, your reaction is not. If left unmanaged, stress can become unbearable and negatively impact your health, making it crucial to employ effective techniques to soothe both mind and body.

At Mercyland Psychiatry, we strongly believe that maintaining good mental health is essential to leading a fulfilling life. That's why we offer exceptional outpatient mental and behavioral healthcare services to the wider metropolitan region of Madison, Wisconsin. Our approach is centered around family care and is based on evidence-based medicine.

Understanding Stress Levels

Even though occasional stress is not detrimental, enduring stress over prolonged periods can significantly harm our physical, emotional, and mental health. It's normal to experience daily stress, yet recognizing when it becomes excessive is crucial. Enhancing your awareness, including noting the following physical signs, is beneficial:

• Muscle tension or pain, possibly in the shoulders, back, chest, stomach, or head.
• Digestive problems such as vomiting, nausea, constipation, and diarrhea
• Issues affecting sexual health, like reduced libido and erectile dysfunction 
• Effects on heart rate and blood pressure due to increased stress hormones like cortisol and adrenaline, which activate the fight-or-flight response.
• Awareness of these indicators is a step toward understanding when stress may take control.

Stress counselors might use biofeedback to measure stress, which can include:

• Resting heart rate to gauge fitness and stress levels.
• Heart Rate Variability (HRV) indicates changes in the time between heartbeats and the effects of stress on the autonomic nervous system.
• EEGs to track brain activity, with specific patterns indicating stress.
• Evaluations of breathing patterns, adrenal health through hormone levels in blood and urine, skin conductance, and temperature.
• Monitoring sleep patterns, as stress often disrupts the quality and quantity of sleep.
• Noticing these signs early can aid in preventing burnout and managing overall health.

What is Stress?

Experiencing minor stressors can prepare us for future frustrations by building resilience, but when frequent and intense, it risks our mental and physical health. Stress can trap us in destructive thinking patterns:

Making hasty conclusions.

• Viewing situations with a narrow perspective.
• Exaggerating negatives while dismissing positives.
• Assigning blame externally or internally.
• Generalizing from specific incidents.
• Allowing emotions to overpower rational responses.

How To Reduce Psychological Stress

Resilience involves more than recovering from difficulties; it includes resisting stress without lasting effects and reconfiguring life positively following significant changes. Understanding individual stress responses can illuminate effective management strategies, such as:

• Identifying personal reactions to stress.
• Changing perceptions of stressful situations using Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), which promotes acceptance, choice, and action.
• Techniques like radical acceptance within Dialectical Behavior Therapy, challenging core beliefs, and accepting thoughts and feelings to foster a healthier stress response.
• Grounding, meditation, and breathing exercises also play a critical role in maintaining calm and managing stress.

Tips to Manage Stress Better

It's vital to employ strategies that enhance our ability to handle stress effectively. 

Here are some helpful tips to manage stress more effectively.

Get enough sleep

Adequate sleep is foundational to mental clarity and emotional stability. During sleep, the brain processes information from the day, consolidates memories, and restores its energy reserves. Lack of sleep can impair judgment, decrease productivity, and increase irritability, making it harder to cope with stress. Adults typically require 7-9 hours of sleep every night. Evaluating your sleep patterns can help identify if you're getting enough restorative sleep or if adjustments are needed to improve sleep quality and duration.

Ensure to get sufficient physical activity

Working out regularly is one of the most effective ways to reduce stress. Activities like walking, running, cycling, and yoga can lower cortisol levels, the body's stress hormone, and release endorphins, chemicals in the brain that are natural painkillers and mood elevators. Exercise also helps distract the mind from daily worries and fosters a sense of achievement. 

Support brain function with good nutrition

The food you eat has a considerable impact on the health of your brain, and it, in turn, affects your stress levels and mood. If your diet includes a wide variety of antioxidants, good fats, minerals, and vitamins, it not only supports the function of your brain but also improves your energy levels and mood. 

Consuming high-fiber whole grains, lean protein, and omega-3 fatty acids in fish, fruits, and vegetables contributes to overall brain health. Avoiding high sugar and fatty foods is also crucial as they can have a negative impact on mood and energy levels.

Nurture supportive relationships 

Strong, supportive relationships are vital for emotional well-being. Good relationships with friends, family, and colleagues provide a sense of belonging and self-worth, offer emotional support, and allow you to share positive experiences and perspectives. 

Nurturing these relationships through regular communication and quality time helps build a support network to offer help and understanding during stressful times.

Define your identity with self-expression

Engaging in activities that reflect your values and passions can greatly enhance your identity and purpose. Whether through art, music, writing, or other hobbies, self-expression provides a creative outlet to alleviate stress, increase life satisfaction, and improve mental health. It can be a powerful tool for personal reflection and coping with life's challenges.

Community and spirituality provide a foundation

Being a community member and having spiritual beliefs can provide stability and a broader perspective beyond personal circumstances. Community involvement can take various forms, including volunteering, joining a club or group, or attending local events. Moreover, spirituality can be pursued through organized religion, meditation, or personal reflection. 

It can offer comfort, promote forgiveness, and lead to a peaceful mind and heart. These connections can help establish a strong support network, reduce feelings of loneliness, and improve your sense of belonging and purpose.

Mental Health Support Available in Wisconsin

Stress is a natural response to perceived threats and can vary in form and intensity across different situations. Rather than avoiding or fighting stress, accepting it can alleviate additional tension and help us make progress towards our personal goals. Changing our relationship with stress can prevent us from falling into harmful coping habits and help build our resilience, motivating us to make beneficial life changes. If you need support or advice to combat stress, please feel free to get in touch with us.

At Mercyland Psychiatry, we have licensed psychiatrists who specialize in treating mental health concerns such as stress, anxiety, and burnout. There may be times when you feel the need to discuss your mental health issues with someone other than your close family or friends. We understand this and encourage you to reach out to us for support.

Contact us to schedule an appointment today!