Free Stress Management Resources, Techniques, Tools and Stress Tips

Stress Management Tools, Tips and Resources

Bodily Stress Resources

Now – Abdominal Breathing and Relaxation

Now – Tense and Relax

Tense your stomach muscles, shoulders, fists, eyes, jaw, and all the other muscles of your body you can while holding your breath. Release and relax. An excellent quick stress management technique.

Later – Exercise and Sleep

Exercise is a great stress management technique. Non-competitive forms involving mindfulness like yoga, tai chi and aikido are especially beneficial. Others outside and in nature like golf and hill walking are good too. Getting enough sleep will also benefit your stress levels. Common sense has a lot to offer stress management – you can’t cheat your own biological system and get away with it long-term.

Mental Stress Tips

Now – Mindfulness

For many years Buddhists and other contemplatives have known that paying attention to the present moment is deeply relaxing as anxieties about the future and worries about the past disappear. This “mindfulness” stress management technique has recently been tested by US and UK universities as a way to reduce stress, anxiety and depression and is being adopted by the British National Health Service. To experience it and reduce your stress simply bring your attention to your senses. Notice your breathing. Whatever it’s doing is fine, watch it go in and out. Feel the sensations of your body – yourself on your chair, the feeling of you clothes, your feet on the floor. If your mind wanders (and this is what minds do) simply come back to the present moment. Repeat for three minutes – do you feel less stressed?

Now – Cognitive Reframing – Action and Acceptance

How do you think about a particular problem? Is it the only way to think about it or just one way? Are there ways which will make you less stressed? Is it a problem or a challenge? Is the glass half empty or full? Often just changing the way you think about something will make it less stressful, as stress is always about PERCEIVED difficulty and you can always change your own viewpoint for a more effective one. Where you perceive the control to be is particularly important – are you a victim or an agent in your life? The flip-side of control is also important – acceptance. What can you not change that instead of being resentful about you could come to terms with?

Posture

Later – More Mindfulness

Mindfulness breaks are great stress reduction tools and can be taken as one would take cigarette breaks at work for 3 minutes at a time. Also bring the principles to daily work activities – doing one thing completely at a time. This will also make you more efficient as you will not waste time swapping between activities. Avoid interruptions wherever possible by only checking your e-mail twice a day for example.

Later – Energy and Time Management

Being able to efficiently manage your mental energy and time is crucial for staying managing stress and avoiding burnout. We recommend our own time management courses (naturally) and the book Getting Things Done by David Allen. “Eat That Frog” is another good book on time management. More on time management training here.

Emotional/Social Stress Resources

Now – Empathy

Empathy – really being listened to without judgement or blame is deeply stress reducing, as is getting in contact with the core needs not being met that underlie stress. If you can, call a a friend or trusted colleague and ask for them to completely listen to you for five minutes. If no one is available self-empathy – holding the judgements we have of ourselves or blaming others – is also a remarkably effective stress management tool. More on communication training here.

Now – Gratitude

You’re great you are! Get someone to tell you why, and tell them what you appreciate about them. Be sincere and specific. Make a list of all you have to be grateful for and get some perspective. Gratitude is a useful stress management tool as gratitude and stress rarely coexist.

Later – NVC, Social Support and Team Building

If you’d like to develop listening and empathy skills we recommend Non-Violent Communication. Developing a good social support network and spending time with friends and family away from work is also helpful for managing stress. Work teams need to spend time doing other things like team building from time to time so that they don’t just associate each other with work stress.

Later – Laughter, Creativity and Play

Laughter is a stress resource that we can all afford. The most stressful professions often use humour as a healthy coping mechanism.
Bringing some creativity and play (pictured) into the workplace will also boost productivity and help staff stay happy and healthy. People get stressed when they need to know and control what is going on. Play and creativity are about not-knowing and not being in control, and this being OK. Lighten-up, you will not only live longer but contrary to fears, get more not less done.

Environmental Stress Tips

Now – Organise

Rearrange your office for five minutes and get your work environment in order to reduce your stress. Avoid doing this repeatedly just to procrastinate.

Later – Design

If you have some say over office design and layout make sure that it is relaxing – plenty of plants, natural light and mellow colours help in reducing stress, as does minimising noise levels and moving to Brighton 🙂