In our modern, digitalized world, stress levels are increasing. Due to our constant availability, there is always a message on some channel that needs to be answered. This makes it almost impossible to switch off from obligations and responsibilities. Even though many people know in theory that stress is harmful, they are unable to get out of this rut. In this article, you will therefore find tips and support on how you can reduce stress in your life in the long term.
Stress is a reaction of the body to pressures and challenges that are perceived as a threat to physical or emotional balance. The point at which stress begins varies from person to person. It depends on individual perception, personal resilience and current life circumstances. For example, people who are currently exposed to considerable stress in their private lives also perceive professional challenges as stressful much more quickly.
| Stress can be caused by both excessive and insufficient demands. Those who are unable to develop their potential and are constantly underchallenged can suffer from boreout. The symptoms are similar to those of burnout. |
Basically, stress is a rescue mechanism for your body to quickly escape an acutely dangerous situation. The increase in hormones such as adrenaline and cortisol is intended to increase performance in the short term - this was important for our ancestors to be able to flee quickly from an attacker.
In the modern world, however, "dangers" of a different nature lurk that do not allow for a quick escape. These mainly include constant stress at work or the constant flood of information to which we are exposed throughout the day. As the human body is not designed to cope with constant stress, it can easily become ill as a result.
Disstress is negative stress that occurs either as a reaction to immediate pressures or challenges or chronically as a result of long-term or recurring stress. Typical examples are financial worries, an ongoing workload, family conflicts or chronic illness. Disstress can have serious effects on physical and mental health. This makes it all the more important to reduce negative stress and find ways to end the harmful situation.
Eustress, on the other hand, does not require any action. This is positive stress that results from a motivating or exciting event. This could be a promotion or the birth of a child. You do not need to reduce positive stress as it is conducive to personal growth and performance.
In the world of work, stress is usually caused by pressure, tension or change. Unhealthy constellations often arise from a tight schedule, unexpected obstacles that suddenly arise and the responsibility to satisfy different interest groups. It is often not primarily the external situation that triggers stress, but our own mindset.
Many people have an inner critic within them that demands perfection. The idea that everything has to be not just good, but perfect, leads to a high level of self-criticism and fear of making mistakes or not living up to one's own standards. This also affects our own time management. Although the status quo of task completion may be sufficient, we spend another two hours making everything pretty while more important tasks are left undone.
The way we perceive things has a significant influence on our perception of stress.
One example:
In addition to a lot of positive feedback, the person responsible for a project proposal also receives constructive criticism. He focuses on the critical feedback, feels attacked, doubts himself and loses motivation. He evaluates his own abilities and performance as negative instead of seeing the constructive suggestions as an opportunity for optimization.
Successes are suppressed by permanently negative thinking. The result is a strongly negative perception, a feeling of permanent failure and one's own inadequacy. This is pure stress for body and mind.
Unfortunately, we humans tend to compare ourselves with others. Instead of focusing on our own performance, we look to the left and right to evaluate ourselves. This very subjective assessment, in which we often focus on our supposed weaknesses, leads us to set unrealistic expectations and standards for our own performance. A typical example is a young manager who has personnel responsibility for the first time and compares themselves with their experienced colleague. The fact that their own expectations cannot be met is a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Managers often suffer from unhealthy and negative stress. This is bad for them personally, but also has an impact on the mental health of the entire team. This makes the need for action to reduce stress in management roles all the greater. The DGUV (German Social Accident Insurance) has published a brochure on the subject of "Leadership and mental health". The research results presented clearly show how important healthy self-management is for creating an equally healthy working environment without pressure and stress.
Due to digitalization and many other reasons, many companies are faced with the challenge of constantly repositioning themselves and adapting flexibly to changing market conditions. Managers have a huge responsibility to create the necessary structures and framework conditions for this - which is often associated with a great deal of stress.
Four reasons why managers are more stressed than average:
Managers bear the main responsibility for the well-being of their team and, at the same time, the success of the assigned projects. This responsibility creates a high level of pressure and stress, which usually leads to illness in the long term if this stress cannot be sustainably reduced.
Stress symptoms often develop gradually and affect different areas of your body:
Physical symptoms of stress are common:
Psychological and cognitive symptoms can also occur:
The German economist and business author Siegfried Santura has summarized the way to deal with stress in one sentence:
"Sources of stress cannot simply be eliminated, but we can improve the way we deal with them to our benefit."
In the end, you can only reduce stress if you adapt your mindset to it, adjust your perspective and invest more resources in your mental strength.
Facing everyday situations with more composure is actually something that many people have to learn. Not all annoyances can be banished from life. Nor is it possible in practice to avoid those days when nothing seems to work as planned. However, you can change the attitude with which you face these things.
When the workload increases, it is easy to lose sight of your own physical and mental health. To reduce stress, it is important to consciously create moments of mindfulness and pause every day. Targeted relaxation and mindfulness exercises can help. Every person experiences something different as relaxing.
Reducing stress through relaxation in everyday life: tips & ideas
In this context, it is also important to focus on the here and now. Especially in particularly stressful times, thoughts often turn to the next task and the one after that. This not only costs unnecessary time, but also inhibits productivity and in turn leads to stress.
Mental strength can reduce stress and promote physical and mental health. You can emerge stronger from difficult situations and focus on what has worked well. One way to achieve mental strength is to learn correct perception. This means looking at things from a healthy distance and, if possible, without judgment.
One example:
Let's take the above example of criticism of a project proposal again. If you take the constructive and critical comments objectively without feeling personally attacked, you save energy on the one hand. You can also use the comments much more productively, often saving time and starting the next challenge with a positive feeling.
Building mental strength also means admitting weaknesses and activating help for them - for example through special coaching and seminars. The ability to accept what is is also important for building mental strength. Has a customer spontaneously dropped out after all and opted for a competitor? Then it is worth reflecting critically with the team on possible causes - but then letting go and looking ahead again.
The topic of time management could fill an entire book - so we will only give you a few ideas here. The aim of good time management is to complete the work that needs to be done as stress-free and effectively as possible in the time you have available. To achieve this, priorities must be set, tasks well distributed and time wasters correctly identified.
Tips & ideas for better time management:
The transactional stress model was developed by the US psychologist Richard S. Lazarus. In it, he views stress as the result of ongoing interaction between a person and their environment.
The model emphasizes two crucial processes that influence stress:
For example, if the current work situation is considered particularly stressful, the body reacts with stress. Coping strategies must now be found to reduce stress or improve the way we deal with it.
Primary and secondary evaluation, reaction and coping strategies are constantly interrelated.
You can already reduce stress at the point of assessment. With more self-confidence, resilience and mental strength, you can succeed in classifying situations as less threatening and also assess your own resources much better as part of the secondary assessment. It is also important to choose a suitable coping strategy. There are different approaches here:
✓ Problem-oriented approach
You actively tackle the problem until it is solved.
✓ Emotion-oriented stress management
You focus on changing the emotional effects that the stress triggers in you.
✓ Evaluation-oriented stress management
You change the evaluation of the situation and therefore also your stress level.
Stress is less a fact than the result of one's own perception and the body's reaction to this perception. Working on your own mindset is therefore an effective strategy for coping with stress. It is up to you to cultivate a positive mindset - by building up more mental strength and integrating times of mindfulness and relaxation into your everyday life. You can also become more relaxed in dealing with the flood of information and news and improve your own time and self-management. In the end, the equation is: less stress is more quality of life.
In view of the ever-increasing challenges and pressures in our modern world, it is essential to develop strategies to reduce stress in the long term and thus improve your own quality of life. Our stress management coaching offers individual support and tried-and-tested techniques to strengthen your own mindset, integrate relaxation and mindfulness into your everyday life and develop more effective time management. By working on our inner self, we can not only improve the way we deal with sources of stress, but also increase our resilience and achieve a healthier work-life balance. Invest in your mental health and arrange a personal stress management coaching session to start on the path to a more stress-free and fulfilling life.