Identifying Stress Triggers

Stress is something everyone deals with, though each person usually has a different level of stress. In order to put a stop to yours, you need to figure out what is causing it. This is done by identifying the stress triggers, which might be situations, people, or events that lead you to feeling stressed out and anxious.

Journaling

A very common way to figure out what is causing you stress is by keeping a journal or diary. This is where you record all of your thoughts and feelings each day, then look back on it when you have a stressful day. You should be able to pinpoint people or situations that led to your increased stress on those days. Remember to look back on your journal entries often to try and find a pattern to discover what was causing your stress. It may be a co-worker you work with often, eating too much junk food and feeling guilt because you are on a diet, or personal issues leading to your stress.

Consider Your Physical Changes

Your body can also be showing signs of stress, even though you might not realize this is what is going on. For example, do you notice that after dealing with a certain person, you tend to get really bad headaches or muscle tension? This is your body's response to the stress that this particular person causes. You might also find that when you are having a bad day at work or your car breaks down, you suddenly have stomach aches or other digestion issues. These are other physical signs of the stress. When you know the physical signs of stress, you can then try to figure out what was going on just before you got those migraine headaches to figure out what was causing your stress.

Notice Your Behavioral Changes

You can also look at how your behavior changes and then narrow down why you think you are behaving in a different manner to figure out what is stressing you out. For example, if you are suddenly not sleeping very well or are sleeping too much, try to think about what was happening on those days of insomnia. You should be able to narrow it down to something that is causing you stress. Some other behavior changes to use when finding your stress triggers are anger or resentment towards others, lashing out, being irritable, eating more or less than you used to, or having changes in your work performance.

Once the critical stress triggers are identified, then you can devote time to truly working on managing, and controlling these triggers. It can be done. Do not ever lose hope!

Eric Dempsey
MS, NESTA Certified Stress Management Coach
Chaplain Paul Voorhees Ministry 

How to Manage Your Stress by Staying Organized

     Being organized may not seem like a powerful technique when it comes to reducing stress. After all, we mostly hear of methods like meditation, controlled breathing, visualization, etc. as being effective for managing stress. No one really talks about being neat and organized.

     Yet, keeping things simple and organized is one of the best ways to reduce irritation in your life. When you minimize irritation and microaggressions, you also help yourself to de-stress without realizing it.

     For example, if your desk at work is cluttered and you can’t find a document that you need, you’ll end up searching for it and wasting time and effort. If you can’t find it after a few minutes of searching, you’re going to lose patience and start getting irritable. It’s definitely going to stress you out.

     This applies to any area in your life. Can’t find your car keys just when you’re about to leave the house? That’s aggravating. Sat down on the chair to watch TV but the remote is nowhere in sight? Time to start cursing as you flip over the couch cushions. Open the fridge and pour yourself a glass of milk only to spit it out and gag because the milk is sour and has gone bad? That’s annoying and even mildly funny the following day.

     All these little stresses when repeated on a daily basis will lead to frazzled nerves and an irritable nature that gets triggered easily. All of these could have been avoided if you were organized. One of the best ways to reduce stress is to be neat and tidy. Like Benjamin Franklin once said, “A place for everything and everything in its place.”

Start Tidying

     Tidy up your home, your office, your desk, your everything. Whatever you use should be neat and organized. The Japanese are very strong believers in tidiness and their factories and offices are usually in impeccable order. Employees are expected to keep their desks neat and organized by following the 5S rule.

     That essentially means straightening up and only keeping what you need. This is known as decluttering. You’ll store whatever you need in its rightful place. You’ll clean up after yourself and strive to maintain this sense of order daily.

     If you can maintain this on a regular basis, you’ll find that your life becomes much easier. Like they say, organized people are just too lazy to look for things… and you won’t have to because you’ll know exactly where everything is.

     Imagine the amount of stress you won’t have to face from constantly looking for misplaced items. That in itself is good enough reason to get everything in order ASAP.

Keep a List or Backlog

     One of the biggest reasons that people feel overwhelmed is because they try to keep too many things in their head. Projects, family commitments, pending things that need to be done… and there’s so many things to do but not enough time to get them done.

     Mentally it all seems like too much to handle. The first thing to do is write down all that you need to do. Keep a list and add on to it whatever new issues crop up that need to be taken care of.

     Now you have a list of exactly what you need to do and it’ll seem more manageable. In your head, it all seems too much to handle. Once you have it on paper and you start checking off what you need to do, you’ll be more focused, less stressed and be amazed at how fast you complete your tasks.

Kaizen

     The Japanese have a practice known as ‘Kaizen’ which is just a way of saying continual improvement. What that means is that you constantly strive to be better at what you do by making small improvements over time.

     For example, if you’re about to go to bed and your living room is a little messy, you may wish to clean it up a little before you hit the sack. This will maintain the order in your house.

     If you have a ton of documents in your office that need a proper filing system, you could dedicate 15 minutes a day every day before you leave work to file your paperwork. Over time, you’ll have organized everything well. Some projects are time-consuming. By doing a little daily, you’ll be able to complete these massive tasks with relative ease.

     Apply the 3 tips above and get your life organized. Get the small stuff organized so that your energy is not sapped by little annoyances and you’ll be better able to handle the big stuff in life without getting overly stressed.

“Life is too complicated not to be orderly.” – Martha Stewart

Photo Credit: https://www.fastweb.com/student-life/articles/how-to-stay-organized-all-semester-long

Eric Dempsey

MS, Master Sergeant, 

US Army Retired.

Chaplain Paul Voorhees Ministry