A recently asked question on Quora wanted to know, what are the best ways to relieve stress? Check out the response below and add your own in the comments.
Here’s my take on it.
1. Breaking Stress Down
Stress - to me - has two major components; on the vertical-Axis, one of physicaland psychological. The interesting fact here is that stress originates from the two aforementioned pressures of everyday life, but ends up inducing emotional stress which cycle back into the mental and physical aspects.
A further look inside the structure of stress shows a chronological infrastructure that further segments the breath and depth of the phenomena. This structure can be defined by that of stress on the horizontal-Axis,before, during and after the action or task.
That being said, one of the most important thing to realize is that stress is relative. Sometimes things may put more pressure on a person when before it didn’t. This rule of relatively also points to the fact that he/she can never really be free of stress or pressure in life as we as humans will perceive said interaction relative to one’s own circumstances.
2. How to reduce “A-Unit-of-Stress”
There is - to me - a physics and natural law to how stress works. Stress can be alleviated in mainly 2 ways; 1) cause physical stress - exercise - or 2) create a different mental stress.
- cause physical stress: the birth of distraction and the dispersion of energy
To put it in more practical terms, distracting a person through physical exertionwarrants the human mind to commit an equal or great amount of energy even when clearly, the physical activity is emotionally less taxing on than that of a psychological + intellectual one.
This is to the effect of a person not thinking about his/her very important/worrying project after playing a game or sport. For a good period of time people just aren’t stressed about said upcoming events.
- create different/new psychological stress: origins of preoccupation and the premeditated usage of energy
This might trigger inquisitive stares but the theory and practice is sound. It is just that people seldom do it consciously but when applied in the right direction, it is actually a powerful tool to be used in tandem with the above.
One of the ways of alleviating stress is creating a preoccupation of equal volume, but lower in complexity. It happens many times a day.
A person is given a relatively complex task and becomes concerned/worried about the prerequisites of the befores, durings, and afters of the task. Yet when given another task in tandem with said work, he or she no longer has time or energy to be emotionally engaged the inconsequential parts of said task.
3. Putting Things into Perspective
Well, what the hell am I talking about? The thing about stress is : a) to keep it low consistently, but also b) keep the person used to nominal amounts of stress as it is virtually impossible not to have any pressure in life - this relates to the relativity of stress.
So to point a) a person should have a regular exercise schedule that he/she can follow. To point b) a person should keep busy; if the work is done, move on to the next project or at least prepare for it.
- Sae Min Ahn
