How not to feel stress when you are stressed up?

[Guest whywhy]

How not to have stress at work and in life?

 

How do you relieve your stress?

[notd]

Take it one step at a time. Understand that stressing yourself out will not make things move any faster. Ask yourself if the things that keep you up at night are things that can be helped with, if they can't, then overstressing yourself isn't going to make a difference.

 

I came across this the other day and I think it's very powerful. Hope it helps. 

 

[Guest guest]

Try not to stress on things even though many times it is difficult to control.

[tapsilog]

Create something to look forward to.. Like an overseas trip. Works for me everytime. 😉

[Guest GUEST]

Go exercise, after sweating would reduce your stress level.

[auscent]

Hmm. For me, as long as I work hard and focus, at least half of all my imagined troubles get solved.

[Ethan_Oleh]

You may like to buy one tub of your favourite ice cream and enjoyed it after work at home..and light up some aromatherapy candles. You will feel alot better after.

Edited May 29, 2022 by Ethan_Oleh

[Guest guest]

On 5/29/2022 at 9:41 PM, Ethan_Oleh said:

You may like to buy one tub of your favourite ice cream and enjoyed it after work at home..and light up some aromatherapy candles. You will feel alot better after.

Think eating dark chocolate can reduce stress.

[Ethan_Oleh]

On 5/29/2022 at 10:17 PM, Guest guest said:

Think eating dark chocolate can reduce stress.

Yes. Eating dark chocolate will help to reduce stress too

Edited May 29, 2022 by Ethan_Oleh

[InBangkok]

Something to look forward to - like a trip somewhere you really want to visit (as suggested by @tapsilog - helps take your mind off current problems. Exercise is good. Better still, don't be alone as then the mind can become too active concentrating on your own stress. Get a group of friends around you. You can then chill out with them, talk about other things than what is creating your stress and generally realise that other things in life are more important.

[Steve5380]

How not to feel stress when you are stressed?   This does not make sense.  After all, there is cause and effect.

But we can look introspectively into what causes our stress.  One cause is to WORRY.  If we had a perfect mind we would never worry, because they are not justified.  They are negative expectations of something that has not happened yet.  And most probably will not happen. To escape our worries and other stress by taking trips to somewhere else may not always work.  Because... we take ourselves with us,  stress and worries included.  But exercise will definitely work. 

[phewphew]

Someone said that worrying about something that is going to happen is like rocking on a rocking chair. You feel like you are doing something but you are actually not. But personally, I STILL PANIC ANYWAY. The trick is to try to limit your panic period to just closer to the event so that you feel less stressed overall? There is always the "law" of reversed effort, which believes that "Muddy water is best cleared by leaving it alone". So if its something that is not too important, try to invest less in it so you feel less stressed about the outcome?

[InBangkok]

On 5/30/2022 at 11:04 AM, Steve5380 said:

To escape our worries and other stress by taking trips to somewhere else may not always work.  Because... we take ourselves with us,  stress and worries included.

As @tapsilog correctly mentioned, the planning for a trip and then eventually the trip itself definitely does help alleviate stress. I say that as one who has spent 4 decades living in Asia, mostly in Hong Kong which as every medical practitioner will confirm was one of the most stress-inducing cities in the world. Just planning and getting away for a long week-end helped greatly. 

 

In any case @Steve5380's argument makes no sense. But then he is a 79 year old man who has been retired for at least a decade and a half, who does not travel and has for years spent his days alone in his own living room in Houston, Texas - the largest of the contiguous states in the USA. He has frequently written he does not suffer from any stress. Lucky guy. He has no idea what it is like to live in a tiny sovereign state like Singapore and the stresses that alone can bring. 

[Guest What you think?]

On 5/29/2022 at 1:57 AM, Guest whywhy said:

How not to have stress at work and in life?

 

How do you relieve your stress?

Watch Gory video on youtube.  Will that works for you?

[Steve5380]

We can relieve stress externally or internally.

 

Externally it can be to make a trip somewhere,  to surround ourselves with people who should distract us,  to go to big entertainment events like rock concerts or operas. This can be effective or not, depending on the source of stress.  If it is overwork, then some rest and distraction can help.  If it is caused by worries, then all this may not eliminate the worries but instead increase the stress:  "what am I doing here on the beach, among these people, in the concert, when I have such big problems of this-and-that?" These distractions are the most effective the fewer worries we have, like having sufficient money for the trip, and full control of all aspects of the entertainment.

 

Internally, it is done through introspection and control of our feelings. Meditation, cultivation of the feeling of happiness may help, the same as simply being rational.  If we worry about something that is out of our control,  this is wasted energy. Same if we worry about a decision we took or have to take.  We have to think our decisions very carefully, but once this is done and the decision is made, the result is often out of our hands and so it is not worth of any worry.

 

I have traveled extensively for work and pleasure.  And I have always got some enjoyment out of it, although not always a relief from stress, especially in work related trips. But to travel today from America I see as a SOURCE of stress:  overcrowding everywhere with people who are desperate for travel (with the excuse of the pandemic), big crowds at airports, cancelled flights, lack of rental cars, and all ridiculously expensive.  And since I am retired, I have very few causes of stress today.  My biggest stress comes while lifting heavy weights in the gym, and this conversely removes mental stress, ha ha.

[InBangkok]

On 5/30/2022 at 8:10 PM, Steve5380 said:

I have traveled extensively for work and pleasure.  And I have always got some enjoyment out of it, although not always a relief from stress, especially in work related trips. But to travel today from America I see as a SOURCE of stress

Like @Steve5380 I have regularly travelled all over the world, much of it for business. Only one of the companies i worked for had a dedicated travel department which would make all the arrangements. For all the other trips I had to work out the itineraries, book flights and hotels, organise meetings and make  all other arrangements on my own. Having to work within budgets, this was more challenging than stress inducing. In fact I never found that stressful and actually loved it. 

 

But I agree with @Steve5380 that travel, especially flying, in the 1980s and much of the 1990s was vastly easier than it become following 9/11 and the destruction of the World Trade Center in New York and the discovery of more suicide plots by terrorist passengers. Certainly for long distance flights, unless you can travel in business class with fast check-in and fast security checks and are an Elite member of hotel chains, most travel became a pain. Unless, that is, your primary objective is being in a a different place that you want will be excited to visit. So planning a trip on the internet, working out the best and cheapest way of getting there and deciding which of a host of different types of accommodation you want will take your mind off the usual stress. And once you are at your destination, you can say goodbye to your stress at least for a while. You might even come back with a new perspective on what has been creating the stress you experienced.

[Steve5380]

On 5/30/2022 at 11:31 PM, InBangkok said:

 

But I agree with @Steve5380 that travel, especially flying, in the 1980s and much of the 1990s was vastly easier than it become following 9/11 and the destruction of the World Trade Center in New York and the discovery of more suicide plots by terrorist passengers. Certainly for long distance flights, unless you can travel in business class with fast check-in and fast security checks and are an Elite member of hotel chains, most travel became a pain. Unless, that is, your primary objective is being in a a different place that you want will be excited to visit. So planning a trip on the internet, working out the best and cheapest way of getting there and deciding which of a host of different types of accommodation you want will take your mind off the usual stress. And once you are at your destination, you can say goodbye to your stress at least for a while. You might even come back with a new perspective on what has been creating the stress you experienced.

 

 

You are right that travel in the 20th century had many advantages over now in the 21th century.  But thanks to the Internet, the planning of a trip has become easier and within anyone's reach.  50 years ago we could not shop around for the best flights and best hotels, but we had to trust a travel agency to do this for us.

 

My business trips were handled by the travel agency of my company, with all the expected perks.  But my personal travels that I started after retirement were all of my planning.  I fly always in economy, a 10+ hours flight passes quickly for me,  and I research well the facilities at my place of destination.  In my vacations to Asia I have never rented a car,  and seldom do I take a taxi.  On arrival I know what public transportation to take to the hotel, and I walk a certain distance.  I have all the time in the world and I don't mind waiting at airports. Only once I had a connecting flight cancelled and I had to spend a night in an hotel, at Narita airport.  This was no big deal. 

 

When it comes to vacationing, we single gays without a spouse and a bunch of children have a great advantage.  First,  WE make the decision to travel or not.  But it is hard to convince a family not to travel, especially now after 2 years of confinement.  As a head of a family,  one has to forget one's own convenience and attend to the wishes of the spouse and children.  This is the situation my son is in now,  but the guy has plenty of money, which makes everything easier. 

[Why?]

On 5/30/2022 at 9:10 PM, Steve5380 said:

 

Externally it can be to make a trip somewhere,  to surround ourselves with people who should distract us,  to go to big entertainment events like rock concerts or operas. 

 

Internally, it is done through introspection and control of our feelings. Meditation, cultivation of the feeling of happiness may help, the same as simply being rational.  If we worry about something that is out of our control,  this is wasted energy.

 

Save it.  De-stressing internally and externally?  Never heard of.   

 

People.  There is a more effective way to de-stress.  READ!!!  It wasn't so difficult to create a reading nook at home.  All you need is to open a book, and start reading.  Reading helps you to forget everything in this world.  You immerse into a different dimension indefinitely, until you close the book, take a break, sip your tea, and then you re-open the book and completely allow your existence to dissappear into a world of fantasy.  Once you are done, you completely forgot about your problem, your stress, your fear.  

 

You are better off with neither of such stuff called "INTERNALLY AND EXTERNALLY".  

 

I am smart right?  Because I read a lot. 

 

[Steve5380]

On 5/31/2022 at 10:14 AM, Why? said:

Save it.  De-stressing internally and externally?  Never heard of.   

 

People.  There is a more effective way to de-stress.  READ!!!  It wasn't so difficult to create a reading nook at home.  All you need is to open a book, and start reading.  Reading helps you to forget everything in this world.  You immerse into a different dimension indefinitely, until you close the book, take a break, sip your tea, and then you re-open the book and completely allow your existence to dissappear into a world of fantasy.  Once you are done, you completely forgot about your problem, your stress, your fear.  

 

You are better off with neither of such stuff called "INTERNALLY AND EXTERNALLY".  

 

I am smart right?  Because I read a lot. 

 

 

READ!!! is an excellent way of distraction indeed.  It is a mix external and internal way to distress.  The same goes for watching a video or listening to recorded music, for example.  External stimuli, like a trip, but internal effect in the mind.  How well to READ!!! relieves stress depends on the nature of what we read,  and the same is true for the kind of videos we watch.

[Why?]

On 5/31/2022 at 11:36 PM, Steve5380 said:

 

READ!!! is an excellent way of distraction indeed.  It is a mix external and internal way to distress.  The same goes for watching a video or listening to recorded music, for example.  External stimuli, like a trip, but internal effect in the mind.  How well to READ!!! relieves stress depends on the nature of what we read,  and the same is true for the kind of videos we watch.

Music and Videos are not a good method to destress.  Sounds and acting can't hold your attention for long.  Once I finished watching a movie, I will not revisit it. However, once I finished reading a book, I have tendency to re-read because you are most likely to feel the differences in the story, of the same book, when read 2nd, 3rd or 4th time. 

As for music, it is very distracting. Trying playing the same music over and over again, you will feel bored and tired.  Not just that,  the feeling of hardcopy book in my hands, warmth my heart. 

[InBangkok]

On 6/1/2022 at 8:05 AM, Why? said:

Music and Videos are not a good method to destress.  Sounds and acting can't hold your attention for long.  Once I finished watching a movie, I will not revisit it. However, once I finished reading a book, I have tendency to re-read because you are most likely to feel the differences in the story, of the same book, when read 2nd, 3rd or 4th time. 

As for music, it is very distracting. Trying playing the same music over and over again, you will feel bored and tired.  Not just that,  the feeling of hardcopy book in my hands, warmth my heart. 

I agree wholeheartedly about the value of reading to de-stress. I find this particularly true with long books, especially about a period of history in which I might be particularly interested and occasional long novels. These have the value of mentally taking you into a different place with different characters and plots. When I was at university I was into classic novels like "War and Peace" and "David Copperfield". As my interests widened, I remember in particular a superb novel by Vikram Seth "A Suitable Boy" which ran to something like 1,200 pages. Set in India it is about a mother trying to find a 'suitable' husband for her daughter. It sounds quite boring, but brings the reader a fascinating kaleidoscope of characters, places, plots and sub-plots etc. 

 

Most recently I read Donna Tart's stunning novel "The Goldfinch" which won the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for fiction. Another very long book with another seemingly odd subject - the adventures of a small painting. It's basically a coming of age novel but equally an enthralling mystery filled with exquisitely drawn characters that starts with an act of terrorism.

 

But I can not agree with @Why?'s comments on music and acting - or at least some of it. I expect many readers have little interest in western classical music. I find much of it can completely take over one's thought processes and can be played time and again over years and years. There is even some pop music that I turn to regularly. As for the theatre, there are some plays that are not merely riveting as I watch them, I am constantly re-thinking some of the themes and plots. "Hamlet" is a great classic example. Even those who have not seen a production will probably find themselves quoting one of its many quotable lines.