Stress management involves taking charge of emotions, thoughts, schedule, environment and the way individuals tackle with stress. The goal of managing stress is to have a balanced life with time for relaxing, work, fun and relationships. Stress management may increase individual resilience to hold pressure and meet coming challenges ( Lansbury, 2014 ). For Julie to effectively manage and cope up with stress, she ought to identify the source of stress in her life. The sources of stress can be identified by closely observing attitudes, excuses and habits. After identifying the source of stress, Julie should look at healthy ways to cope with stress. Stress can be managed by avoiding, adapting, accepting and even changing the situation.
There are various strategies that Julie ought to follow to cope up with stresses that result from her work place and at home. To begin with, Julie ought to avoid unnecessary stress. However, she should not avoid situations that need to be addressed. In this case, Julie ought to learn her limits and stick to them. At her work place, she should learn to refuse or accept extra responsibilities given to her. Likewise, she should learn to take what she can handle at workplace ( Matteson and Ivancevich, 2017 ). Additionally, Julie should avoid people who stress her. This can be achieved by either limiting the amount of time she spends with her husband or end the relationship completely. Finally, Julie should take control of her environment to avoid being disrupted.
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Secondly, Julie ought to alter or change her stressful situation. She should figure out what to change to avoid future problems ( Jafari, Amiri and Esfandiary, 2013 ). This can be achieved by Julie changing her ways of communication and operation. She should express her feelings instead of bothering others and be willing to compromise to have a good chance of finding a happy middle ground. In addition to altering the situation, Julie ought to adapt to the stressors. If she cannot change stressors, it is important for her to adapt to stressful situations and regain her sense of control. This will be achieved reframing her problems and view them from a more positive perspective. She should focus on the positive and finally adjust her attitude. She should self defeating words that have a profound effect on the physical and emotional well-being.
Another important strategy that is significant in managing stress is accepting things that cannot change. In Julie’s case, she cannot change the condition of his mother but she has to cope with it and accept things as they are. Accepting such things may be hard but they work in the long run. In this situation, she also ought to share her feelings with the counsellor or a trusted friend on what she is going through. The most significant way that Julie ought to do is allocating time for fun and relaxation in her plan. Stress can be minimized in her life when she decides to nurture herself. The healthy ways to relax and recharge include going out for a walk, calling a friend, spending time in nature, savouring a warm cup of coffee or getting a massage ( Yu, 2016 ).
More so, it is important to adopt a healthy lifestyle that increases people’s resistance to stress. This will be achieved by conducting regular exercise, eating a healthy diet, getting enough sleep and minimizing caffeine and sugar intake. Eating a healthy diet enables the body to be prepared to cope with stress. A person should start his or her day with breakfast and maintain his or her energy to keep his or her mind clear throughout the day. Julie should also have adequate sleep because sleep will fuel her body and mind. Finally, Julie should carry out regular exercises which are vital in minimizing and preventing stress effects by releasing the pent-up stress and tension.
Conclusively, it is important for individual to avoid unnecessary stress, change stressful situation, adapt to stressors, accept what you cannot change, create time for fun and relaxation as well as adopting a healthy lifestyle. Incorporating all this strategies will enable individuals to effectively cope with stress.
References
Jafari, A., Amiri Majd, M., & Esfandiary, Z. (2013). Relationship between personality characteristics and coping strategies with job stress in nurses. Quarterly journal of nursing management , 1 (4), 36-44.
Lansbury, G. (2014). Chronic pain management: a qualitative study of elderly people's preferred coping strategies and barriers to management. Disability and rehabilitation , 22 (1-2), 2-14.
Matteson, M. T., & Ivancevich, J. M. (2017). Controlling work stress: Effective human resource and management strategies . Jossey-Bass.
Yu, M. C. (2016). Employees' perception of organizational change: The mediating effects of stress management strategies. Public Personnel Management , 38 (1), 17-32.
