by Atomic Mommy Editors
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If you let them, stressful situations can ruin your life. Not only can it negatively impact your mental health and make it difficult for you to relax and find happiness, but it can also cause you to gain weight, increase your chances of having a heart attack, and prevent you from achieving your dreams and goals.
It’s safe to say that we all agree it is a good idea to keep stress at bay. One thing that can help you do this, so you can protect your mental and physical health from the consequences of stress, is to learn how to separate yourself from stressful situations.
Obviously, this is something that is much easier said than done. But if you make an effort to try, it will definitely help keep your stress levels lower. With that in mind, here are some key techniques you can use to separate yourself from stressful situations right now:
#1 Take a step back
It is a good idea to take a step back and think about whether the thing that is happening to you, is going to have a lasting impact on your life. It might feel like an impossible situation now, but will you even remember it in a couple of years? This is a question you should ask yourself to help you weigh the level of importance of each situation. Get some perspective on the situation. Pace the issues you are facing in the context of a whole life span. By doing so, you can see that perhaps, your stressful situation is not such a big deal after all.
#2 Take positive action
When something stressful happens, instead of going into panic mode when something negative happens to you, try reacting with positive action.
For example, if you have been injured at work and you’re panicking about how you will survive financially, call personal injury lawyers to see if you could be entitled to compensation. Got laid off from your job? Try seeking out government assistance that may help you during the down-time.
Often, when we stress, we do so out of fear of the unknown or because we build-up problems in our head that might never come to pass. By taking positive action, we can change that, get a grip of the situation, and ultimately worry less.
#3 Treat yourself like a friend
When things are not going your way, it can often be tempting to berate yourself, call yourself names, and go through all of your faults that have ultimately led to the situation. This is really not helpful and it will only ever lead to you feeling more stressed out and unhappy.
It is far better to treat yourself kindly as you would a good friend. Acknowledge that what has gone wrong, has gone wrong. Also acknowledge that you tried your best and look at any positive steps you can now take. If you do this regularly, you will find that you are far less likely to go into stressed-out mode whenever something difficult happens in your life. And even if you do, you will be more easily able to get things under control.
#4 Learn to think positively
If you are a naturally negative person, you will probably get stressed out a lot more than your positive friends. One thing that can really help you separate yourself from stressful situations is to learn the art of positive thinking.
Every time you think a negative thought, such as “I can’t do this” try to reframe it as a positive one like “I relish the challenge” or “ I can do anything I put my mind to.” This may be difficult at first and you will definitely let a bunch of negative thoughts skip through.
The more consistently you try to change negative thoughts for positive ones, the easier it will become. This is because your brain will naturally start to look for the positives in every situation instead of jumping to negativity and stress, the second things get a bit tough.
The Takeaway
As you see, there are lots of techniques that can help you separate yourself from stressful situations, stay calm and get more perspective. They may not work all the time, but if you try to apply them to any tough situations that come along, you will usually find that you can improve your situation and avoid falling as far into stress as you used to.