19 Tips for Managing Stress Without Using Medication
These tips are intended to be practical. They should work. If, as the warning labels on the medication bottles say, your symptoms persist, you should consult your physician or mental health professional.
- Separate out toxic worry from good worry. Remember that good worry amounts to planning. You need to plan. Toxic worry is unnecessary, repetitive, unproductive, paralyzing, frightening, and in general life-defeating.
- Exercise at least three times a week. Exercise prevents toxic worry.
- Develop connectedness in as many different ways as you can. Connectedness refers to a feeling of being a part of something larger than yourself. There are many types of connectedness: family, social, religious or spiritual connectedness, connectedness to information and ideas.
- Analyze problems and take concrete action. The non-worrier says, "I fix what I can, then I put the rest out of my mind."
- Pray or meditate. If you are religious, pray every day, even several times a day. If you are not religious, meditate. Like prayer, you can meditate anywhere. Prayer and meditation calm our mind.
- Ask for advice. Often we do not have sufficient information to come up with best solutions to our problem(s). It is good to know whom to ask or where to look.
- Sleep properly. Lack of sleep can make you irritable, distracted and prone to useless and destructive worrying. What is the right amount of sleep? Pay attention to what your body tells you. You will know if you need more or even less sleep.
- Eat properly. Eat healthily. Take care not to use food as an anti-worry agent; i.e., don’t eat to try to make your worries go away.
- Don't watch too much TV or read too many newspapers and magazines. Media love bad news. Next to sex, bad news sells best.
- Never worry alone. When you share a worry, worry almost always diminishes. You often find solutions to a problem when you talk it out.
- Use humor. Make friends with amusing people. Laugh as much as you can. Toxic worry almost always entails a loss of perspective; humor almost always restores it.
- Look for what is good in life. Take an inventory of every day of what is good; big things—children, friends, health, a mate, and little things— a pair of shoes you like, a door that closes without squeaking, a chicken salad sandwich that tastes good.
- Hire experts to guide you. For example, a financial consultant can turn your toxic worrying about money into constructive worrying, i.e., planning.
- Touch and be touched. Get plenty of physical contact. People do better if they are touched and hugged regularly.
- Listen to music. In ways that we don’t yet understand, music reduces tension and anxiety while often improving performance.
- Make friends with angels. Even is you do not believe in angels, make up fictional angels in your imagination and allow yourself to become friends with them. This is not psychotic; it is helpful management of worry.
- Have faith. In what, of course, is up to you. If you believe in God, practice your belief. As the saying goes, “Let go, Let God.” Give over to the Lord the power that is the Lord’s. Let go of your impossible need to control.
- Watch a video. If you own a VCR or DVD, keep a few videos on hand that you know will make you laugh.
- Don't sweat the small stuff. And, remember, from the widest perspective, it is all small stuff.
For more information on how you can manage stress more effectively, please call Dr. Mullen at (941) 364-9919 or email him at:
David@drdavidemullen.com
Compliments of David E. Mullen, Ph.D., MFT
Sarasota, Florida
(E. Hallowell: Worry: Controlling It and Using It Wisely)