How does stress management work?

54% of employees say that they are often or even very often stressed. For 44%, stress levels have worsened in the last two years. These figures show how essential it is to consciously confront your own stress and develop effective strategies for coping with it.

What is stress management?

Stress management involves three levels: the instrumental, regenerative and mental levels. Stress management is particularly useful and effective if you reflect on all three levels for yourself and keep them in mind during stressful phases.

Instrumental stress competence

• Delegate
• Asking for help
• Learning to say no
• Taking time out

Mental stress competence

• Question your expectations
  
• Respect your own boundaries
  
• Accept your mistakes
  
• Focus on the positive
  
• Don't take everything personally

Regenerative stress competence

• Create a balance to your job
  
• Make sure you exercise regularly
  
• Eat a healthy diet
  
• Maintain your social contacts
  
• Get enough sleep

Expert tips from Mavie Work for better stress management

Tip 1: Search for traces of stress triggers

An important step on the way out of the stress spiral is to look for the causes that generate stress. There are external and internal stress factors.

External stress factors are generally easier to identify. An external stress factor can be, for example, an illness in the family or an increased workload before a deadline. However, it can also be a lack of fairness or recognition from superiors or the breakdown of cohesion among colleagues.

Internal stress factors are much more difficult to name. These are so-called beliefs that we are often not even aware of. Perhaps you have the negative belief that you always have to do everything on your own and therefore don't ask for help. Or that you are not allowed to say no.

To find out where your personal stress triggers lie, you can ask yourself the following questions:

• What was a situation recently where I noticeably got into a state of stress?
• What exactly happened in this situation?
• Who wanted something from me in this situation?
• How did I react?
• Why did I react the way I did?

The purpose of this search for clues is to observe what repeatedly causes stress in your everyday life and to clearly identify this source of stress. Perhaps there are certain patterns that you notice. Is it mainly external or internal factors that cause stress?

Also ask yourself whether your current habits in terms of sleep, social media, eating or exercise help you to balance stress or whether these habits tend to hinder you.

Tip 2: Break through the stress wall

A reflection exercise that can help you break through the stress wall: Ask yourself the following questions and write down the answers by hand.

• What is it that is currently stressing me out the most?
• What will happen if I don't change anything? What will happen then?
• What could I do to change something?
• What does it take to start this change?
• By when would I like to have taken the first step?

The aim of this exercise is for you to no longer feel at the mercy of your situation. You may realise during this reflection exercise that you can't change anything at the moment. That's okay too. But you can define a point in time when you consciously look again and ask yourself how the situation has developed.

If you realise that you cannot get a grip on the issue of stress through self-care, you can get personal counselling or coaching, for example from Mavie Work.