Table of ContentsView AllTable of ContentsDefinitionCausesEffectsStress ManagementFAQs

Table of ContentsView All

View All

Table of Contents

Definition

Causes

Effects

Stress Management

FAQs

Close

Stress management is the range of techniques, strategies, and therapies designed to help people control their stress. This can include lowering acute stress, but it is often aimed at lowering chronic stress to improve health, happiness, and overall well-being. Stress management strategies may include:

How to Be Less Stressed

What Is Stress?

Stress is your body’s response to changes in your life. Because life involves constant change—ranging from everyday, routine changes like commuting from home to work to adapting to major life changes like marriage, divorce, or death of a loved one—there is no avoiding stress.

Your goal shouldn’t be to eliminate all stress but toeliminate unnecessary stressand effectively manage the rest. There are some commoncauses of stressthat many people experience, but each person is different.

Simply put, one person’s stress trigger may not register as stressful to someone else. That said, certain situations tend to cause more stress in most people and canincrease the risk of burnout.

Press Play for Advice On Dealing With Money Issues

While we all react to stress in our own ways, there is a long list of commonly experiencedeffects of stressthat range from mild to life-threatening. Stress can affect immunity, which can impact virtually all areas of health. Stress can affect mood in many ways as well. Creating a stress management plan is often one part of a plan for overall wellness.

Stress can be effectively managed in many different ways. The best stress management plans usually include a mix ofstress relieversthat address stress physically and psychologically and help to develop resilience and coping skills.

1:417 Highly Effective Stress Relievers

1:41

7 Highly Effective Stress Relievers

Use Quick Stress Relievers

Some stress relief techniques can work in just a few minutes to calm the body’s stress response. These techniques offer a “quick fix” that helps you feel calmer at the moment, and this can help in several ways.

When your stress response is not triggered, you may approach problems more thoughtfully and proactively. You may be less likely to lash out at others out of frustration, which can keep your relationships healthier. Nipping your stress response in the bud can also keep you from experiencing chronic stress.

Quick stress relievers like breathing exercises, for example, may not build your resilience to future stress or minimize the stressors that you face. But they can help calm the body’s physiology once thestress responseis triggered.

5 Ways to Calm Down Quickly When You Feel Overwhelmed

Develop Stress-Relieving Habits

Long-term healthy habits, likeexerciseor regularmeditation, can help to promote resilience toward stressors if you make them a regular part of your life.Communication skillsand other lifestyle skills can be helpful in managing stressors and changing how we feelfrom “overwhelmed” to “challenged"or even “stimulated.”

Healthy Lifestyle Habits to Minimize Stress

Eliminate Stressors When You Can

You may not be able to completely eliminate stress from your life or even the biggest stressors, but there are areas where you can minimize it and get it to a manageable level.

Any stress that youcancut out can minimize your overall stress load. For example, ending even onetoxic relationshipcan help you more effectively deal with other stress you experience because you may feel less overwhelmed.

Discovering a wide variety of stress management techniques, and then choosing a mix that fits your needs, can be a key strategy for effective stress relief.

Understanding and Managing Stressors

Stress FAQs

There are a number of common questions that you might ask about stress and stress management.

Is All Stress Harmful to Health?

There are several differenttypes of stress, and not all are harmful.Eustress, for example, is a positive form of stress. But chronic stress has been linked to many serious health issues and is the type of negative stress most often mentioned in the news. While we want to manage or eliminate negative stress, we also want to keep positive forms of stress in our lives to help us remain vital and alive.

However, if we experience too much stress in our lives, even “good” stress can contribute to excessive stress levels, which can lead to feeling overwhelmed or having your stress response triggered for too long. This is why it is still important to learn to relax your body and mind periodically and cut down on unnecessary stress whenever possible.

The Benefits of Good Stress

How Can I Tell When I’m Too Stressed?

Stress affects us all in different ways, not all of which are negative. In fact, the stress of anexciting lifecan actually serve as a good motivator and keep things interesting. When stress levels get too intense, however, there are some stress symptoms that many people experience.

For example, headaches, irritability, and “fuzzy thinking” can all be symptoms that you’re under too much stress. While not everybody who’s under stress will experience these specific symptoms, many will.

If you find that you don’t realize how stressed you are until you are overwhelmed, it’s important to learn to notice your body’s subtle cues and your own behavior, almost like an outside observer might. To notice how your body is reacting to stress, you can try thisbody scan meditation(it helps relax at the same time).

What Can I Do When I Feel Overwhelmed?

We all feel overwhelmed from time to time; that’s normal. While it’s virtually impossible to eliminate times when events conspire and the body’s stress response is triggered, there are ways that you can quickly reverse your body’s reaction to stress, buffering the damage to your health and keeping your thinking clear, so you can more effectively deal with what’s going on in the moment.

How to Take a Break from Work (and Why You Need To)

By practicing regular stress management techniques, you can eliminate some of the stress you feel and make yourself more resilient in the face of stress in the future. There are several things you can try, ranging from a morning walk to an eveningjournalingpractice to just making more time for friends. The trick is to find something that fits with your lifestyle and personality, so it’s easier to stick with.

The Best Stress Management Books

4 SourcesVerywell Mind uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read oureditorial processto learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy.National Institute of Mental Health.5 Things You Should Know About Stress.Ma X, Yue ZQ, Gong ZQ, et al.The effect of diaphragmatic breathing on attention, negative affect and stress in healthy adults.Front Psychol. 2017;8:874. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00874National Center for Complementary and Integrative Medicine.Mind and Body Approaches for Stress: What the Science Says. 2020.Bota PG, Miropolskiy E, Nguyen V.Stop caretaking the borderline or narcissist: How to end the drama and get on with life.Ment Illn. 2017;9(1):6985. doi:10.4081/mi.2017.6985Additional ReadingLehrer PM, Woolfolk RL, Sime WE.Principles and Practice of Stress Management. 3rd edition. New York: The Guilford Press; 2007.

4 Sources

Verywell Mind uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read oureditorial processto learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy.National Institute of Mental Health.5 Things You Should Know About Stress.Ma X, Yue ZQ, Gong ZQ, et al.The effect of diaphragmatic breathing on attention, negative affect and stress in healthy adults.Front Psychol. 2017;8:874. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00874National Center for Complementary and Integrative Medicine.Mind and Body Approaches for Stress: What the Science Says. 2020.Bota PG, Miropolskiy E, Nguyen V.Stop caretaking the borderline or narcissist: How to end the drama and get on with life.Ment Illn. 2017;9(1):6985. doi:10.4081/mi.2017.6985Additional ReadingLehrer PM, Woolfolk RL, Sime WE.Principles and Practice of Stress Management. 3rd edition. New York: The Guilford Press; 2007.

Verywell Mind uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read oureditorial processto learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy.

National Institute of Mental Health.5 Things You Should Know About Stress.Ma X, Yue ZQ, Gong ZQ, et al.The effect of diaphragmatic breathing on attention, negative affect and stress in healthy adults.Front Psychol. 2017;8:874. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00874National Center for Complementary and Integrative Medicine.Mind and Body Approaches for Stress: What the Science Says. 2020.Bota PG, Miropolskiy E, Nguyen V.Stop caretaking the borderline or narcissist: How to end the drama and get on with life.Ment Illn. 2017;9(1):6985. doi:10.4081/mi.2017.6985

National Institute of Mental Health.5 Things You Should Know About Stress.

Ma X, Yue ZQ, Gong ZQ, et al.The effect of diaphragmatic breathing on attention, negative affect and stress in healthy adults.Front Psychol. 2017;8:874. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00874

National Center for Complementary and Integrative Medicine.Mind and Body Approaches for Stress: What the Science Says. 2020.

Bota PG, Miropolskiy E, Nguyen V.Stop caretaking the borderline or narcissist: How to end the drama and get on with life.Ment Illn. 2017;9(1):6985. doi:10.4081/mi.2017.6985

Lehrer PM, Woolfolk RL, Sime WE.Principles and Practice of Stress Management. 3rd edition. New York: The Guilford Press; 2007.

Meet Our Review Board

Share Feedback

Was this page helpful?Thanks for your feedback!What is your feedback?HelpfulReport an ErrorOtherSubmit

Was this page helpful?

Thanks for your feedback!

What is your feedback?HelpfulReport an ErrorOtherSubmit

What is your feedback?