7 Essential Tips to Develop a Stress Management Strategy

Were you aware that chronic stress is linked to the six leading causes of health issues? Heart disease, cancer, stroke, lower respiratory disease, and accidents. Chronic stress can affect your brain, raise your blood pressure, and reduce your immunity and ability to heal.

At least 75% of doctor office visits are for stress-related complaints stemming from job stress. It’s a $1 trillion per year “under the radar” health epidemic according to Peter Schnall, author of Unhealthy Work.

The cost to treat those with chronic diseases (from stress) is about 75% of the national health expenditures per the CDC. Chronic diseases cause 7 out of 10 deaths each year – but are preventable and treatable.

Chronic stress not only affects the physical aspects of your life such as health or general energy level, but it can affect job performance and personal relationships. For this reason, every person needs a stress management strategy, a way to focus on personal empowerment and feelings of “loss of control” in check.

My experience dealing with cancer twice and a brain tumor diagnosis confirms that you can’t take anything for granted. It’s important to be there for my family, watch my kids grow up and thrive. This reality made me stop, take a step back and evaluate my life, intentions and overall goals. Developing a stress management strategy was important. My curiosity also led me to become a certified health coach and health advocate for others.

Here are 7 essential tips recommended to help develop a stress management strategy.

Start a Meditation Practice

Meditation can take many forms and goes hand-in-hand with mindfulness. It’s one of the best tools to balance your emotions, deal with any physical and/or mental stress, and allows you to be present at the moment. It promotes peace. To have a successful meditation practice, it needs to be simple and comfortable so that you will want to practice it every day and reap the intended results. There is no right or wrong – whatever works for you is the correct method. Ideally you make time to connect with yourself daily, being mindful of your surroundings. There are guided meditations you can listen to. Many people like to just sit, breath deep and clear their minds right before bedtime. One of my favorite things to do is walk in the woods before dinner; connecting to nature has a calming effect on me.

It’s Okay to Say No

When you say yes to everything, it comes with a price. You increase the stress levels by trying to meet the extra demands on your time. There is only so much time in the day. Protect and manage the time you have and don’t feel guilty about it. Learning to say “no” to unimportant requests is not going to be a deal-breaker. How do you say “no” though? Make sure you are firm – yet polite – with your answer. And be clear and matter-of-fact so that you are setting the right expectation. If you really want to be involved in some way but don’t have time, say yes to something else. “I can’t do this, but I can…” and mention a commitment that you could make.