Managing Stress

What is stress?

Stress is the feeling of being under too much mental or emotional pressure.

Pressure turns into stress when you feel unable to cope. People have different ways of reacting to stress, so a situation that feels stressful to one person may be motivating to someone else.

Many of life’s demands can cause stress, particularly work, relationships and money problems. And, when you feel stressed, it can get in the way of sorting out these demands, or can even affect everything you do.

Stress can affect how you feel, think, behave and how your body works. In fact, common signs of stress include sleeping problems, sweating, loss of appetite and difficulty concentrating.

You may feel anxious, irritable or low in self esteem, and you may have racing thoughts, worry constantly or go over things in your head. You may notice that you lose your temper more easily, drink more or act unreasonably.

You may also experience headaches, muscle tension or pain, or dizziness.

Stress causes a surge of hormones in your body. These stress hormones are released to enable you to deal with pressures or threats – the so-called "fight or flight" response.  

Once the pressure or threat has passed, your stress hormone levels will usually return to normal. However, if you're constantly under stress, these hormones will remain in your body, leading to the symptoms of stress.

Managing stress in daily life

Stress is not an illness itself, but it can cause serious illness if it isn't addressed. It's important to recognise the symptoms of stress early. Recognising the signs and symptoms of stress will help you figure out ways of coping and save you from adopting unhealthy coping methods, such as drinking or smoking. 

Spotting the early signs of stress will also help prevent it getting worse and potentially causing serious complications, such as high blood pressure.

There is little you can do to prevent stress, but there are many things you can do to manage stress more effectively, such as learning how to relax, taking regular exercise and adopting good time-management techniques.

Studies have found that mindfulness courses, where participants are taught simple meditations across a series of weeks, can also help to reduce stress and improve mood.

If your stress is causing serious health problems, such as high blood pressure, you may need to take medication or further tests.

Mental health issues, including stress, anxiety and depression, are the reason for one-in-five visits to a GP.

Recognising your stress triggers

If you're not sure what's causing your stress, keep a diary and make a note of stressful episodes for two-to-four weeks. Then review it to spot the triggers.

Things you might want to write down include:

• the date, time and place of a stressful episode
• what you were doing 
• who you were with
• how you felt emotionally 
• what you were thinking 
• what you started doing 
• how you felt physically 
• a stress rating (0-10 where 10 is the most stressed you could ever feel)

You can use the diary to:

• work out what triggers your stress 
• work out how you operate under pressure 
• develop better coping mechanisms

Doctors sometimes recommend keeping a stress diary to help them diagnose stress.

Take action to tackle stress

There's no quick-fix cure for stress, and no single method will work for everyone. However, there are simple things you can do to change the common life problems that can cause stress or make stress a problem. These include relaxation techniques, exercise and talking the issues through.

Source: NHS

Be An Observer

All of us will never stop facing challenges in our lives. Whether it is our relationship, financial or career, there are always the ups and downs. You will slowly notice (if you haven't already) that all the problems we face in lives are created by people. There maybe someone complaining behind your back, your spouse maybe blaming you for all the hazard in your relationship without giving any credit to the things that you have done right. The list is endless.

If we take it personally and ruminating that it is unfair that you were thought of in a bad way by other people, then we magnify the problem that we already have and our emotion goes straight downhill. Instead we should look at the situation as if it is a stage and we are just an observer watching a show behind the curtain or in the audience seat. Everyone that is involve in the argument are there on stage. We even see ourselves on that stage in the argument. To be an observer means that you detach yourself and see the whole situation from the outside. Using a third person point of view, you are just another person in that show. That way, you don't take things too personally and instead have a better control of your emotion, you are simply enjoying the show.

This exercise can even help those who are suffering from panic attacks. When someone is having a panic attack, they are experiencing shortness of breath and thoughts of them dying constantly come into their mind. When the mind starts to feed negative inputs and warnings that there could be a fatal consequences, their conditions spiraling downwards and they are frozen in fear. That is what happen when you put yourself in the epicenter of the situation that a minor discomfort in your body could be reinterpreted by the mind as something life threatening. 

The observer exercise is a good technique that can help people who are suffering from panic attacks to gradually come out of their fear and take back the control of their lives. When the next panic attack happens, instead of thinking that they are going to die, be an observer and see that there is just someone having a discomfort in his breathing. See that person (which is yourself) slowing down his breath and starts to relax his body. His body gradually rises up, his breathing slowly returning to normal and the panic attack is eventually gone.

When you see yourself from the observer's point of view, there won't be thought of dying because you are not involve. You just see someone anxious and trying to catch his breath (everyone's breathing will go faster when they are anxious so it is absolutely normal). Usually panic attack just lasts for a few minutes and it is gone. It is important to know that it is never permanent. 

If you could survive panic attacks, then all the other problems that you face in life such as being scolded by your boss or spouse seems trivial and unimportant. You are not here to please everyone because your health is the most important thing of your life.  

Buddhism Saves My Life

I was a typical Malaysian Chinese raised up in the tradition of Taoist and Buddhist culture. I have always thought that older people blindly follow tradition without questioning. Practice such as burning paper offerings in the form of clothes, shoes, cars, mobile phones and iPad (lately) never appeal to me. I always thought them to be superstitious and doesn't make sense. I mean if you burn an iPad for the dead, don't you also have to burn the charger for them?

I have never consider myself to be religious simply because I couldn't comprehend its relevancy at the time. It was not until I suffered from a life threatening illness that I begin to comprehend the importance of having faith in our life. I still don't believe in superstition. Instead I've found a religion that finally makes sense to me - it is Buddhism.

I was a completely healthy man that exercised regularly. I worked out in gym for the most part of my 30s and I still carried dumbbell on a regularly up until last year. I didn't have any major sickness except for the common cold that is quite usual in the tropics. Then suddenly on the year that I turned 40, I suffered from panic attack out of the blue. Doctor in Raffles Hospital has diagnosed me as having cumulative stress in life and gave me medication which were more like tranquilizer to calm me down because I would get stressed out for no obvious reason. Then my relatives would bring me to see a Taoist medium who diagnosed me in his own way as having being cursed by someone who apparently wanted me to suffer.

Both the modern and traditional diagnosis gave me their own kind of remedy - doctor would give me medication while the Taoist master gave 'holy water' which has been chanted upon. I must admit that both did help me initially but just for a short while. 

Every now and then I would get agitated and my mind started 'roaming' freely. And when there were too much thinking I might get panic attack which would then required me to take medication given by the doctor. I said to myself that this couldn't go on like this forever, I need help. I asked the local GP to refer me to a psychiatrist. 

I know that I wasn't crazy but I had no choice at that time as I still need to go to work everyday and my condition was affecting my performance at the office. So went to see the psychiatrist but the receptionist treated me as if I am a crazy person. The psychiatrist gave me anti-depressant which not only didn't help but worsen my condition.

It was then that my previous employer in Malaysia sent me messages through Whatsapp and told me that there is this monk called Ajahn Brahm whose retreat is in Perth. I have migrated to Perth at that time and started to look up for this person. Many of his talks have been uploaded onto Youtube, I downloaded a few and started listening to them. My mood was calming down as I listen to the talk and I could sense that it has the healing effect on me. I researched further and found out that he is giving talks every Friday evening at a monastery north of Perth. I went there one Friday without hesitation.

It was already 7.30pm when I got to the place and there were just so many people packed inside the main hall. I found a spot to sit on and observed my surroundings. There is a big golden statue of Buddha sitting in front of me. Although there were many people in the hall, the atmosphere was quiet and peaceful. Then came in Ajahn Brahm and he conducted a 30 minutes guided meditation. This was the very first time I ever attended a guided meditation session. I followed his verbal instructions with my eyes closed. It was difficult to settle my mind initially but I was able to do that quite smoothly after about 10 minutes. I felt peace, compassion and Buddha's love for the first time in my life. I felt like crying not because of sadness but to shed tears of joy. The feeling that the world is indeed a wonderful place and our own problems are so trivial compare to the compassion of the Buddha.

Buddhism taught me that we are in charge of our life. Most of our sufferings come from our mind. And if we could keep the mind still through meditation, then we could live a relatively happy life.

I haven't recovered 100% from my anxiety disorder but I am progressing well. Now, if I ever get upset on something I would just meditate for 30 minutes and it is the best medication one can ever have. I am happy that I found Buddhism before it was too late for me. In fact I'm so grateful that I started this blog today to record my experiences with the religion. I hope that others could find it useful to help them with their lives.