Description
Lower stress and anxiety with accessible tips you can use today
Whether related to love, work, family, or other parts of everyday life, Stress Management For Dummies, 3rd Edition is dedicated to helping you stock up your wellness toolbox. This new edition will help you identify your stress triggers and ways to manage them, practice mindfulness and meditation, understand the mind-body connection and how this applies to you and your experience, apply quieting rumination, and more.
With straightforward advice incorporating scientific research on the relationship between stress and health, Stress Management For Dummies, 3rd Edition provides practical tips on how to use key techniques, including the power of gratitude and perspective, to transform your mindset and improve your resilience toward stress.
Inside:
- Explore the impacts that stress has on your biology—including sleep
- Find step-by-step guidance that demonstrates how to manage worry and feel less anxious
- Discover your mental health needs and ways to implement them in your everyday life
- Understand the effects of smartphones, social media, and world events on your mental health and ways to cope
Stress Management For Dummies, 3rd Edition is a trustable, calming handbook that helps you reduce stress and build the life you want.
Table of Contents
Introduction 1
About This Book 1
Conventions Used in This Book 2
Foolish Assumptions 3
Icons Used in This Book 3
Beyond the Book 4
Where to Go from Here 4
Part 1: Stress Management: Where to Start 5
Chapter 1: Stressed Out? Welcome to the Club! 7
Experiencing a Stress Epidemic? 7
Individual or personal stressors 8
Shared or collective stressors 9
Understanding Where All This Stress Is Coming From 10
The lingering pandemic 10
A nation under stress 11
The political divide 11
Struggling in a struggling economy 12
Getting frazzled at work 12
The gender divide 13
Feeling frazzled at home 14
Dealing with daily hassles 15
Looking at the Signs and Symptoms of Stress 17
Understanding How Stress Can Make You Sick 18
Understanding how stress can be a pain in the neck (and other places) 18
Taking stress to heart 19
Hitting below the belt 20
Compromising your immune system 20
The cold facts: Connecting stress and the sniffles 21
Stressing Out Your Friends and Family 22
Your relationships 22
Your libido 22
Your kids 22
Can Stress Be Good? 23
Chapter 2: Stress Explained (in Surprisingly Few Pages) 25
So What Is Stress Anyhow? 25
Defining stress 26
Stress causes stress? 27
How This Whole Stress Thing Got Started 27
Imagining you’re a cave person 28
Surviving the modern jungle 28
Understanding the Signs of Stress 29
Your body reacts 29
Your feelings and behavior change 31
Understanding Stress Is as Simple as ABC 33
Managing Stress: A Three-Pronged Approach 34
Managing your stressors 34
Changing your thoughts 35
Managing your stress responses 36
Tuning Your Strings: Finding the Right Balance 36
Chapter 3: Identifying Your Stress Triggers and Responses 37
How Stressed Are You? Finding Ways to Measure Your Stress Level 38
Starting with a simple gut check 38
Using a stress gauge 38
Measuring your stress in other ways 39
Monitoring Your Stress with a Stress Journal 43
Knowing how to record your stress 44
Knowing when to record your stress 47
Facing Roadblocks 47
Taking it a step at a time 48
Giving it a try 48
Accepting your different strokes 48
Practicing for the Long Haul 49
Finding a quiet place 49
Linking up 49
Getting a stress buddy 49
Being patient with the process 50
Chapter 4: Reducing Your Technostress 51
Living in a Technological World 52
Benefiting from all of this technology 52
Stressing about all of this technology 53
Worrying about Cybersecurity 54
Outsmarting the scammers 55
Feeling romantic? 56
Stressing Out with Social Media 57
Tuning in so you can tune out 57
Reducing social media stress 59
Managing Your Tech Diet 60
Minimizing your digital overload 60
Creating a work-life balance 62
Part 2: Mastering the Basics 63
Chapter 5: Relaxing Your Body 65
Stress Can Be a Pain in the Neck (And That’s Just for Starters) 66
Funny, I don’t feel tense 67
Invasion of the body scan 67
Breathing Away Your Tension 68
Your breath is fine It’s your breathing that’s bad 69
“Why change now? I’ve been breathing for years.” 69
Evaluating your breathing 70
Cutting yourself some slack 71
Changing the way you breathe, changing the way you feel 71
The yawn that refreshes 74
Tensing Your Way to Relaxation 75
Exploring how progressive muscle relaxation works 75
Scrunching up like a pretzel 78
Using the Power of Suggestion 79
Stretching Away Your Stress 81
Massage? Ah, There’s the Rub! 82
Massaging yourself 83
Becoming the massage-er or massage-ee 85
Taking a Three-Minute Energy Burst 86
Experimenting with More Ways to Relax 86
Chapter 6: Quieting Your Mind 89
Where Do All These Thoughts Come From!? 90
Sorting out your thoughts 91
Thinking automatically 91
Turning Off Your Mind 92
Stopping your unwanted thoughts 92
Snapping out of it 94
Distracting Yourself 94
Using Your Imagination 95
What, Me Worry? 98
Scheduling your worries 98
Blowing up your worries 98
Striking up the band (or better yet, the string quartet) 99
Visiting the rainforest 100
Using some common scents 100
Doing Nothing: Meditation Is Good for You 102
East comes West 102
How meditation helps 103
It’s harder than it looks 103
Preparing to meditate 103
Practicing meditative breathing 105
Meditating with a mantra 106
Finding time for mini-meditations 107
Hypnotizing Yourself 107
No, you won’t turn into a clucking chicken 108
Surprise! You’ve already been hypnotized 108
Considering the power of a trance 108
Inducing a light trance 109
Going a little deeper 110
Returning to the world 110
Going Digital 111
Chapter 7: Cultivating Mindfulness 113
Understanding Mindfulness 113
Defining mindfulness 114
Dispelling myths about mindfulness 115
Figuring out whether mindfulness is right for you 116
Recognizing Mindlessness 116
Going on autopilot: The good, the bad, and the really bad 117
Mindless multitasking 118
Understanding How Mindfulness Can Help Reduce Your Stress 120
Developing the Skills of Mindfulness 123
Staying in the present 123
Meditating mindfully 123
Revisiting your daily routines 124
Learning how to detach 126
Controlling your attention 127
Reframing Stressful Thoughts and Emotions 129
Chapter 8: Developing Stress-Reducing Organizational Skills 131
Figuring Out Why Your Life Is So Disorganized 132
Are you organizationally challenged? 132
Identifying your personal disorganization 133
Clearing Away the Clutter 134
Eliminating those clutter excuses 134
Getting motivated 137
Drawing yourself a clutter roadmap 137
Getting your feet wet 138
Stop kidding yourself 138
Avoiding discouragement 139
Getting down to the nitty-gritty 140
Organizing Your Space 142
Organizing Information 144
Losing the paper trail 144
Organizing the papers you do need to keep 145
Organizing electronically 149
Managing your email 151
Keeping Your Life Organized 152
Being proactive 152
Buying less 152
Chapter 9: Finding More Time 155
Determining Whether You Struggle with Time Management 156
Becoming Mindful of Your Time 156
Knowing where your time goes 157
Figuring out what you want more time for 158
Knowing what you want to spend less time doing 159
Minding your time with cues and prompts 159
Questioning your choices and changing behaviors 160
Becoming a List Maker 161
Prioritizing and minimizing overload 162
Creating a do-today list 163
Having a do-later list 164
Keeping some tips in mind as you make your lists 165
Minimizing Your Distractions and Interruptions 167
Managing electronic interruptions 167
Losing the visitors 167
Lowering the volume 168
Limiting your breaks 168
Shifting your time 169
Managing interruptions 169
Using your screen time wisely 169
Winning the waiting game 170
Crashing Through Time Management Roadblocks 171
Getting over the desire to be perfect 171
Overcoming procrastination 172
Discovering the Benefits of Delegating 174
The fine art of delegating 174
Delegating begins at home 175
Buying Time 176
Chapter 10: Eating, Exercising, and Getting Your Zzzs 177
Stress-Reducing Eating 178
Understanding the food-mood connection 178
Choosing low-stress foods 178
Avoiding high-stress foods 181
Stopping the stress-eating cycle 182
Eating mindfully 186
Mastering the art of anti-stress snacking 187
Eating out healthily 187
Incorporating Stress-Reducing Exercise and Activity 189
Calming your brain naturally 189
Thinking activity, not exercise 190
Doing the gym thing 192
Sweating at home 192
Staying motivated 193
Getting a Good Night’s Sleep 194
Checking for medical problems 195
Recognizing the signs and symptoms of insomnia 195
Keeping a sleep journal 196
Hitting the sheets earlier 197
Adopting other sleep hygiene practices 197
Staying asleep 202
Part 3: the Secrets of Resilience 207
Chapter 11: Understanding How Your Thinking Stresses You Out 209
Creating Your Own Stress 209
Stress at 30,000 feet: Flight and fright 210
The presentation from hell 210
Remembering Your ABCs 211
It’s not exactly a new idea 212
It’s the thought that counts 212
Separating Thoughts from Feelings 214
Understanding Your Stress-Producing Thinking 215
Figuring out whether your thinking is the problem 215
Understanding your automatic thoughts 216
Uncovering your hidden thoughts 216
Identifying Your Thinking Errors 217
Catastrophizing and awfulizing 217
Fortune telling 218
Can’t-stand-it-itis 218
What-if-ing 219
Overgeneralizing 220
Mind reading and conclusion-jumping 221
Comparativitis 222
Over-personalizing 223
Emotional reasoning 224
Filtering 225
Magnifying and minimizing 225
Shoulding and musting 226
Self-rating 228
Using Coping Self-talk 230
Talking like an air-traffic controller 231
Putting it all together 232
Taking time to make it work 234
Chapter 12: Worrying Less 235
Do You Worry Too Much? 236
Don’t Worry, Be Happy Yeah, Right! 236
Identifying Your Worries 237
Creating a worry list 237
Spotting your hidden worries 238
Understanding Your Worries 240
Worrying versus ruminating 240
Comparing productive and unproductive worry 241
Discovering why you worry unproductively 242
Controlling and Stopping Your Worrying 243
Writing about your worries 243
Scheduling your worries 244
Having a place to worry 244
Thinking Straighter and Worrying Less 245
Remembering that feelings and thoughts aren’t facts 245
Stop feeding your worries 246
Understanding the role of acceptance 246
Correcting Your Thinking Errors 247
Minimizing your “what-ifs” 247
Assessing the odds 247
Realizing that Murphy’s Law is wrong 248
Cutting out your catastrophizing and awfulizing 249
Getting perspective 249
Watching out for conclusion-jumping 250
Coping with uncertainty and lack of control 251
Watching out for self-rating 252
Going to yourself for advice 252
Becoming a problem solver (rather than a worrier) 252
Using your coping self-talk 253
Escaping Your Worries 254
Getting distracted 255
Going for a walk 255
Working up a sweat 255
Talking about it 256
Humoring yourself 256
Relaxing your body and calming your mind 257
Trying some positive imagery 257
In a pinch, try this stop technique 258
Chapter 13: Overcoming Your Anger 259
Figuring Out Just How Mad You Are 259
Considering the Pros and Cons of Anger 260
Looking at the positives of anger 260
Examining the downsides of anger 261
Understanding when and why anger is appropriate 263
Tempering Your Temper 263
Keeping an anger log 264
Checking your stress balance 264
Becoming Mindful of Your Anger 265
Breathing mindfully 265
Mindfully detaching 265
Modifying Your Mindset 266
Thinking about your thinking 266
Finding and fixing your thinking errors 267
Expecting the expected 267
Lengthening your fuse 268
Using your coping self-talk 269
To vent or not to vent? That is the question 270
Rehearsing your anger 271
Doing an emotional replay 272
Becoming an actor 272
Being discreet and choosing your moment 273
Breathing your anger away 273
Looking for the funny part 274
Chapter 14: Reducing Interpersonal Stress 277
Identifying Your Interpersonal Stressors 278
Developing Stress-Reducing Communication Skills 279
Listening roadblocks 279
Conflicting communication styles and issues 280
Using “I” statements when you talk 282
Becoming a Better Listener 283
Being in the moment, mindfully 284
Looking like you are listening 284
Practicing listening 284
Being an active listener 284
Understanding the importance of validation 286
Turning Tension into Connection 288
Avoiding hurtful criticism 288
Becoming more empathetic 288
Minding your “shoulds” 289
Bringing your stress home 291
Practicing damage control 291
Looking for patterns 292
Reducing your stress levels 292
Discovering What It Means to Be Assertive 293
How assertive are you? 293
Not too hot, not too cold — just right 295
Examples of assertive behavior 296
What assertive behavior is not 296
Becoming More Assertive 297
Watching how you say things 298
Saying “no” (oh, so nicely) 299
Starting nice and working your way up to nasty 300
Talking like a broken record 301
Trying a little “fogging” 301
Coping with Difficult People 303
Staying calm 303
Focusing on the issue 303
Avoiding kitchen-sinking 304
Avoiding labels 304
Hitting above the belt 305
Stopping the over-personalizing 305
Trying a dress rehearsal 306
Using the “stoplight” technique 307
Losing the Battle but Winning the War 308
Chapter 15: Adopting Stress-Resistant Values, Goals, and Attitudes 309
Recognizing the Value of Your Values 309
Clarifying Your Values and Goals 310
The tombstone test 311
Five-ish years to live 311
The rating game 311
Things you love to do 313
Some other intriguing questions to ponder 313
Confronting Your Happiness Myths 313
Thinking you should feel happy all the time 314
Thinking you’ll be happy after something specific happens 314
Actualizing Your Values, Reaching Your Goals 315
Staying on track 316
Making the time 317
Harnessing the Power of Acceptance 317
Introducing ACT 318
Dropping anchor 319
Expressing Gratitude 321
Understanding how gratitude reduces your stress 321
Maintaining a feeling of gratitude 322
Remembering to express your gratitude 323
Cultivating Optimism 323
Recognizing your thinking errors that hinder optimism 324
Arguing with yourself 325
Constructing an optimistic future 325
Finding Your Sense of Humor 326
People who laugh, last 326
Some humorous suggestions 327
Blowing things up 328
Doing Something Good for Someone Else 328
How helping helps 328
Getting started 329
Offering random acts of kindness 330
Adding a Spiritual Dimension 331
Understanding how faith helps you cope with stress 331
Appreciating the power of belief 332
Gathering a Little Wisdom 333
Part 4: the Part of Tens 335
Chapter 16: Ten Habits of Highly Effective Stress Managers 337
Learn How to Relax 337
Eat Right and Exercise Often 338
Get Enough Sleep 338
Let Unimportant Stuff Go 339
Practice Acceptance and Express Gratitude 340
Get Organized 340
Manage Your Time Efficiently 340
Develop a Strong Support System 341
Live According to Your Values 341
Have a Sense of Humor 341
Chapter 17: Ten Events That Trigger Stress 343
Losing a Loved One 343
Experiencing a Major Illness or Injury 344
Divorcing or Separating 344
Having Serious Financial Difficulties 344
Losing a Job 345
Getting Married 345
Moving 345
Fighting with a Close Friend 346
Having a Child 346
Retiring 346
Chapter 18: Ten Apps That Can Reduce Your Stress 347
Calm 347
Headspace 348
Breethe 348
Insight Timer 348
Happier 348
MindShift CBT 349
CBT-i Coach 349
Moodnotes 349
Sanvello 350
Oak 350
Chapter 19: Ten Self-Help Books That Reduce Your Stress 351
Meditation For Dummies 351
Mindfulness For Dummies 352
The Worry Cure 352
The Cognitive Behavioral Workbook for Anger 352
Goodnight Mind 353
The Mindfulness & Acceptance Workbook for Stress Reduction 353
The Myths of Happiness 354
Couple Skills: Making Your Relationship Work 354
The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work 354
Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff 355
Index 357
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