I want to learn how to manage my stress.
As well as other people, I experience stressful situations every day, and I notice that inability to manage the received stress disturbs my sleep and causes neurosis: I constantly feel anxiety and often experience excessive sweat, trembling of my hands, and inability to sit motionlessly for more than 2-3 minutes. I hope that the ability to manage my stress will reduce its negative impact on my nervous system and release me from these symptoms.
I think that at the moment, my perception and reaction to stressful situations are habitual, and to change my habit, I need to pay constant attention to it. Also, I noticed my reaction for the first time just recently.
I do not have any negative emotions while thinking about the change.
I make up mind to achieve the positive results in managing stressful situations, but I understand that I need to cover all areas, as stress may also come from unexpected and serious situations, and it will be difficult to overcome them properly.
I decided to start my practice on managing stress from January 5 and woke up with the decision to change my old habits on perceiving stressful situations too close to heart and behaving nervously. The first thing I settled to change in my daily routine was the addition of meditations. I heard that meditations were good for the acquisition of inner quietness and started my day with the 15-minutes meditation. I turned on music for meditation that had chosen the previous evening, sat in Padmasana (lotus pose), and tried to clear my mind from the great number of thoughts. Usually, when I wake up, I start to think about my daily plans, responsibilities, and meetings. I think that it overloads my brains and adds to stress, as I cannot relax. My first meditation was extremely difficult; despite yoga music and my personal desire, I could hardly free my mind from thoughts and did not feel any lightness and energy when finished.
The second thing I decided to change was my attitude to the crowd. Crowds are natural for the cities; as well as others, I use transport, sit in traffic, go to the cinema and various shopping centers, and spend in a crowd significant amount of time. I am easily susceptible to the negative emotions and get a lot of stress while overcrowding; thus, I settled to concentrate on my goal of reducing stress and listen to calm music that allowed me disregarding from the negativity of the other people. Every time when somebody stepped on my foot or pushed me, I closed my eyes and breathed deeply preventing the rush of anger. It happened just a couple of times per day, but I noticed that I succeeded and could successfully manage the appearing of stress caused by the crowd.
Before going to bed, I tried meditation one more time but decided to use mindfulness. I sat on the sofa, closed my eyes, imagined the flame of the candle, and concentrated my attention on inhales and exhales. It was still difficult to abstract away from thoughts, but I like this meditation more, as I was silence, my mind was partly concentrated on the image. Thus, my thoughts seemed to flow in the background and disturbed me less than usually.
In general, I think that the first day of my learning to manage stress was rather successful; I did not succeed much with meditations but learned to disregard from the negative emotions of people in the crowd.
Day 2 – 1/7/17
The second day was a bit easier. I started it with the 15-minutes practice of mindfulness; I noticed that the previous evening I had fallen asleep faster than usually and thus, woke up a bit more energetic. I imagined the seashore and concentrated on my breath; the thoughts continued to flow in the background the same way as in the evening, but my mind felt better than before. I noticed that mindfulness was the best meditation for me and thought that I could succeed in it after several days of practicing. Also, I continued to disregard from the negative emotions of the crowd, and it was successful; however, I think that it will require more time to disregard from them naturally without inner reminders. Generally, the day was the same as the previous one, and I continued to improve my practices of concentration and self-control. I ended the day with 15-minutes practice of mindfulness and felt more comfortable than before.
Day 3 – 1/8/17
The third day was the easiest for me, as I spent all the time at home. I woke up later than usually and had the 20-minutes mindfulness practice; I decided to increase the time of my meditations. In general, I had three meditations during the third day, as I had enough free time and liked the feeling of pacification they brought to my mind. I noticed that despite the fact I continued to think about several things at the same time, my mind became clearer, the number of chaotic thoughts decreased, my sleep became better, and I started to be calmer. Also, I started to keep a day planner; instead of keeping all the plans in my head, I started to write them down, and also did the same for any thoughts or ideas I was afraid to forget. I felt that such practice also contributed to the unloading of my mind, as everything was written on the paper and could be accessed and recalled any time. As far as I became free from the fear of forgetting important information, I felt that my usual neurosis reduced and I could relax.
Day 4 – 1/9/17
The fourth day was the most difficult day of my practice, as I experienced a lot of new stresses. First of all, I overslept and had no time for the morning meditation. I felt extremely nervous being afraid to be late; furthermore, I experienced problems with transport that added to my stress. I think that my stressful morning determined the whole day to a great extent. I had a lot of plans including work and studying that always bring me a lot of stress, and the new stress just overlapped my morning nervousness. I tried to breathe in through my nose and to breathe out through my mouth, but it calmed me just for several minutes, as every time I started to be nervous under the pressure of the environment again. Actually, I had no ideas how I could deal with my stress regarding work and studying except meditations and self-suggestions to skip stress that could negatively affect my health, the most important thing I had. However, I could not realize even them as felt trapped in my daily stresses without an opportunity to escape.
When I completed the most important plans and tasks of the day, it was evening and I was completely stressed and exhausted. I decided to change this situation and went to the park. I sat on the bench and gave myself some time to relax and to enjoy the view. I started to breathe deeply, and it helped to reduce my anxiety. I looked back at the whole day and rethought the mistakes I made. Despite the fact I was not late and succeeded in the realization of my plans, my body got too much stress. I understood that every person experienced such failures as my morning oversleep from time to time and promised myself to take more care about awakening, such as an additional alarm.
However, the stresses of the day were not over; in the evening, I had a quarrel with my mother. She was in a bad mood and started to find fault with me. I understood that when people experienced stress, they could express their emotions on others, and it had already happened with my mother before. I do not like to argue with her, and our quarrel just added to my daily stress. It seems that I also expressed my anxiety while arguing with her; I could escape the conflict but supported it, and it was my mistake.
I took my day planner, wrote down the schedule for the next day, and ended my stressful day with the 30-minutes mindfulness meditation. This time, I turned on music for relaxation and imagined that I was at the seaside. For the first ten minutes, I could not make away with my reflections about the day, but then I succeeded and could concentrate on my breathing in full. I think that this meditation was the most successful one, as I could eradicate from the flow of thoughts. I fell asleep very fast.
Day 5 – 1/10/17
The fifth day of my practices was calmer than the previous one. I woke up on time and practiced the 20-minutes mindfulness meditation; I noticed that it became easier for me to leave my thoughts behind, and in general, their flow became less disconnected and less chaotic. I decided to practice self-suggestion and self-control, and when I faced stressful situations during the day, I told myself to react calmly and not to take stress too serious. I told myself that it was not a big deal that I was a bit late, that I failed to do something, or that I had a conflict with somebody. Also, I told myself that it was important not to support the stress of people who had the necessity to express their anger and anxiety. With such perception and reactions, my neurosis reduced, and meditations provided me with better sleep and more energy. My attitude to life improved.
At the moment, I have just five days of the stress reduction attempts, and my successes are still small. I am going to continue my meditation and self-suggestion practices; I have far to go and aim to achieve automatic non-perception of stresses too close to heart. Moreover, I am going to learn how to react in unexpected situations, as they are the most stressful ones.
