5-step guide to managing stress

Stress is a part of life. A little stress can be motivating, pushing you to work hard and reach your goals. However, stress can become too much and do you harm. Learn to handle your stress to help improve and maintain your health and wellbeing.

What is stress?

Stress is your body’s reaction to something it thinks is a danger. This is called the “fight or flight” response. It releases stress hormones that prepare your body to act: to fight danger or run away. Your body speeds up systems like your heart rate and breathing. At the same time, things like digestion and your immune system slow down.

Once the danger is gone, your body calms down and returns to normal. If your body stays in this “high alert” state for too long, it can lead to physical, mental, and social problems. These problems ranges from heart disease, sleep problems, anxiety and depression, procrastination, substance use, and violence and aggressive behaviour.

5-step guide to managing stress

Managing stress works best when you take it step by step. This guide can help you organize how you deal with stress.

Step 1: Identify if you are stressed

Everyone responds to stress in their own way. Get to know your specific signs and symptoms of stress. When you experience them, consider that stress could be the cause.

Step 2: Identify the stressor

A stressor is something that causes stress. Any situation or event that you see as a danger is a stressor. Sources of stress include:

• Physical environment: noise, traffic
• Social: conflict with others, lack of social support, loneliness
• Financial: unpaid bills, surprise expenses
• Organizational: school or work deadlines
• Lifestyle choices: not enough sleep, too much caffeine, little movement, poor time management, poor diet
• Life events: death of a loved one, starting university, moving to a new city, birth of a baby
• Physiological: physical illness, pregnancy, injury

Use this list of stressors to help you identify the sources of your stress.

Step 3: Identify the reason for stressor

Stress happens when you perceive something as danger. If you do not see a situation as a danger, you will not feel stress!

Usually, you feel a situation is a danger when you believe you do not have enough resources to handle the demands. To assess danger (or stress) you can ask yourself:

• Why do I see this situation as stressful?
• Is the situation new or unexpected?
• Is my sense of self or control threatened?

A good way to understand why a situation is stressful is to complete this sentence: “I see this situation as stressful because I don’t have enough ____ to ____”.

• For example, “...I don’t have enough money to pay the bills.”, or “I don’t have enough time to finish the project.”.

Real vs self-created stressors

When we assess the demands and resources of a situation we are actually assessing our perception of them. Sometimes our perception matches reality (for example, we really don’t have enough money to pay bills). Other times, we make things feel more stressful by either:

• exaggerating the demands (e.g. “I need to get an “A” in all my courses”) or
• minimizing our resources (e.g. “I am not smart enough”).

Dealing with real stressors versus self-created stressors needs different strategies.

Step 4: Identify an appropriate stress management strategy and apply it

Stress management strategies fall into two categories:

1. Strategies that address the symptoms of stress

These are relaxation strategies. They can lower the risk of stress-related problems by relaxing your body. Here are some effective relaxation techniques:

These strategies work in the short term. They do not remove the danger. So once you have calmed your body, it is time to address the cause of your stress.

2. Strategies that address the cause of stress

The strategies in this approach depend on whether the stressor is real or self-created.

Real stressors:

• You work to eliminate the danger. This often involves developing and using specific skills.
• For example, stress caused by writing a term paper can be reduced by improving research and writing skills.

Self-created stressors:

• You work to change the way you think to remove the danger. Two approaches that can help are: Cognitive restructuring and Socratic questioning. Learn more about cognitive restructuring.
• Cognitive restructuring involves identifying unhelpful thoughts that cause stress and challenging and re-framing them to more helpful thoughts.
• Socratic questioning involves asking helpful, thought-provoking questions. These include questions like: 
  • What would I say to a friend in this similar situation, thinking this same thing?
  • Is there a different point of view that could be helpful?

Step 5: Evaluate

You have done your best to manage stress. Now it’s time to evaluate whether your efforts have worked.

If you are still overwhelmed by stress, review the steps you have taken. Look at your lifestyle, because these behaviours can protect you against stress; browse our Healthy Living topics for more information.

You can also seek support from a mental health professional, through Concordia’s Mental Health Entry for students, or through Concordia's Employee Assistance Program (EAP) for staff.