5-step guide to managing stress

Stress is a normal part of life. A little stress can be motivating and help push you to work hard and reach your goals. However, too much stress can affect you negatively. Learn to manage your stress to help improve and maintain your health and wellbeing.

What is stress?

• Stress is your body’s reaction to a perceived threat or challenge. This “fight or flight” response releases stress hormones that prepare your body to either fight the danger or to run away from it. As a result, your heart rate and breathing increase, while other functions, such as digestion, slow down. Watch this video to learn more.
• Once the stressful situation has passed, your body returns to its normal state. However, when stress lasts for too long, it can lead to physical, mental, and social problems.

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 (eg. headaches, difficulty concentrating, short temper, procrastination, etc..).

Step 2: Identify the stressor

A stressor is something that causes stress. Any situation or event that you see as a challenge, threat or difficult 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

Step 3: Identify the reason for stressor

Stress often happens when you feel that you do not have enough resources to handle the demands. 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?

To identify the source of your stress, complete this sentence: “I see this situation as stressful because I don’t have enough ____ to ____”.

• E.g. “I don’t have enough time to finish the project.”

Real vs self-created stressors

Stress is influenced by how we view a situation. Sometimes our perception matches reality (e.g. we really don’t have enough time to finish the project). 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: dentify and use a stress management strategy

Stress management strategies fall into two categories:

A. Strategies that address the symptoms of stress

These strategies help calm your mind and body and provide short-term relief from stress. Although they do not address the cause of stress, they can help you feel better and improve your ability to deal with the situation.

B. Strategies that address the cause of stress

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

Real stressors:

• Work to eliminate the danger. This often involves developing and using specific skills.
• E.g. stress caused by writing a term paper can be reduced by improving research and writing skills.

Self-created stressors:

• Work to change the way you think about the situation. This is called cognitive restructuring.
  • Identify the thoughts that are causing stress. Challenge them and re-frame them to more helpful thoughts. Learn more about cognitive restructuring.

Step 5: Evaluate

• Evaluate whether your efforts have worked. If you are still overwhelmed, review what you have tried and consider whether there are other strategies you could use. Also look at your lifestyle, because healthy habits can make it easier to cope with 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.