We’d all like to say that we handle stress well, but we don’t. In small doses, our body’s defenses may kick in and help us cope. But, reoccurring stressors in our lives may show us that we aren’t handling stress very well at all.
There’s a scene in National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation where Beverly D’Angelo’s character is in the kitchen chopping cabbage and she grabs a cigarette. Her mother shouts from the living room, “Are you smoking?” She replies in the negative with another whack of the cleaver and a puff on the cigarette. Holidays with family can bring on the stress in anyone’s life.
It was funny in the movie, but the point here is that she reached back and picked up an old but bad habit to deal with her stress. You might say that it’s only temporary or that it is a momentary lapse, but how many of those bad habits seem to stick around along with the stress?
Unhealthy answers to stress can reflect poor coping skills on our part. Instead of looking at the situation we turn away and seek comfort and shelter from the stress in other ways. Here are a few you might be familiar with:
- Smoking
- Overeating or eating too little
- Procrastination
- Drinking
- Taking medications to deal with the stress
- Worrying
- Sleeping for long periods of time
We all can recognize one or two that we’ve done in the past or are doing right now. The simple fact is that unhealthy coping skills can make matters worse. Not only are you being broken down on a physical and emotional level by the stress, your coping mechanism is adding to the problem by making you unhealthier still.
What can you do?
It’s time to find new ways to deal with your stress. If someone you know, love and trust points out that you have changed and lists one of these habits as the change, it’s time to deal with the stress another way.
- Avoid people causing you stress – If the stressor is a person, spend as little time around them as you can. If it is a family member living in your house, get counseling from a trusted source to deal with the real issue behind the stress.
- Cut your workload – Work is a major stressor for some people especially in light of economic problems. Talk to your boss about your feelings. Maybe they can assign someone to work with you to cut the work in half.
- Delegate responsibility at home – After a hard day at work, you don’t want to come home to a mess. Kids can help out around the house to lighten the load.
Unhealthy responses to stress only make the situation worse. Start with these stress management tips to get things under control.