Stress is a state of unease or mental tension that can arise when demands upon oneself are excessive. An external stimulus, or stressor, puts pressure upon you, threatening your ability to cope. You may be swamped with work, reside in a toxic home, or be dealing with any other challenging situation. Even seemingly minor stressors can cause significant stress if they are numerous or long-lasting.

Internal psychological stressors arise when we think about something unrelated to an external stressor and begin to feel stressed as a result. However, the stress arising from internal stressors is more aptly considered to be anxiety. Physiological stressors (e.g., hunger, fatigue) can affect your physical health and cause physical and mental stress. Some of the methods presented here can help you cope with physiological stressors, but the guide’s focus is on psychological stress from external (life) stressors.

Stress may be acute or chronic. With chronic stress, long-term stressors negatively affect your well-being but usually not to the point of causing you severe distress. Acute stress entails a strong stressor(s) that has created so much distress in the short-term that you feel overwhelmed.

This guide to stress management describes mental and behavioral strategies that can help you keep your stress levels to a minimum. Herbal and medical management of stress is the same as with anxiety. Traumatic stress management is covered in the Trauma guide. Reducing exposure to stressors is not covered because it is highly context-dependant and is not always feasible.

Stress Response

The stress response is a physiological-mental-behavioral process that begins in the amygdala. This small brain structure senses a threat and sends a signal to the hypothalamus. The threat could be a thought or information from the senses. The hypothalamus then signals the adrenal glands to secrete epinephrine, initiating a sympathetic nervous system response.¹ Blood pressure, respiratory rate, and heart rate increase. One begins to feel alert and threatened.

Soon the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis is activated. Adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH) and corticotropin-releasing hormone (CRH) are secreted, causing you to feel distressed mentally and physically.¹

Physical Health Effects

Psychological stress adversely affects every bodily system. Your nervous system can be affected, resulting in mood or cognitive problems. The immune system is easily compromised, leaving you prone to slow healing and infections of all kinds. Stress can harm your GI system, increasing your risk for irritable bowel syndrome and a host of other GI complications.²

You may not be able to eliminate the stressors themselves, but you may be able to deconstruct them to make them seem smaller.

Atherosclerosis and other cardiovascular issues can also result from stress.³ The musculoskeletal system becomes vulnerable to low back pain, tension headaches, and joint disorders among other problems. Virtually any health issue can be caused or exacerbated by stress.²

Stress Management

There are many ways to minimize stress. Some ways are obvious. Others, not so much. Cognitive strategies can go a long way to reducing your burden of stress. For instance, if you tell yourself that you have total control of your stressful situation (even if you actually have little control), you may feel less stressed.

Behavioral, or lifestyle, strategies can also significantly lower stress. Spending more time exercising or doing relaxing hobbies are two ways of pushing down your stress level for days afterwards.

Practices of directly lowering stress are described in Relaxation Methods. They work to both reduce stress immediately and to keep you in a more relaxed state throughout your day.

Results from a stress-reduction method could be instant, but full effects often take over a month. It could be weeks before you notice a significant difference, in fact. How we feel depends on the neural pathways in our brains. If stress has been an issue for you for some time, you probably have strong pathways developed. It can take some time and effort to replace those destructive stress-inducing pathways with more peaceful ones, but it’s worth it.⁴

Of course, almost all methods of stress reduction are inherently pleasant (e.g., yoga, acceptance). The problem is often that the most stressed individuals are the proudest and least willing to engage in self-care.

Then there is the paradox of hard work: it is irresponsible to be too responsible. Neglecting to look at your stressful situations in a constructive light, practice relaxation methods when warranted, or make time for hobbies and fitness doesn’t make you are responsible, it makes you irresponsible for neglecting your mental and physical health!

How you think about your stressors and yourself are major factors of stress. Since stress results from demands exceeding abilities, mentally minimizing demands or maximizing your abilities to perform and cope have the potential to lower stress. Detaching yourself from stressful situations can also be effective.

Stress often stems from performance-related demands. You have too much to do at work and too little time to do it. You are not sure if you will even be able to find the answers to your homework questions. You have tried everything to get rid of bed bugs in your apartment to no avail.

You may not be able to eliminate the stressors themselves, but you may be able to deconstruct them to make them seem smaller. If you have multiple things to do, try to only think about the task you are working on at the moment. Even if you are multi-tasking, at any given moment you are almost certainly working on only one thing. Thinking about all the things that you want to complete is an invitation for stress. You can only do one thing at any given moment, so why bother thinking about anything else?

Individual tasks can also be deconstructed to reduce stress. If you are a mechanic working on a multi-hour job on a car, it is understandable to feel stressed with such a big job to do. Instead of thinking about the entire job ahead of you, keep your mind firmly on the current step. If you still feel stressed, perhaps you can further divide each step into smaller steps.

When you think about one task and one short step at a time, you are less likely to feel overwhelmed and stressed. This is easier said than done, but it is a mindfulness skill that can improve with time.

Downplaying the consequences of stressors can help reduce stress. One way this can be done is by telling yourself that the outcomes of the stressful situation are not that important. That would reduce stress by reducing the perceived demands upon yourself.

This does not mean that the outcomes are not actually important or that you shouldn’t try to perform your best. You may have something very important stressing you out with real consequences for poor performance. It is a balancing act to mentally downplay the stakes without sacrificing the quality of your work.

Distress develops not only from things being unlikeable but from wanting things to be different.

Downplaying the effort required for your stressor can also pay dividends. By telling yourself that you can easily accomplish your tasks (even though they may actually be difficult), you could potentially reduce stress by lowering the perceived difficulty level of the demands on yourself.

Your mind will likely fight you when you downplay stressors’ consequences or challenges while continuing to demand that it put in a high degree of effort. While this strategy won’t solve all of your stressful problems, if you’re able to do the juggling act, it can definitely make a difference.

Stressors usually have upsides because they wouldn’t be tolerated if they didn’t. A difficult relationship is probably happy sometimes. A stressful job may have some positives like good benefits or being interesting at least some of the time.

Make a list of the pros of each of your stressors and remind yourself of them when you feel stressed. For many stressors, reminding yourself of one or more benefits can be enough to lower stress. It tells your brain, “Yes this feels stressful, but it is not really a threat because it benefits me.” Regularly calling to attention the benefits of your stressors allows your brain to perceive them less as threats and more as strengths. In turn, your amygdala activity should be lower, and you will feel more relaxed.

Research has shown that having greater perceived control over your circumstances is associated with lower levels of stress.^5,6,7 This aligns with our understanding of stress because the more control one feels, the greater the perceived ability to handle demands.

Start by acknowledging that there are aspects of your stressful situation that you can control. If you have to contend with rush hour traffic, for instance, remind yourself that you can control how you drive. Even something trivial like adjusting the radio and recognizing that you can find good music can give you some sense of control.

If you are troubleshooting computer problems, it can be easy to feel like the computer bug holds all the cards. But you could control that you methodically follow troubleshooting steps, backup files to be on the safe side, and warn other users that could be affected. By concentrating on those aspects, you may not get as stressed.

Why not take this concept one step further? Besides focusing on aspects of your stressors that are under your control, tell yourself that you have a greater ability to handle the stressors. Be the overconfident Tom Cruise character in your head that always feels like I got this. Without becoming reckless in your tasks, tell yourself that the situation is easy for you and that you will perform excellently. Even if you actually have little control or competence in your situation, by playing someone in your head who does have high control and competence, you may be able to turn down the stress dial.

Acceptance is invaluable to mental health. When you stop emotionally reacting to things that you have no control over, you can expect to have more peace in your life. Distress develops not only from things being unlikeable but from wanting things to be different. It an inner conflict brought about by wishing that a situation or something about yourself was different and not being able to correct it.

Acceptance doesn’t mean to submit in any way or ‘learn to like’ bad things. It means to stop mentally resisting things that you can’t change. For instance, you may hate that you are given bad jobs to do by your boss. Rather than letting it bother you, you could acknowledge that you have no control over the tasks assigned. That should lower the tension for things to be different and bring down your stress and anxiety. You don’t need to actually like the begrudging deeds. You just need to accept that you have to do them, so there is no point letting it emotionally affect you.

A cornerstone of Eastern spirituality that hasn’t yet entered mainstream Western psychology is the concept of detachment. To be detached is to take the position of an observer in your own life. You witness what goes on around you and inside you, you don’t experience it. Positive things are beneficial to experience, of course. But negative situations, feelings, and thoughts are best experienced from a mental distance.

If you have aggressive family members, try to take a detached stance when around them. If work is stressing you out, keep working just as hard but under the mindset that you are just watching and not doing. When you are detached, you feel less stress because you are not emotional invested in the difficult situation.

Detachment can also be applied to oneself. If you experience stress or another negative emotion, it will feel more superficial from a detached observer’s standpoint. Negative feelings about oneself can contribute to stress. Detaching yourself from those unhelpful feelings can reduce your stress. Just telling yourself This is so stressful, or I am ruminating over my finances, etc., can help you see that your bad feelings and thoughts as separate from you.

Some researchers have recognized a triad of characteristics in resilient people: being open to a challenge, having a sense of control, and being committed to your job or other things in your life.

Detachment takes practice. It probably won’t work in the beginning. But if you make it a habit, this ancient mental trick can keep your stress levels low.

Generally, the more predictable a situation, the less stress it creates.⁸ Therefore, you could be able to weaken your stressors if you reduce their ambiguity. For instance, you may not have a clear process to follow at work or clear objectives. If you let your boss know that you want to be a better worker but need clearer guidance to do so, she may comply. You may recall the stress you’ve experienced as a student when given a vague assignment. It’s not easy dealing with teachers, but if you do complain there is a chance that your teacher will make the instructions clearer.

You probably have no direct control over the ambiguity of your stressors, but if you’re willing to take one for the team and stand up to your boss or instructor, you could be saving yourself and many others a great deal of stress.

Research on individuals resilient to stress has uncovered a number of helpful personal qualities.⁹ Some researchers have recognized a triad of characteristics in resilient people: being open to a challenge, having a sense of control, and being committed to your job or other things in your life.

Often collectively referred to as hardiness, these three ‘C’ traits have repeatedly been identified in studies on resilience to stress.^10,11 Thus, rather than just tolerating your stressors, a more assertive approach of jumping on the challenge and being committed to success could put you in the best position to deal with them.

Resilience studies have also pointed out that stress is generally lower when a wider range of coping strategies are used.^6,12 Perhaps then, using only one or two stress-relieving methods may not be enough to maximize your chance of success.

Maintaining spiritual values or a spiritual life of some sort could help you deal with stress. In a study of 1,126 undergraduate students, spirituality was associated with increased resilience. The researchers even gave spirituality its own category, “the catalysing factor of resilience” because it improved other qualities associated with resilience (e.g., perceived control, perceived competence, and adaptability) in addition to directly improving emotional coping.⁶

Spirituality isn’t only for those in organized religion. You can take advantage of the mental health benefits of spirituality without surrendering your autonomy. Develop a personal spirituality by forming your own beliefs and embracing the mystery of existence.

It’s easy to let stressors take over your life. Thinking about them compulsively is very common.

Keep your stressors in a box where they belong. If you don’t need to think about them at a given time, you are probably better off not thinking about them. Give your mind positive things to focus on—your family, your interests, personal development, an upcoming vacation, even positive aspects of your stressors (e.g., flexible hours at your job).

Taking frequent breaks of 3 to 60 seconds can put the brakes on the slide into stress that occurs as you work.

Mantras and affirmations can be useful to direct your mind away from troublesome subjects. The human mind gravitates towards the negative by nature, so giving your mind frequent nudges towards the positive (e.g., mentally recite “om,” or repeat “I am calm”) can be a necessity. Spending your free time on hobbies that capture your full attention is also important to keep your mind from dwelling on your stressors.

If you are not sure why you feel stressed, parts work could help you identify the root cause. Parts work involves identifying the ‘people’ or ‘parts’ inside yourself that are in pain, listening to them, and hopefully satisfying their needs so that they no longer hurt. It often entails looking into your past, including your childhood.

Ask yourself what part of you feels stressed and why. It could be that there is a disgruntled or hurt person within you that will keep making you feel stressed until he gets what he wants. He may just want to be heard, understood, and regularly remembered. Or he may require that you change your attitude or lifestyle to meet his needs.

A shift in perspective can make a big difference to your well-being when you have considerable stress in your life. The demands upon you may not be changeable, but the perceived demands and your perceived ability to deal with them could be.

A number of activities can help you deal with stress. Regular exercise and socialization are essential. Giving sufficient time to your hobbies is equally important. Taking breaks from working, if only for a few seconds at a time, is easy and can keep you from sliding into a stressed state.

It is common sense that taking breaks from a stressful activity lowers stress. But did you know that even breaks of a few seconds can lower your stress?

The nature of stress is that it typically grows gradually, rather than coming upon you suddenly. Of course, stress or panic can arise instantly if you have a bad experience or receive bad news. But most of the time, stress gradually creeps up upon us as we toil away and slowly fades away once the work stops. Taking frequent breaks of 3 to 60 seconds can put the brakes on the slide into stress that occurs as you work. Breaks make brakes!

One study had participants perform “self-compassionate touch” 20 seconds daily. Stress levels in those who didn’t miss more than 2 days were much lower than in the control group after one month.¹³ Another trial found that watching a short, funny video relieved stress better than listening to music or watching a clip from a documentary.¹⁴

Micro breaks can take many forms. They can be purely passive—just take your mind off your work for a few seconds while you think or do whatever you feel like. Deep breathing and stretching make excellent micro breaks. Grounding using your senses, such as looking at objects around you or flexing and relaxing your muscles, is a great way to relax and get out of your head. Watching a one-minute video of cute animals is never a bad choice.

Some researchers consider mind-body exercise, such as yoga or qigong, to be the ideal type of exercise for stress management.

Active breaks like stretching or breathing often reduce stress more efficiently than simply staring. A Stanford University study found that 5 minutes of breathwork per day (particularly cyclic sighing) lowered stress more than a meditation control group.¹⁶

Experiment with different types of breaks to see what works best for you. If you’re an office worker, neck and leg stretches are relaxing and benefit your physical health. For physical labor, putting up your feet and taking some deep breaths could be the best way for you to recover physically and mentally.

Exercise of any intensity is associated with lower levels of psychological stress.^17,18 Walking, yoga, cardio, and weightlifting are some forms of exercise that can help you deal with stress.

Many reasons have been proposed to explain how exercise reduces stress.^19,20,21 Exercise:

• increases mental toughness and reduces stress vulnerability
• diminishes negative emotions and fulfills personal needs
• confers independence and competence
• elevates brain-derived neurotrophic factor which improves neuroplasticity and neurogenesis
• reduces brain inflammation and oxidative stress
• optimizes neuroendocrine and physiological responses such as the HPA axis
• strengthens your immune system
• increases inactivation of cortisol into cortisone
• raises serotonin
• increases anandamide (an endocannabinoid that improves mood)

Some researchers consider mind-body exercise, such as yoga or qigong, to be the ideal type of exercise for stress management.²² Reasons offered include suppression of neuroinflammation; better coordination and agility; improved brain connectivity; and structural improvements in cerebrovascular systems, neuronal networks, and synaptic plasticity.¹⁸ This category has performed especially well in trials on stress.^21,23

Physical activity won’t necessarily affect your stress level unless it is regular and long-term.^24,25 A study of college students found that a 6-week aerobic exercise program lowered their levels of stress.²⁶ A 2022 systematic review examined clinical trials of exercise for stress reduction in people over 50. It recommended a minimum of 3 months of exercise.²² Other papers have found that the cortisol benefits of exercise stabilize after 12 weeks.²¹

It can be quite difficult to begin an exercise regimen if you have been sedentary for a long time. Look for activities that are convenient and enjoyable for you. The most important thing is sticking with it! 10 minutes per session twice a week is a good place to start. Remember that if you feel out of breath, you are pushing too hard.

Participation in hobbies and leisure tends to lower stress.^27,28,29,30 The processes through which that occurs are many. One paper identified over 600 possible mechanisms of action for how leisure reduces stress!³¹ It does not matter whether or not you have any hobbies at the moment. Regardless of your interests, income, and abilities, you can start a new hobby at any age.

A range of hobbies for different situations is ideal: a set of hobbies that you can do anytime for free at home alone. Another hobby or hobbies that you do at least once a month face-to-face in a group. Annual or semi-annual activities like a road trip or attending a festival for giving you a major, if somewhat costly, wellness boost. Hobbies for when you’re happy/sad, energetic/tired, have a few minutes to spare or a several hours, etc.

No single activity or type of activity has clearly outperformed others. Stress reduction through leisure does not mean doing anything you feel like that doesn’t involve a responsibility of yours. The best activities aren’t necessarily those requiring the least motivation but ones that put you in a state that you want to be in (i.e., content, confident) and are directly rewarding.

Indirectly rewarding pastimes are often those intended to meet social/familial expectations or appeal to one’s pride or self-image. They are not expected to reduce stress. Keep your expectations low in the beginning. It is normal for a new activity to not become enjoyable until you learn it thoroughly and start to become good at it.

Pastimes that get you into a flow state are advantageous to include in your repertoire.³² A flow state is one in which you feel deeply engaged and immersed, time seems to go by fast (or sometimes, extra slowly), you get instant feedback, perform reasonably well, and there is a clear goal. The flow state can be induced at any level of effort but activities that are moderately challenging are often your best bet.

Leisure works both therapeutically and preventively. For instance, having fun on the weekend provides more than a brief spurt of relaxation. It also can reduce your stress during the workweek. One study found that people who had more leisure time than usual on a given day were less likely to feel stressed the next day. The effect was greater the more time spent on leisure that day and the less leisure time the individual normally had.³³

Leisure is not luxury! It is an essential element of positive mental health and stress management. Activities that foster restoration and resilience should be incorporated into both your daily and weekly schedules.

Positive social interactions with others, especially face-to-face, can be an effective way to shake off your stress.³⁴ The context of the socialization is less important than having a feeling of emotional safety and non-judgement from those around you.³⁵

Lunchroom talk in a toxic workplace is a stressor, not a stress-reliever. Putting yourself in a position of being judged by others, like meeting strangers in a bar or hanging out with your judgemental sibling, is also not expected to reliably move your stress in the desired direction.

You don’t need to talk about your stressors for social interaction to be relaxing. You often don’t need to talk at all, in fact.³⁶ If you feel comfortable with the people around you, it is not necessary to be talking all the time to receive emotional benefit. You could be playing video games or watching Netflix without talking much. Interestingly, providing emotional support to someone else can also be an excellent way to relieve your own stress.^37,38

Stress and sleep have a bi-directional relationship. Poor sleep can contribute to stress and stress often adversely affects sleep.^39,40 Adequate sleep helps you recover from stress. For example, sleep helps restore certain body processes related to stress, such as glucose changes and endocrine effects.⁴¹

Good sleep is also believed to increase resilience to stressors.⁴² The link between sleep and resilience may stem from their shared neural pathways and brain regions including the HPA axis, prefrontal cortex, and hippocampus. Amygdala overactivation from sleep disruption is another proposed mechanism for how sleep affects stress.³⁸

How well you sleep is not totally under your control. But if you are chronically stressed and have not been making sleep a priority, you may want to be more diligent in that department (e.g., go to bed and wake up at consistent times, no screens or thinking too much an hour before bed).

It is definitely good for your sleep to not think about your stressors within two hours of bedtime. When stressful thoughts arise at night, tell your mind that now is not the time and you will deal with it in the morning. Over-the-counter sleep aids can be useful for your worst nights, but frequent use can create tolerance and dependence.

Stress is one the worst banes of modern society. Our stressors aren’t going anywhere but approaching them from a different angle can minimize the mental and physical friction that they create. Practicing a relaxation method, or combination of methods, can immediately bring down your stress as well as keep your stress levels lower throughout the day. Restorative behaviors, such as relaxing leisure and frequent micro-breaks, have considerable potential to keep your stress low.

If you have significant or chronic stress, make a short plan on how to manage it. Write down a few jot notes on how to cope and, if possible, how to reduce the stressors themselves. Update your plan as you see what does and doesn’t work for you.

Stress is sticky. Expect to see gradual improvement in your stress over three months if you decide to take action. It takes time for new neural pathways to form and lower cortisol levels to stabilize. New hobbies may not be very relaxing at first. Moreover, cognitive and relaxation methods get easier and more effective with practice.

Many people need to make major changes in their lifestyle and mindset to get their stress under control. But isn’t that really a good thing? Most of the changes are enjoyable in themselves, though they can take effort in the beginning. The discovery process itself can be deeply rewarding. Make your journey to peace one of creativity and self-discovery.