Stress management - Definition and Overview

Stress management encompasses techniques intended to equip a person with effective coping mechanisms for dealing with psychological stress.

Definition of stress: Stress management defines stress precisely as a person's physiological response to an external stimulus that triggers the "fight-or-flight" reaction. ( Also see General adaptation syndrome)

Causes of stress: Many things can trigger the stress reaction, including danger, threat, news, illness, as well as significant changes in one's life such as the death of a loved one.

Techniques of stress management include:

• self-understanding (e.g. self-identification as a Type A or as a Type B personality)
• self-management (e.g. becoming better-organized)
• conflict resolution
• positive attitude
• self-talk
• Autogenic training
• breathing
• meditation
• exercise
• diet
• rest

Some techniques of time management may help a person to control stress. For example:

• becoming more organized and reducing the generation of clutter
• setting priorities can help reduce anxiety
• using a "to do" list of tasks that a person needs to complete can give a person a sense of control and accomplishment

Effective stress management involves learning to set limits and to say "No" to some demands that others make.

Also see

• hypertension
• yoga
• biofeedback
• massage
• T'ai Chi Ch'uan