What are the main methods of stress management?

I have been doing stress management intervention in corporate EAP for 6 years, and have come into contact with nearly a thousand high-pressure practitioners from the Internet, manufacturing, and design institutes. To be honest, there is no unified standard answer for truly practical stress management. The core is to follow the stress response chain-either to quickly recover when emotions arise, or to dismantle the source of stress to reduce stimulation. Most of the "universal stress relief methods" that are touted online are useless.

Last week I met a young girl who works in content operations. Her boss criticized the logic of her plan in front of more than 20 people at a department meeting. When she left the meeting room, her face was flushed and her fingertips were shaking. There were only 8 minutes left before the next cross-department matchmaking meeting. You can't go into a quarrel with a full stomach of grievances. She used the little method we taught her before. She squeezed the iced American she had just bought three times, stared at the condensed water droplets on the wall of the cup and counted the locations of the three drops. She then brought her wrist to her wrist and smelled the citrus hand cream she applied twice. In less than a minute, her breathing stabilized, and the matchmaking session was not affected. In fact, this kind of instant adjustment method has no profound theory at all. In essence, it pulls your attention away from the catastrophic association of "Am I going to lose my job?" and returns to the real senses of the moment. Don't let your emotions ferment along with your thoughts. Some people are used to carrying luck beads that they have worn for several years in their pockets. Some people like to go to the corridor and blow the wind against the trees for 30 seconds. Some people even carry a pack of mints in their pockets all year round. They can hold one in their pockets when they are stressed. As long as it can pull you out of the emotional whirlpool, it is all useful.

But having said that, instant adjustment is an emergency patch after all. If the source of stress is always there, squeezing iced Coke and sucking mints every day will only cure the symptoms but not the root cause. There is a lot of quarrel about this matter on the Internet right now. One group says, "If you are stressed, quit your job and lie down. Don't trade your health for money." The other group says, "Who is not stressed in the adult world? It's so pretentious." In fact, both views are too extreme. I once dealt with a boy who was doing structural design. He rushed to bid for the project for three consecutive months. He stayed up until 2 or 3 o'clock every day, and had to help his old colleagues correct pictures that did not belong to him. He suffered from insomnia and hair loss every day. At first, he listened to the advice on the Internet and stayed at home. As a result, he became even more anxious after lying there for half a month. When he opened his eyes, he was worried that his social security would be cut off, and that there would be mistakes in the projects he had followed up on. The more he lay there, the more panicked he became. Later, when I accompanied him to sort out the things that were pressing on him, I discovered that his pressure was not at all about "designing" itself, but because he could not afford to refuse the chores that others offered him. Instead, he was squeezed out of his core tasks and had to stay up late to do them. Later, he found a smaller design company. On the first day he joined the company, he made clear his boundaries and directly pushed forward any work that was not within his scope of responsibility. Within a month, he slept back to 7 hours, and he was no longer as anxious as before. You see, the adjustment of the root cause of stress is never a black-and-white choice, either to carry it to death or to throw it all away. Instead, it is to spread out the pile of things that are weighing you down and break them up to see which ones can be pushed out by adjusting the boundaries, which ones are unnecessary psychological burdens you have added, and which ones can be climbed to the next level even if you grit your teeth and carry them through. Once you understand them clearly, most of the stress will naturally be relieved.

It’s interesting to say that pressure is like sand in your hand. The more you are afraid of leaking, the tighter you hold it, and the faster it leaks. Instead, relax a little and know which grains you must hold in your hand. It’s not a pity for which grains to leak. Instead, you can keep the core ones. We have been doing intervention for so long, and the most common misunderstanding we encounter is that people always want to find a way to relieve stress once and for all. Learn meditation today, practice yoga tomorrow, and give up after practicing it twice if it is useless. In fact, it is completely unnecessary. Even if you go for a run downstairs when you are stressed, have a hot pot with friends, or even stay at home and watch mindless TV dramas for a long time, as long as it can bring you back to your state, it is the most suitable method for you. Of course, if you have been suffering from insomnia, unable to eat, and have no interest in the things you liked before for a week or two, don’t force yourself to adjust. See a professional psychological counselor or go to the clinical psychology department of the hospital. This is the same as taking medicine for a cold or fever, and there is nothing shameful about it.