What are the three strategies for stress management?

Currently, stress management strategies that have been widely proven to be effective in the fields of clinical psychology and workplace effectiveness are mainly divided into three categories: problem orientation, emotion orientation, and meaning reconstruction.

Let’s talk about the easiest problem-oriented strategy first. Its essence is to solve the specific events that create stress from the root cause. It is suitable for scenarios where the source of stress is clear and there is an operable solution path. For example, you have three needs to be delivered, and the schedule has already hit next week. The partner you are connecting to is still pushing for progress every day. The more you lie down and worry, the more internal pressure you will feel. Why not hold a 15-minute meeting to synchronize the current progress points with the leader, apply for a 3-day extension of the delivery time of non-core needs, and then break down the big tasks at hand into small nodes calculated by the hour. After completing each one, cross out each one. After a while, you will find that most of your tight chest has relaxed. Many people have misunderstandings about this strategy. They think that it means forcing yourself to solve problems, or even forcing yourself to work continuously to solve problems. In fact, taking the initiative to "reduce" your own stress sources can also be counted. For example, rejecting additional demands that do not fall within your scope of responsibilities and clarifying the boundaries of communication with partners are essentially all about reducing the source of stress at the source.

Of course, not all stress can be directly traced to its source. After all, life is likely to be unsatisfactory. If you encounter a hard nut that you can't chew for the time being, you have to change your mind and use emotion-oriented strategies. For example, a bug suddenly occurs the day before the project goes online. The whole team stayed up until three in the morning and still couldn't find the problem. You stare at the screen and your mind can no longer move, and your chest is so tight that you are panicking. If you force yourself to carry on at this time, you will easily make low-level mistakes. It is better to stand up and go to the corridor to blow the wind for 5 minutes, do a few sets of 478 breathing, or complain to the colleagues next to you about the bad situation at the moment. It will be more efficient to come back to deal with the problem after the emotional peak has passed. Some people also think that emotional orientation is "avoiding problems" and is a useless self-comfort. In fact, brain science research has long confirmed that when a person's anxiety level exceeds a critical value, logical thinking ability will drop by nearly half. If you first bring your emotions back to a stable range, you can solve problems more efficiently.

If you encounter something bad that cannot be changed at all in the short term, or is even a foregone conclusion, the effect of the first two methods will be compromised. At this time, it is the third meaning reconstruction strategy's turn to come into play. To put it bluntly, it means reinterpreting the meaning of stressful events from a different perspective. It does not allow you to forcefully make up for bad things, but helps you jump out of the current negative emotions and see other aspects of the event. I used to have a friend who worked in teaching and training. When the industry adjusted in 2021, the entire department was laid off. When she just got the resignation notice, she lay at home for a week. She felt that the sky was falling when she suddenly lost her job at the age of 30. Later, she looked through her previous circle of friends and saw that she liked to study outfits and makeup when she had nothing to do before, and she often When a friend asked for a link, she took the compensation and opened a fashion account. Now that she has been doing it for more than two years, her number of followers has already exceeded 100,000, and her income is more than three times that of when she was a teacher and trainer. Now she talks about the layoffs at that time, and joked that if she hadn't been laid off, she might not have dared to step out of her comfort zone and do what she liked. Of course, many people criticize this strategy as a "spiritual victory method" and feel that they are deceiving themselves. However, follow-up research in the field of positive psychology has long shown that the way you attribute stressful events is the core factor that determines whether stress will turn into chronic anxiety. If you always squat in the shadows and watch events, of course you can only see the dark side. If you take two steps back and change the angle, you may be able to find the part that can be used by you.

In actual use, it is not necessary to separate the three types of strategies so clearly. Many times when we deal with stress, we use them subconsciously and mix them up. When we encounter things that go smoothly in advance, we can solve them if we can. If we can’t solve them, we can look at them from another angle and find the rhythm that suits us best.