Stress and Grief 12 Ways to Deal with Stress
Stress and grief often go hand in hand. When you suffer a loss or are in grief there is so much to deal, both emotionally and physically. All of the burden is overwhelming. One day you are dealing with everything, and the next thing is your in tears over something minor like dropping a glass of milk. It seems like you just can’t handle anything.
Grieving a loss or life changing event takes a toll. And when stress piles up it can feel as if it’s all too much to handle. In fact you can get so overwhelmed that you end up doing nothing.
Stress Grief and Addiction
Or in worse cases, you start trying to deal with the stress by using alcohol, food, or other unhealthy coping mechanisms. In times of loss it is important to find ways to manage your stress and grief.
12 Ways to Manage Stress in Grief and Loss
Dealing with stress head on is always best. To help you begin we put together 12 ways to deal with stress. Pick one or two stress reliever that is best suited for you.
Guided Meditation aka Visualization
By using visualization or other forms of meditation, it can help relieve the pressure of stress building up. You don’t have to be an expert to get started with meditation, either. Use self-help books, online tutorials, guided imagery podcasts to calm your busy mind in times of grief.
Meditation takes your mind out of the middle of the stress and allows you to focus your thoughts. Guided meditation is a healthy way to distract your mind and give it a much needed break from the stress of grieving.
This practice can be done anywhere at any time and it doesn’t take long to reap the benefits of using meditation to deal with stress. Your mind and body will align and relax while using meditation.
It helps you let go of the negativity brought on by stress and instead keep your mind set on what’s good, what’s peaceful and what’s helpful to you. Meditation gives you a coping skill that helps you eliminate the effects of the flight or fight response that occurs when you’re under stress from grief, loss or other overwhelming factors.
In addition to calming a grieving mind you’ll be able to lower your blood pressure and feel the weight of your stressors lift from your shoulders.
Know Your Stressors
Sometimes people aren’t prepared for handling stress. Especially stress that comes with loss, grief and grieving. Grief comes with many unknowns, and it is a time to be patient while learning what triggers extra stress. By understanding what causes you stress, you can manage and eliminate it.
Fear and anxiety contribute to extreme stress. The type of stress you feel when you suffer a life changing loss. Grief is a time when you may begin to question everything, and you fear what the future will bring. Grief is confusing and full of overwhelm.
Questions like, what if you are not able to pay your bills, what if your what if you get sick, and how will you manage.. are all realistic questions. But when you are stuck in overwhelm it is not possible to move forward. Slow down and breathe, and take thing one day at a time may be the best approach right now.
It’s anything that shakes up how you routinely live your life. Whenever you not feeling well or you’re dealing with a chronic health problem, it can cause stress.
You feel the stress more when the health issue gets in the way of you being able to handle your day to day activities or your job. Job performance, both good and bad, can be a stressor.
You can feel pulled in two directions and feel like your life isn’t balanced. This can cause you to feel stressed that you’re not able to do your best at work or at home because your time is being stretched too thin.
Track What Triggers Your Stress
You can’t fight what you can’t see coming. But when you write down what you’re going to be handling that day, it helps you deal with stress. It does this because you’ll be identifying all the situations for that day and what the potential stressors are going to be.
Identify what it is about the situation (or the person) that’s going to be in your day that’s causing you to feel the stress. For example, if you have to attend your child’s school for an event and the ex you don’t get along with is going to be there, you should know ahead of time how to handle the negative emotions that will rise up.
Maybe you can strategize a way to minimize interaction, too. Know ahead of time that when you feel the anger, you’ll practice meditation deep breathing exercises – because this can help you keep the situation and yourself calm.
Discover the Power of No
One common cause of stress is being too busy or busying yourself as a distraction. Know your limitations and know it’s okay to say no. When you suffer a loss and in grief your stress levels are already sky high. This is a time to take some time for you and reserve some much needed energy.
Most people refrain from saying no out of fear that they’ll appear selfish. But saying no is essential in this taxing time. Failing to take some time for yourself will further lower your body’s immune system defenses. Learning to say no can free you from the guilt that comes along with saying yes
Get Enough Sleep
Grief, loss and worry can wreak havoc on your sleep routine. When you don’t get enough sleep, it can cause a delayed reaction to grief and healing. It also causes memory problems, weight gain, and can lead to serious health issues.
In addition, a lack of sleep can add to your grief and affect your decision making abilities at an already difficult time.
This happens when you get tired and you end up not really wanting to deal with whatever you’re trying to handle. So you end up saying no to good opportunities and yes to bad ones.
The lack of sleep can cause a cycle. When you don’t get enough rest, it causes stress, which in turn causes insomnia. With each feeding into the other, it can make your stress level increase and reach the point where you find it difficult to deal with even minor problems.
Stop Avoiding Problems
This is not an easy one. In times of grief and loss it is understandable you might want to find ways to avoid your painful problems. It may be easier to believe that it’s better not to deal with the grief and other issues that’s causing you stress. It’s natural that we do whatever we can to protect our self. But avoiding our grief can prolong healing in grief
Lower Your Expectations
One of the reasons that people have stress is because their expectations are out of whack. They have high expectations for other people and for themselves. So when things don’t work out as they expected, they feel not only disappointed, but there is additional stress.
You can tell if your expectations are causing you stress if you think that your life wasn’t supposed to turn out the way that it has – or if you think your partner wasn’t supposed to behave the way he or she did.
Relief from stress is found when you have realistic expectations for yourself and for the others in your life as well.
Learn to accept yourself for who you are, and others for who they are. When you consider your life, rather than feeling stressed for what hasn’t worked out, focus on the good that has. Stop putting the pressure and stress on yourself to do more or to be more.
Find a Hobby You Enjoy
When you find something you like doing, it acts as a stress reliever. Hobbies give you an outlet. A hobby can be a way for you to release anxiety and all the pent up emotions that go along with dealing with stress.
Music
You can get involved in music such as finding new songs or new bands. You can check out the local music scene where you live and attend free music festivals or shows for singers and bands just getting started.
Painting
Painting and other creative things such as sketching or coloring can be a hobby that works as a stress outlet.
Journaling
There’s also journaling. You don’t have to be good at writing to journal.
It’s just putting words down that are talking about how you’re feeling or what’s gone on during your day.
Gardening
Some people get into gardening. You can do vegetable and fruit or flowering gardening. If you have a small space create a vertical garden to berries and herbs.
Keep Your Hands Busy
Knitting or crocheting are good hobbies that can help you deal with stress when your grieving. When mind is busy with a hobby there it will give you mind a much needed rest from all of the stress.
Learn a New Language
Another way to keep your mind busy is by learning a new skill such as a second language. Or you can learn how to play an instrument.
Volunteer
Getting involved in community theater or take acting classes is a way to get social while relieving stress and taking your mind off grief if only for a while.
Create a To-Do List
You might wonder why creating a to-do list can help you manage stress. The answer is because when stress hits, you feel like everything is going wrong. You feel like nothing is within your ability to cope.
This feeling of being out of control can increase your stress level. Sometimes stress develops because people feel like they have so much to do or to overcome that it causes action paralysis, which then worsens stress.
By creating a to-do list, it helps to prioritize the important things. This way you can focus on getting one thing at a time, rather than focusing on its entirety.
When you have a step-by- step to-do list it allows you to feel like you’re in control. This works well even if you don’t necessarily have a lot on your plate to handle. A physical list takes the pressure off your mental checklist.
Find Your Support System
One of the worst things about stress is when you try to keep it all inside. When your job isn’t working out well, your partner isn’t being helpful, and your kids are constantly pushing your buttons, you need a way to come to terms with the stress that you’re feeling.
If you don’t let it out, the stress pressure builds. You need to have someone to talk to about what you’re going through. This someone may not be able to do anything to change your situation.
But by simply being there to listen, it relieves you of the buildup you’re feeling. Talking through what’s happening with you and what’s causing your stress makes you feel better even if the situation is still present.
Your support can be a trusted friend, a relative, a romantic partner or a trained counselor. Sharing how you’re feeling relieves the emotional toll such as anxiety and depression that are often linked to stress.
Create a Strategy for Coping With Stress and Grief
Every single bit of stress in your life can be traced back to a trigger. It’s always cause and effect. Something happens and there’s a mental, emotional or physical reaction.
For example, your boss gives you a better position. You make more money. Now you’re are feeling stress. Not because you got the position that you wanted, but because there are more responsibilities.
It might be more time away from home. You might feel worried that you’re not up to par.
What you have to do when stress hits is trace backward to get to the root of your stress. When you find that, you can create a strategy to eliminate the stress.
If you take the new position at work, have a plan to enlist more help at home or hire outside help. If you’re worried you’re not knowledgeable enough about the new position, ask for help such as more training or take a course. Your strategy should make you proactive and show you what you need to do to help you deal with your stress.
Let Go
You must reach the place where you realize that despite how hard you try, there are some things you just can’t solve. By wasting time worrying and trying to find a fix for the unfixable, you’re just creating stress.
You can’t force a loved one not to break up with you. Nor can’t order every event in your life to be as you wish it to be. We have less control over life than we think. This is especially true when it comes to loss. Grief brings guilt, shame and a whole lot of emotions. Deep down you known that you can not fix these feelings but it is often hard to let go.
At some point it is helpful to give yourself permission to let go, and to know that it is not possible for anyone to have the power to control life.
Concluding Stress and Grief
At some time in life we will all experience grief, and the stress that comes with it. Since most people are not exempt, and life will be tough at times the best we can do is to long to cope in the best way we can. Ignoring stress can turn into chronic stress which will quickly take over your life.
Take a few of the above ways to cope with grief and stress and integrate them into your life. Take the time you need to heal, eat well, rest and take good care of yourself in this difficult time.
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