How to Break Down Your Stress to Get Rid of It

When most of us are stressed, it is for a reason. We are stressed for instance because of our work, because of a deadline or because of debt. Knowing what is causing the stress helps us to at least contextualize it and gives us hope that someday we might escape its clutches, but for many of us that is not enough. 

But if you break that stress down further and if you really get to know it, then you might just find that it starts to come apart and that it becomes much more manageable.

Make Your Stress Smaller

The trick is to break down your stress into specific things – into manageable chunks that you can deal with – and then to deal with the constituent parts.

So let’s take a look at one of the biggest culprits: work. If your main stressor is work, then chances are that you can break this down further to identify precisely what it is about work that stresses you out. Here are some examples of aspects of our jobs that make us stressed:

• Looming deadlines
• Angry bosses
• Unpleasant colleagues
• Uncomfortable workspaces
• Busy, long commutes
• Things you would rather be doing
• Wearing work clothes
• Making calls
• Speaking in public
• Having too much to do

All these things can make us feel stressed about our jobs and most likely there are a number of these things playing on your mind. 

But now you’ve broken it all down and you know the specifics, you should find it becomes much easier to start dealing with the problems individually.

So for instance: if you have a colleague you don’t like, you could ask to be moved to another part of the office. Likewise, if your workspace is uncomfortable, you could speak to HR about getting a new chair, or you could put a plant on your desk. Don’t like the long commute? How about looking into a lift share, or finding an alternative route. Workload too big? Then again, speak to someone and ask to have it shared!

Likewise, you might find that other ‘big’ stresses in your life can be made easier when you break them down into their smaller constituents. Stressed about debt? Then perhaps one aspect of that is not being able to afford things – in which case writing a budget could help. Another aspect could be worrying about your credit score, in which case you could talk to your bank manager or a debt advisor.