How to Turn Stress into Productivity
- Hayley
- Feb 6, 2018
- 3 min read
Everyone is different, so stress affects us in different ways and at different times. When we’re stressed it can seem that we lose all focus and our brains turn to mush, but research has now shown that it doesn’t have to be that way, and that we can actually train our brains to handle stress and use it to our advantage.
The way to train your brain is through the chemical released when we feel stressed – noradrenaline. This chemical is good and bad for us, we don’t function well with too
much of it, but with a certain amount, it can increase arousal and alertness, promote vigilance, and enhance formation, but it also increases restlessness and anxiety. In essence, this chemical helps different areas of the brain communicate effectively, while also making new neural connections. This means that by finding ways to control and handle stress emotionally, it can then be a great way to boost brain function, increase creativity, and actually become happier, and less stressed and anxious. Therefore, allowing you to be productive, whether that be in your work-life, home-life, or both.
You may be thinking, “that’s all well and good, but how can I control my stress emotionally?”, well, here’s just a few ways:
Distract Yourself
Not in a way to bury your emotions completely or distracting yourself in unhealthy ways, as this can lead to more problems. More in the sense to when you’re feeling sad/stressed emotions, distract yourself with a happy emotion by for example, going out with friends or watching a good movie, just anything that you enjoy doing. Another way could be do use objects such as a stress ball, fidget spinner, or anything that keeps your brain focused on something else.
Take Time to Yourself
If distracting yourself fails, try scheduling some time a day to yourself to allow you to analyse your situation fully and think about solutions. Allow yourself to do whatever you feel the emotional urge to do. Alternatively, you could use this time to write in a journal, which can be a great way to get your emotions out onto a page and let them go, or again, do something that you enjoy such as read a book, or watch your favourite movie or television show.
Practice Mindfulness
This is also something that you could do when taking some time to yourself. Again, instead of distracting yourself from the emotional stress, immerse yourself in it. It is often said that when feeling emotional pain, physical pain can also become a factor, whether in the form of a headache, stomach ache, or a tight/heavy feeling in the chest. Allowing yourself to feel the emotional and physical pain using mindfulness can cause it to become more intense, and then lessen.
Practice Meditation
This is known to be very helpful for dealing with a variety of stressors, especially emotional, by allowing you to actively redirect your thoughts. This can actually help to eliminate emotional stress in the long term. You can also practice meditation anywhere, so it can help with work-related stress, social anxiety, and a number of other issues.
Talk to a Therapist
If you feel that your emotional stress is too much to cope with on your own and that it is affecting your day-to-day life or threatening the well-being of others, taking to a therapist is a great option for working through emotional stress/issues.
Always remember that many of the symptoms we get when we’re stressed or anxious, are the same as excitement, and studies have now shown that when people are put in stressful situations, telling yourself to calm down, can usually have the reverse effect. So when you are feeling stressed or anxious, try to reframe it as excitement instead, it has been proven that people who tend to do this perform better than people who try to calm down.
Stress effects everyone, remember you're not alone.
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