Combating stress

These days, stress (and by that I mean "negative" stress) is perceived as "the evil of the century", but there's no shortage of weapons to combat it! All you have to do is learn about them and try them out, then choose one or other and practice. To help you sort through them, here's a brief overview of the most commonly used techniques. It's up to you to choose the one(s) that suit(s) you best. 

Breathing techniques

The natural way to breathe is abdominally: gently inhale by expanding the belly and exhale by drawing it in. Like a wave that soothes and relaxes, it must be ample to circulate air rather than blocking it, and under stress it tends to accelerate and become more superficial. Controlling your breathing allows better oxygenation and reduces tension. What's more, it's an exercise that can be performed anywhere, in virtually any situation.

Relaxation techniques

Relaxation is the voluntary search for a state of release. It leads to a state somewhere between wakefulness and sleep: breathing becomes more regular, slows down and sinks to the abdominal level, the round of thoughts ceases and pleasant sensations of calm, security and well-being set in. Relaxation tackles the stress-related strains of everyday life by relaxing, one by one, every part of the body. With practice, relaxation becomes faster and deeper. After a relaxation session, the subject generally feels rested and regenerated, and is less troubled by everyday worries.

There are various relaxation techniques, most of them inspired by Schultz's "autogenic training ", based on the triad of calm - heavy - warm, a technique in which people strive to control their physiological reactions throughautosuggestion, or by Jacobson's technique, more focused on the perception and control of muscular tension through contraction-relaxation exercises. These approaches can be objectified or even facilitated by thermal, electromyographic or vasomotor " biofeedback ": connected to electronic devices that can measure skin heat, muscle tension, blood pressure or pulse. The subject can visualize the tensions present in his or her body in the form of waves, light signals or sound signals. Thanks to these technical devices, they can also immediately observe the action they exert on these automatic functions that have become conscious.

These techniques are generally taught by psychologists or psychotherapists. Once mastered, they should be practiced regularly, and used as soon as the first signs of stress or tension appear.

Assertiveness

Many people find themselves in frustrating or stressful situations because they don't dare express their desires or limits, or find it difficult to do so. For example, they expect others to respond to requests they haven't made, or complain about someone who has asked them for something when they weren't available and didn't admit it. Assertiveness techniques are designed to help these people communicate better, so that they can express their desires and limits with mutual respect, rather than passively accepting things (to their detriment) or reacting aggressively (to the other person's detriment). In this way, these people will learn to say no to a request that seems unmanageable.

Time management

When faced with an important task and a seemingly tight deadline, people often feel the tension building. Such stress can be experienced positively (some people are more efficient when under pressure) or negatively (some panic at the mere thought that they might not get the job done in time). At work, as in everyday life, we are often faced with multiple demands that overlap in terms of time. So it's important to be able to prioritize things (from the most important to the least important) and to set priorities (from the most urgent to the least urgent tasks). When demands become too great, it's best to give priority to urgent and important tasks, even if it means delegating less important tasks or delaying less urgent ones. For example, a student in the middle of a block will give priority to his or her studies and will delegate, if he or she can, activities such as housework or postpone them, unless he or she sees them as moments of relaxation! Managing your time also means anticipating the unexpected, leaving yourself room for manoeuvre and knowing how to keep time for yourself. What a program!

Cognitive restructuring Cognitive restructuring is based on the cognitive information processing model, according to which, when faced with a given situation, each individual interprets the event in a very personal way and reacts according to this interpretation. Identifying what happens in a particular subject between a specific event and the emotion it induces in that individual, helps the subject to become aware of the cognitive control he or she can exercise over his or her emotional and behavioral processes, and then to modify this control in order to react in a more adaptive way.

Cognitive restructuring takes place in the following stages:

1. The subject is invited to identify his or her automatic negative thoughts (e.g.: I'm no good, I'll never succeed, it's going to go wrong, etc.), which have become so automatic that he or she is generally no longer aware of them.

2. The individual must then try toidentify his or her "cognitive distortions", which include dichotomous reasoning (interpreting situations without nuance), maximizing the negative and minimizing the positive, arbitrary inference (drawing hasty conclusions without evidence), generalization (drawing global conclusions), personalization (taking responsibility for events not related to the individual) and selective abstraction (focusing on a detail out of context).

3. With the therapist's help, the subject will investigate the cognitive patterns underlying his or her automatic thoughts, which in a way govern his or her own reactions. These patterns represent the person's intimate beliefs and convictions - often inherited from family rules, traumas... - they impose rigid, systematic rules on a person's life, leading to reactions that can be maladaptive.

4. The individual will then be able to develop accommodation skills by learning to question his or her beliefs and modify those of his or her deepest convictions that do not correspond to reality.

Meditation In life, everything takes us outside ourselves: our senses, other people, work, etc. Meditation, on the other hand, takes us inside ourselves. Meditation, on the other hand, takes us back inside ourselves, allowing us to distance ourselves from our emotions, sensations and thoughts, and enter into what we might call a state of silence, of simply being. Meditation is in fact an awareness of the very essence of the human being. As you'd expect, reaching this state of serenity and harmony is no easy task, and requires a great deal of training. Sophrology You may hear sophrology referred to in a variety of contexts, each time assuming that they are different approaches. For the majority of users, sophrology is a relaxation technique akin to hypnosis, in that it brings the subject into a state of consciousness that could be described as "uncluttered". The subject is then able to concentrate in an exceptional way on a specific need. This could be, for example, to alleviate pain caused by medical treatment, prepare for an exam or competition, give up an addiction or reduce the effects of stress. Largely inspired by the techniques of yoga and meditation, sophrology relies mainly on mental and respiratory exercises, visualizations and certain body exercises. Many of these exercises focus on physical sensations, since bodily representation is thought to play a very important role in consciousness. In this sense, sophrology could be considered one of the so-called mind-body therapies.