Do you want to improve your ability to cope with stress?

Of course you do! The better you manage the effects of internal and external stressors on your body, brain, and mind, the healthier, calmer, more productive, and brighter in the moment you’ll be. Constant high levels of stress can damage brains, minds, and bodies. Check back to the July 19th post and previous posts on stress (under blog category of “Reduce Your Stress”) for many ways to manage, cope, reduce stress. Other important factors include taking time away such as more vacations in at tropical resorts.

An important factor, differentiating what’s the best way to cope with a stressful situation or person, is how much control you have of the stressor. If you have no control, realistically the only way to cope is to detach, either physically, emotionally or both. (search for previous posts on detachment under the category of “Try Some Techniques.”) If that’s not possible, for example when a parent has a seriously ill child, then increasing the frequency and number of stress reduction techniques keys the action plan. If you realistically have some control over the situation, or even perceive that you do, or if you have good control monitoring and regulating your emotions and thoughts, you’re in good shape as a coper!

Here’s what sharpbrains.com, May 20, 2013 says. “Stud­ies show a direct cor­re­la­tion between feel­ings of psy­cho­log­i­cal empow­er­ment and stress resiliency. Empow­er­ing your­self with a feel­ing of con­trol over your own sit­u­a­tion can help reduce chronic stress and give you the con­fi­dence to take con­trol over your brain health. Some videogames and apps based on heart rate vari­abil­ity can be a great way to be proac­tive and take con­trol of our stress levels.”