Lifestyle Article

Get Set…To Guard Your Family Against Stress.

Commuting two hours for work…reaching late….Boss gives hell for not meeting project deadlines… you drop coffee/ketchup on your white clothes…generally, a bad day at work…tremendous headache…you come home…your children are bickering amongst themselves…your spouse enters the scenario and throws in a complaint or two about you…you all end up having a yelling match! By the end of it all your headache has turned into a head splitting pain…you are tired, frustrated and drained out of any remaining energy that you still had…not to mention facing the boss again tomorrow…and it’s just Tuesday…no respite till the weekend from all this humdrum…all you want to do now is shut yourself away from everyone and everything…but you end up shouting at the others…and ultimately it all culminates in a fight…

Does any of this sound familiar? If yes, well, then welcome to the world of stress. Stress is not only in itself a huge problem, but at the same time it promotes anger, irritability, and tension to name a few. Stress could be created due to events that have taken place outside home and a family member furthers it by bringing it inside. It can also be created due to a built of pent up emotions such as frustrations, anxiety or mental tiredness that have no release outlet. Too many things on the mind or too much work can also contribute to it. As discussed above, in all probability you could be having a terrible time at work and you bring that frustration home in the form of stress. This in turn leads to events that create tension and stress in the house. Stress is usually accompanied with crankiness, discontentment, angry outbursts, fatigue, headaches and a host of other problems. As a result, a distance could start to form between husband and wife or parents and children or a distance that separates each family member from another. Though this sounds scary, it could be true. In the long run, such a situation can contribute to the family becoming dysfunctional. Therefore before you or any of the other members are anywhere near such a damaging situation, it is best to unite as a family and fight it off together, even if it happens to affect only one member. Read on to know how you can guard your family against stress.

A daily interactive session amongst the family members helps in reducing stress.

In today’s time of “hectic schedules”, often it has been noticed that a lot of families rush through the week at a fast pace with bare minimum interactions with each other, only to reconnect during the weekends. This is where most of us go wrong. Yes, weekends are the perfect time to put the worries behind and have a gala time, but research reports say that stress is encountered mostly in the weekdays. Therefore, it is not only the weekends when you should reconnect with your family. Inculcate the habit of setting aside a particular time in the day, when every member of the family is present. It could be during dinner time or around the television in the evening. You could also make time for a game of monopoly. Rituals such as these promote a sense of belonging and security. It creates a healthy atmosphere that helps us in handling stress better. This particular time can be used to talk about the day, discuss trivial matters and for lots of bantering and laughter. You must remember not to turn this daily family time into a “blame each other match”. This time should be used solely to relax the mind and drain the stress out and not yell, blame or shout at others just because they are unable to comprehend the reason behind your disturbed state of mind.

Do not isolate yourself when stressed out, talk it out with your family…better still forget about it by involving yourself in a pillow fight (yes you heard right!)

Continuing with the point discussed above, more often than not, people tend to isolate themselves to ease out stress. Agreed, that a long soak in the tub surrounded by scented candles and a chilled glass of wine or a session of kick boxing might help you feel good, however temporary solutions such as this do not really help in the long run. What is needed is a complete rejuvenation, and believe it or not though we completely ignore the fact, nothing can be as therapeutic as a long interactive session with your loved ones. Yes, instead of shutting yourself in a room you could have a healthy discussion with your partner or your children on just about anything. The stress buster here is sharing, when you share anything the problem becomes easier to solve. The same can be said of stress. Often, talking about a problem and discussing it with others helps to minimize it. If you talk about your day and all the things that made you feel awful, then you will be instantly letting go of your stress level bit by bit. Trust me, you’ll be feeling better in no time and stress will be long forgotten. After all how can you be stressed out when your wife is talking about her theatre workshop, your son is animatedly discussing his new guitar or your daughter is enticing you into a pillow fight! It is all about surrounding yourself with positive energy. In the same way, you could help in easing out your partner or children’s stress levels by devoting time to them. If your spouse or children seem withdrawn, then try to get them out of the shell by encouraging them to talk about the thing that might be bothering them.

Resilience and recreation, both are important for your children in order to stay free of stress.

It is important to encourage and promote resilience in the family, especially amongst your children. A lot of families ignore the fact that anyone can experience stress, even the children, and especially the teenagers. Homework pressure, the feeling of not being able to match up to their peers, the tension of not being good enough etc all lead to the development of stress. Do not ignore the problems of your children, even if they sound trivial. Help them to cope up with stress by teaching them to keep a positive outlook in difficult situations. They should be able to handle stress by a quick bounce back. See that they do not spend most of their time sitting all alone in a room. They should be encouraged to hang out with friends. Ensure that they have some sort of a recreation avenue. This goes for you and your partner too.

Incorporate healthy habits in your daily life.

Nutritious meal taken at correct time helps in help in warding off stress. This may sound like a very general advice but in fact when stressed out, people start to ignore meals. This in itself creates a host of other problems. Meal time should mean sitting down properly and devoting at least twenty minutes to the meal. This helps in calming the mind. During meal time concentrate on the food and banish all other thoughts. It is also imperative to take time out for a bit of exercise, even if it means jumping in the backyard! Exercise is one of the biggest stress busters. You should see that everyone in the family is getting adequate exercise every day. A good dose of exercise also means a good sleep in the night. If you are not getting adequate sleep in the night then it will invariably lead to add on stress the next day. So in order to start the next day on a fresh note, see that the sleep factor is not lacking. Ensure that there is a routine time when the lights are switched off, especially when it concerns the children. This will promote a sense of regularity. A sense of regularity helps in maintaining discipline. This in its own way does help in keeping out the stress.

Keep stress at bay by ensuring that everyone manages their time effectively.

Time management is an extremely important factor when it comes to managing stress. Often, we get stressed out when we have to run against time. “I am late for work”, “Why do I have to get stuck in traffic right now when I have a client meeting in five minutes”, “I have not finished my school project yet and I have to submit it tomorrow”, “The guests will be here in an hour and we still have not sorted out anything”, “I forgot to book the tickets”…factors and situations such as these all pile up to form a high level of stress. Often, small things are kept at the very back, but it is these small things that culminate together at the last moment to contribute to a hectic schedule. It has been seen that failure to keep up with this schedule can lead to stress. Therefore, it is imperative to inculcate the importance of time management in your family. Avoid the built up of panic by ensuring that all work is finished before its due time. Do not wait for the last moment to get started on some important thing. See that the rest of your family members too, don’t have a pile up of work whether it is preparing a client report or a school report.

Repeated criticisms of each other’s shortcomings aggravate stress.

It is important that you do not contribute to a family member’s stress level by criticism. He or she is your spouse or your child and you should be there to support them when they approach you with a problem. Instead of criticizing your son for not getting good grades, maybe you could sit and discuss the factors which are holding him back from attaining those. For all you know, he could be completely stressed out because he’s not doing well which in turn leads to a bad performance again. Minimize unnecessary criticism, what is needed here is support. Do you really want to get back home after a maddening day at work to be told, “Dinah, you are looking awful…you need a makeover and you need to lose weight!” or “Ed, I hope you didn’t forget to pick up the grocery because I am the one who does it all the time, while the only thing you do is come back home and read the newspaper”. Well, here you are completely stressed out and your appearance is the last thing on your mind, and these are the words that you get to hear (even if said in good regard)…do you think it will help in reducing the stress level? Or, here you are looking forward to a relaxing time ahead and you hear your wife complain when all you want is a cup of hot chocolate. She could have waited for at least some time without barging on you, couldn’t she? In all effect, you’ll probably push the panic button or retort sarcastically or start to have a shouting match out and out, which in this case is not the best of stress buster. Therefore, a session in criticizing is not a very good thing because it only promotes stress.

Always remember that each member of the family should be there to support the other emotionally and mentally and there should be a healthy interaction amongst all. You all need to devote time to each other in order to understand your own family better. A family that has a nice camaraderie is able to fight off and guard against stress effectively. Stress should remain outside the boundaries of your home.