Unrecognized and unhandled, stress can undermine personal satisfaction, work performance, and overall health. But UConn Health psychiatry professor Julian Ford says stress can be turned into an opportunity to increase personal effectiveness.

Ford, director of the Center for Trauma Recovery and Juvenile Justice at UConn Health, says experiencing stress is part of the human condition. “If you feel stressed, you are not alone and you are not failing,” he says. “The feeling of stress is the body’s normal response to life’s challenges.”

Rather than trying to avoid stress, he says, you can turn it to your advantage: “You don’t have to solve every problem or accomplish every goal in order to lower your stress level and increase your self-confidence and well-being. You just have to be focused.”

Step Back, Recognize Stress, Refocus

Ford offers a quick three-step prescription for reducing stress:

1. Step back: Pause briefly from whatever you are doing to take a moment to step back and get off life’s treadmill so you can actually think.
2. Recognize your stress: During this time, pay attention to both your signs of stress and the challenges that these stress reactions are telling you that you need to handle.
3. Refocus: Before you make a plan or take action, take a moment to mentally refocus on your core values, so that your choices are inspired by what you believe in and value.

There are several strategies that may help you refocus, he says.

• Visualize someone you love and who cares about you. This can help bring you and your body a sense of calm, so you can move ahead knowing that you are not alone even if you have to handle some stressors on your own.
• Remember why you are doing what you are doing. Ask yourself simple questions, such as: What am I working toward? How am I making the world a better place in my own small way? Answering these questions can help us remember who we truly are as a person and what’s most important in our life.
• Think about the next opportunity for you to treat others the way you would like to be treated. Performing a random act of kindness helps de-stress not only you but others too. There is great healing power in simple gestures of thoughtfulness and friendliness.

“Don’t let stress get the better of you,” says Ford. “We each have the opportunity many times every day to refocus in each stress-filled moment. When we go back to the foundation of our core values, this is what transforms crises into opportunities. Stress often can’t be avoided, but we can reduce its impact on us.”

Recognizing Signs of Stress

The physical signs of stress can include neck muscle tightness or pain, headache or stomach ache, a feeling of being on-edge, or a sense that you just can’t relax.

The emotional signs can be irritability, frustration, worry (about the future, job security, life in general), feeling blue or sad (this could sometimes be depression, but most often it’s the weigh-down of stress), a ‘blah’ feeling (not feeling hopeful or excited about life), and loss of interest in things you ordinarily enjoy.

Stress can also impact your behavior in a variety of ways, from finding yourself saying things you regret because you spoke without thinking first, verbally snapping at others, rushing when you need to pace yourself, withdrawing from society and your loved ones, having difficulty concentrating, and experiencing problems getting a restful night’s sleep.

While Ford believes there is no substitute for the three stress-relief steps, to complement them he says many people find additional stress-management techniques helpful, such as meditation, deep-breathing, self-help books or general reading, stress-management phone apps, and muscle massage, among others.

These techniques don’t eliminate stress, he says, but they can reduce it by helping us do exactly the kind of re-focusing that is the essence of all approaches to stress management.

Preventing Chronic Stress

Ford also emphasizes three basic things that every person should be doing daily to reduce their risk of developing chronic stress and to maintain good health.

• Exercise is essential for physical health, and when we exercise there are countless opportunities to do the three steps of focusing.
  “When you exercise, this is a time to step off the treadmill of daily life and re-focus, while you also increase your body’s capacity to handle physical stress,” says Ford.
• Healthy eating of a well-balanced diet is critical to managing daily stress.
  “When you eat healthy, you are not just watching your weight and cholesterol levels, you’re also re-focusing on what is healthy for you. Over time, healthy eating nourishes the mind as well as the body, and this is an important part of making sure daily stress doesn’t become chronic stress,” Ford says.
• Sleep is very important: you need to get enough, and to actually relax enough so your body and mind can use sleep as a time to step back and re-set.
  “Regular sleep can increase your energy and reduce irritability,” says Ford. “It’s difficult to manage your stress when you are sleep-deprived.”

Ford says the bottom line in stress management is as simple – and as complex – as one, two, three: Step back, recognize your stress, and refocus.

“The best prescription,” he says, “is to repeat this often, as needed, just like you would with any good medicine.”

To learn more about the Department of Psychiatry at UConn Health, go to: http://health.uconn.edu/psychiatry/