Stress Management

Maren Müller

Everybody experiences stress.
Students and apprentices, homemakers and parents, office workers and sales representatives – all of us sometimes get stressed out.
But what exactly do we mean by stress? What causes it? And what can we do about it?

Stress can simply mean “tension” or “pressure.” In that sense, the term describes an external stimulus acting on the human body. Stress is a normal physical response, and in small doses it can even help us stay energetic and alert. Haven’t we all had the experience of rising to our personal best precisely because of stress?

Danger of stress

The difficulty and danger of all this, however, comes when we experience stress overload, with no relief from tension, and when the factors causing stress become the center and focus of our lives.

The group talks about stress

A one-hour session on SMA Health Day addressed this broad and often underrated topic in a way that was informative, interesting and, above all, thought-provoking.

We learned not only about the meaning of stress, but also about its possible effects and about how so many people are affected by stress and its related health problems.
Burnout, depression and suicide are only a few – although the most serious – of the consequences of stress overload.

Big stones symbolize important things in life

But what exactly causes this enormous stress?

It’s not the constant rat race and relentless pressure to perform that weighs on us, as many might have thought. Rather, the main causes of stress are never-ending deadlines and time pressures, along with the fact that modern technology means we’re always “on call.”
We tend to lose sight of the important things that would bring us back into balance. We never have time for our families, for our friends, even for ourselves.

How to deal with stress?

The “Dealing with Stress” presentation showed us why we should take stress seriously. It also offered us an opportunity to discover how stressed we already are, identify what really matters to us in life, and learn to incorporate brief relaxation exercises into our daily routines.