One of the most exciting news in stress management, which is also backed up by science is that we can take control in our hands and just by changing our perception of a stressful event we can manage to combat stress for good!
Emotion-oriented approaches in stress management are those which are used to help us change the way we perceive stressful situations.
The most common strategy in this type of approaches is to use positive affirmations and images, and it has been scientifically proven that positive affirmations and imaginary have the power to increase positive emotions.
The explanation behind this is simple when you think of a positive experience, your brain perceives it to be a reality and negative thoughts are replaced with positive ones thus creating pleasant feelings and emotions.
ABC Technique also belongs in this type of managing stress, originally it was created by psychologist Dr. Albert Ellis and was later adapted by Dr.Martin Seligman, a professor at University of Pennsylvania and past president of the American Psychological Association.
The letters ABC stand for the following: A – adversity (the stressful event), B – beliefs (what we believe and how we respond to the event) and C – consequences, (the result of our own beliefs is the outcome of that event).
In most simple words, the more optimistic your beliefs are, the more positive the outcome will be.
According to experts the key point is between adversity and belief in other words, it is very important how you tend to explain yourself why something has happened it determines not only the outcome of the particular situation, but also it influences the entire outlook on life.
For example, pessimistic thinkers unwillingly assume that the causes of any bad events are permanent but optimistic thinkers see them as something temporary.
Pessimistic people whenever something goes badly make general statements about their life and optimists make very specific statements referring to the particular event.
This different outlooks at the same situation will generate different outcomes, so whenever something bad happens and generates stress try to stay optimistic as much as you can and generate positive thoughts and emotions.