You must have heard about different strategies for managing stress. From practicing mindfulness, yoga, forest bathing, singing, dancing, till rearranging your home and mindset, possibilities are endless.
But these newest strategies may be something you have never heard of or maybe not.
In each case they are worth mentioning because they are connected with our inner capacities, known as character strengths and applying them may make combating stress a bit easier.
- Try to use reframing: This is a mental activity that involves looking at a stressor or negative situation in a positive way.
Use your strengths of critical thinking and try to look at any situation in a new, positive way, try to evaluate the experience, look at the situation from multiple angles, learn from it, and move forward.
- Affirm your values: Scientific studies have shown that those who think about their highest character values before an important event actually experience less stress and show a lower level of stress hormone cortisol, compared to control groups.
- Learn to forgive: Forgiveness is not an easy task and one must be strong to be able to do it.
But according to scientists forgiving deceases stress, and those who are able to forgive themselves and others have a better mental health.
But what if you struggle with forgiving?
Experts’ advice is to set up a “letting go” practice and starting with little things.
For example, when someone upsets you let’s say it cuts you off in traffic, instead of stressing about it, take a different approach, pause, take two slow breaths of fresh air, and then let it go, you can even say it to yourself “it is OK, now I can move on.”
- Use positive self-affirmation or write about something you enjoy: Researchers have found that in this case, what may help you depends on the level of your self-esteem.
Those with low self-esteem felt better when they wrote about an activity, they enjoyed doing, but they did not feel better when they wrote positive self-affirmations.
On the other hand, it has been shown that those with high self-esteem felt better when they wrote positive self-affirmations but not when they wrote about an activity they enjoyed.