How to Effectively Manage: Stress, Anger, & Toxic Relationships

Are you feeling stressed or irrational at this moment or at some point in your life? One important lesson we should learn as a goal to pursue a healthy lifestyle, is to understand and manage our own sources of stress and emotion regulation.

Understanding about Yourself and the Situation

First thing we need to know about stress is that it is highly personal and perceptual (Centre for Studies on Human Stress, 2017b). Very often, individuals interpret and react to stress differently; therefore, it is crucial to understand your own cause of stress for you to effectively manage your stress.

Stress, Anger and Relationship Management

Studies suggest various stress management techniques to reduce stress, such as coping strategies. Coping strategy refers to the specific ways we deal with unpleasant emotions from stressful events. There are three main types of coping strategies: Problem-focused, emotion-focused, appraisal-focused (Centre for Studies on Human Stress, 2017a; Czabała & Miedziun; Raizada, 2019).

Problem-focused - refers to the ways in which people try to directly solve the cause of the stress (Centre for Studies on Human Stress, 2017a).

Examples

• analyzing the situation

• seeking support from psychotherapists

• talking to a person who is directly related to the situation (ex. Your partner who had a fight with you)
  

Emotion-focused - refers to the ways in which people try to focus on handling

emotion regulation.

Examples

• social support by speaking to a trusted friend who can listen to your

• struggles (ex. You are angry about a customer’s attitude today at work)

• distract yourself from stressful situations including watching movies,

• exercising and sleeping etc.

Appraisal-focused - refers to the ways in which people try to focus on changing their thought patterns (Raizada, 2019).

Examples

• meditation strategies including yoga and cardio (ex. You distract yourself

• from thinking about the stressful events by taking a walk outdoor)

• increase self-awareness

• alter the way of thinking about the situation/problem

One thing to keep in mind is that there is an individual difference in their experiences of stress, anger, and relationship. There are many ways people manage their stressful feelings. Trying to figure out your unique coping strategies can effectively help reduce the stress, anger, and toxic relationships in your life.