Health Benefits of Changing Stress Management
Stress is an inevitable aspect of contemporary fast-paced life filled with large volumes of information and emotional triggers. Research shows that stress management techniques provide benefits for individuals facing intensive stress by reducing harm to their health and facilitating resilience (Holman, Johnson, & O’Connor, 2018). In particular, since illness is one of the most frequent causes of stress, implementing stress management strategies for patients with severe health conditions has been proven to increase their well-being (Christmann, Hoffmann, & Bleser, 2017). Moreover, self-help literature educates stress coping skills, as well as mobile applications, improves individuals’ motivation to handle stress and helps reduce anxiety, depression, and immune system deterioration (Antoni & Dhabhar, 2019). Thus, the facilitation of stress management behavior with updated coping skills allows for avoiding health impairments potentially caused by stress.
Reasons to Change Stress Management Behavior
The rationale for pursuing a change in a particular behavior within a stress management strategy is based on the need to implement efficient and up-to-date tools. Indeed, while aromatherapy and relaxation might be considered effective conventional behaviors for stress management, one should change them to more evidence-based ones. For example, as stated by Christmann et al. (2017), the use of change of stress management behavior into reflection journaling, sports, mindfulness, and meditation practices available from apps enhances the usefulness of the strategies. Thus, the reason for changing the stress-coping approach is validated by the need to facilitate its benefits in a long-term perspective.
Impact on Health
Importantly, stress management implemented correctly and consistently might have a significant positive impact on one’s emotional, physical, and mental health. Emotionally, individuals implementing stress-coping strategies facilitate emotional stability of healthy responses to stress triggers, as well as improve sleep quality, positive worldview, and control of emotions (Christmann et al., 2017). In terms of physical health, stress management reduces muscle tension, heart rate, and immune system breakdown, thus protecting one’s body from the harmful impacts of stress (Antoni & Dhabhar, 2019). Mental health benefits from stress-coping approaches due to the elimination of the risks of depression, anxiety, phobias, and other illnesses (Holman et al., 2018). Thus, the change in behaviors related to managing stress is beneficial for health and is worthwhile.
References
Antoni, M. H., & Dhabhar, F. S. (2019). The impact of psychosocial stress and stress management on immune responses in patients with cancer. Cancer, 125(9), 1417-1431.
Christmann, C. A., Hoffmann, A., & Bleser, G. (2017). Stress management apps with regard to emotion-focused coping and behavior change techniques: A content analysis. JMIR mHealth and uHealth, 5(2), 1-12.
Holman, D., Johnson, S., & O’Connor, E. (2018). Stress management interventions: Improving subjective psychological well-being in the workplace. In Handbook of well-being (pp. 1-14). Salt Lake City, UT: DEF Publishers.