Principles That Help Me Deal With Stress

This only applies if the stress is worth it

Pressure situations could do completely different things to us as they have a tendency to bring out either the best or worst in us. The stress could be emotional, physical or most likely, mental.

I’m in medical school, studying to be a surgeon at some point within the next eight years. This comes with a certain level of pressure . Sometimes I could go weeks without going out and those periods of time honestly wreak havoc on my social life because we’re in the age of These periods force me to question myself and I often think ‘how did I end up here’. I eventually learned how to cope with and even embrace these stressful situations and it all had to do with changing my mindset and thought process when faced with these situations. When I say stress I mean situations that would help us make considerable progress in the long term, not things that are detrimental to us as time goes on. My new mindset culminated into two personal rules that help me to guide my mind away from dwelling on stress and towards productivity.

Everyone complains occasionally. Whether you missed a meeting or you got stuck in traffic, there’s always a reason to vent. The problem is when we turn it into a habit. Venting helps to release some stress and may be therapeutic but I don’t see the effectiveness of complaining about things that I know I have no control over. Is your schedule packed for the week, that’s sad but you’ll still have to do it. If you have a month full to the brim with assignments, that’s sad but you’ll still have to do it.

Complaints should be constructive, they should be viewed as observations or a way to voice your needs but should only be done when you plan to channel these observations or needs into practical outcomes. After observation comes hypothesis, so complaints should be followed by a thought process directed at solving the problem that we’ve noticed.

If we have no say in the matter or way to change the situation that presents itself to us, shouldn’t we spend less time complaining about it and more time trying to manage it effectively? The serenity prayer always comes to mind when I’m in such situations.

When we do that, the event or situation we perceive as stress won’t pose a problem to us as all we need to do is remain calm and ask ourselves whether we can do anything to change the outcome of that event. If we can, then it’s a matter of planning but if we can’t then we just need to accept it.

Let’s face it , Nike hit the bullseye with the slogan ‘Just Do It’ because most times all we need to do is plot our next move and then execute it. Those situations that we interpret as stress in whatever phase of life we’re in usually require us to take a deep breath and look for ways to solve our problems and then perform those solutions.

This involves us focusing on the task at hand and then looking ahead and envisioning the eventual benefits that performing the task would have. This helps us to find purpose in what we’re doing. I used this mindset a lot with both studying and working out. Studying was and is still torture to think about because no one actually looks forward to it. But I found that once I got all the complaints and excuses out of the way and started, the mere act of doing it helped me realize that the task I was performing would put me a step closer to achieving my goal and saving lives. So now, even when I don’t feel like it , I simply look ahead and it helps me realize that doing it is the only way to actively climb the ladder to success in my field. Once we start doing it, and there’s even one reason to continue, we can eventually finish that task that once presented as stress and move on.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Creating a new mindset is in three parts, not complaining, making a plan then doing it. I realize that everyone has different problems so mine might pale in comparison to the those of others reading this, but I sincerely believe that inculcating these principles would help a lot of people combat and overcome the situations that they may perceive as stressful.

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