Excessive stress can cause physical and psychological breakdowns. Stress has reached epidemic proportions in industrialized societies as people try to juggle career, family and social expectations. For this reason, it's crucial to develop effective strategies to deal with stress. Coping is an adaptation response to stress, and modern psychology has identified a number of coping strategies that are commonly used.
Planning
Planning is a coping strategy that's commonly used by over-stressed people, according to to a 1988 paper published entitled "Assessing Coping Strategies: A Theoretically Based Approach" by Charles S. Carver and Jagdish Kumari Weintraub of the University of Miami and Michael F. Scheier of Carnegie Mellon University. Planning is used because it facilitates active coping and because it helps prevent your mind from becoming overwhelmed with seemingly enormous tasks. Planning involves thinking carefully and dispassionately about the problems you face, forming an overall strategy, translating solutions into concrete actions, and breaking down these actions into smaller steps to be taken later. The University of Minnesota Counseling & Consulting Services endorses this approach, urging students to analyze issues, think of what can be done, and break work into smaller tasks.
Active Coping
Active coping involves taking positive steps to alleviate the difficulties that cause stress, according to Carver, Weintraub and Scheier. This strategy includes tacking the problem head on, concentrating on executing your plan one step at a time, and finding ways to get around difficulties when things don't go as expected. The University of Minnesota advises students to take immediate action to tackle problems.
Restraint Coping
If planning is characterized by thinking and active coping is characterized by doing, restraint coping is characterized by waiting, according to Carver, Weintraub and Scheier. A good planning strategy involves considering the right timing for every action. It's easy to get too caught up in action to pause when self-restraint is called for. Restraint coping involves exercising the self-control necessary to take action only when it's most effective.
Social Suppport
Social support is sought for either instrumental or emotional reasons, say Carver, Weintraub and Scheier. You may seek out someone who has been through the same problems you're experiencing in order to get good advice. On the other hand, you may seek out the same person for a shoulder to cry on. Either strategy can be effective, and in some situations both can be used. The University of Minnesota advises students to get associated with happy, successful people, get involved with friends, and ask for help directly.
