Stress is hard to avoid. After all, when things are out of control, you can only deal with them the best way you know how to, right? If you’ve never learned any stress-relieving techniques, you’ll be at a loss when something unnerving comes your way. Lucky for you, we’re going to go over some ways to better cope with life stressors in a calm and collected way.

Common sources of stress

Here are four common sources of stress and how you can deal with them better:

• Chronic illness or injury. When you’re hurt or don’t feel good, it makes life very stressful. You’re not able to do the things you normally do when you’re well. You may miss work due to your illness or injury. This causes you to stress about other things such as job loss and financial issues.
• Work-related issues. A difficult-to-please boss, gossiping co-workers, and a massive workload is enough to stress anyone out. Things like malfunctioning hardware, last minute projects, and sick staff members compound the problem making it impossible to focus on the task at hand.
• Financial matters. Hospital bills, household repairs, and other unexpected expenses can make a person fret about their finances. If you don’t have enough money to cover your bills, it can cause you to lose sleep at night which affects your performance at work. It can even attract the attention of your boss who notices a change in your performance.
• Relationship issues. When things aren’t going well at home, it can be hard not to bring your problems to work. Not feeling in control of your personal relationships can strain your relationships at work. That’s why it’s very important to learn stress reduction techniques so that you’re able to leave your problems at home and focus on the tasks at hand at work.

Stress doesn’t have to take over your life. There are ways to deal with it positively. By being mindful of the things that cause stress in your life, you’re better able to cope with them. You utilize the tools and relaxation techniques that you’ve learned along the way to deal with the problems you’ve encountered. This allows you to live a healthier, happier, and freer lifestyle than what you knew before.