A Simple Way to Deal with Emotional Stress

When it all gets to be too much

Source: Elisa Ventur / Unsplash

According to research from the National Institute of Health, “Emotional distress is a state of mental anguish that can take a wide variety of forms. It may result from a mental health issue or particular circumstances, such as relationship difficulties or financial strain.”

When you are facing a stressful situation, there is one technique that has helped many people. It is simple, and while it can bring up some stressful memories, the good news is that your past pains can help you get through what you are dealing with.

If life in general or something specific is giving you anxiety, making you feel depressed, and has you stressed out, you need to remember a time when things were worse. Perhaps not the same type of issue, but one in which the emotional toll was similar.

Look at the costs of what you went through before: emotional, financial, time, and energy all add up. If you have lived through other experiences that had similar costs, then you can and will live through this one. If it’s only about money, be grateful because you can make it back. Health is a different dynamic, so be grateful for problems of prosperity.

Your emotions can be flying all over the place when things get difficult or go insanely wrong, and that is where you need to start. You can gain some control over your situation by finding a place to put your emotions that you recognize as familiar. But you have to make the choice not to let the negative emotions get you down, or at least fight to keep them from doing more damage.

Life is difficult and problems happen too often. That’s why you must learn to gather and harness your emotional fortitude. Learn to tell yourself, in a positive way, that you have been through many other difficult things. Some have turned out better than you expected, and some may not have. The good news is that you got through them and now you are on the other side of the issue. And soon you will be on the other side of this one, too.

Knowledge is power and knowing you can beat this thing, because you have before, is empowering. It is a way of keeping things in perspective and putting to use what you have learned from past experiences. This works for physical issues as well as emotional ones.

Humans have an incredible ability to adapt. In fact, it’s so good that we usually don’t recognize we have done it. But you have and are adapting to your life right now and that will continue, thankfully, because change is the only constant in our lives, and so it is wise to get as comfortable as possible with it.

You will get through this challenge, like you have the others. Hard times can leave battle scars, but they also leave you with the experience of getting to the other side of it. That has great value because if you remember that you did it before, you can do it again.