7 Ways A Crisis Increases Stress and How To Fight Them

There are many types of crises that can enter our life.  These can be natural disasters, problems in our relationships, facing life changes, discovering significant health issues, or any of many other things.  Some crises are very intense and concentrated while others occur over a longer period of time.  The effects of some crises are relatively easy to address (such as running out of time every day) while others will require years to address (such as a major hurricane).  In any case, it is important to recognize the stress that is being caused by the crisis and to respond to that stress in a way that can help you to keep some sense of internal peace as you face the crisis.  Here are seven ways that the crisis can be increasing your stress and what you might do for each of them:

• The crisis itself creates stress.  Encountering a crisis is in itself a stressful event.  When you are facing a crisis, acknowledge that this will have to be causing you some stress.  Identify how you are experiencing the stress and then address it.  At one end of this, you might be able to do something to lesson the actual crisis.  Another strategy would be to realistically assess what the effect of the crisis is (you may have made it something bigger than it actually is).  There are also techniques to directly confront the stress including relaxation techniques, breathing exercises, ways of relying on others, and engaging in physical activity.