Introduction to the Five R's of Conquering Your Stress

De: Richard Blonna

Narrado por: Virtual Voice

To conquer your stress you need to begin looking at stress and coping differently. It is not enough to learn one or two coping strategies and never change them. The Five R’s of Coping Model © developed over a decade ago will teach you multiple levels of coping that will teach you how to conquer any stressors under any circumstance. The five R’s of coping are Reorganize, Relax, Release, Rethink, and Reduce. You can visualize this model as an atom, with Reorganize as the core and the other four R’s, like electrons, spinning around it. The Five R's of Coping Model integrates five different levels of defense against stress. By integrating all of the five R’s into your lifestyle, they work together to create a synergistic coping effect. In essence, the combined effect of all five of them working together creates a force that is greater than their mere sum. Reorganize strategies revolve around hardy health habits that make you more stress resistant. When you incorporate hardy healthy habits into your daily routine you build a hardier, more stress-resistant lifestyle by increasing your overall level of wellness across all seven dimensions (physical, social, spiritual, emotional, intellectual, occupational, and environmental) of health. Such a lifestyle reduces the frequency and intensity of your stress arousal. This is why Reorganize is your core defense against stress. Relax strategies work by inducing a relaxation response and putting your body into a relaxed state. The relaxation response is incompatible with the stress response. You simply can't be stressed and relaxed at the same time. By putting your body into a relaxed state on a regular basis you can offset the physiological changes (increased blood pressure, hormone release, etc.) triggered by the stress response. In a sense, this is like recharging your batteries when stress drains the energy from them. Release strategies work by giving you a positive physical outlet for the energy and muscle tension produced by the stress response. Release strategies short-circuit stress arousal by using up the energy produced by the stress response and releasing the tension associated with partially contracted muscles. Rethink strategies work by helping you examine and manage the illogical thoughts and irrational beliefs you have about life and potential stressors. Rethink strategies begin with becoming more mindful of your mental activity and end with learning how to coexist with troubling thoughts and painful emotions while moving forward and meeting your goals. Reduce strategies teach you how to turn your stressors into challenges. When you are involved in too many activities and have too many demands on your time, you reach a point of physical, intellectual, and emotional overload and feel that you can no longer cope. When you reach this level even fun activities can be perceived as threatening and capable of triggering the stress response. Reduce strategies revolve around helping you find your optimal level of stimulation, one where the demands on your time are perceived as challenges, not stressors. The techniques used in the five R’s incorporate problem-focused and emotion-focused coping strategies drawn from Western and Eastern therapeutic approaches to conquering stress. Most of the other models of coping use either problem, or emotion-focused techniques, and take either an Eastern or a Western therapeutic approach to stress management.