Protect yourself from stress

Stress hits each of us differently. Some of us feel it in our bodies. Others just can't stop worrying. Back when I was doing research at Harvard, we called the kind of stress that expresses itself in the body "somatic": things like getting butterflies in your stomach, or indigestion, a racing heart or the jitters. But some people are prone to experiencing their stress mentally, for the most part. The stress that you feel in your mind -- like worrisome thoughts that keep you up at night or that continually intrude into your focus during the day -- is "cognitive" stress.

In either case, we can feel awful. And being in the grip of distress not only feels bad – it cripples our ability to work effectively.

So the trick is insulating ourselves from that negativity, or recovering from it if we do feel badly. Here the EI tools are self-awareness and self-regulation. Self-awareness lets us recognize when those distressing feelings are beginning to build. Self-regulation tells us what to do about it so we don’t end up being emotionally hijacked.

I recommend an all-around emotional self-management tactic, like a daily session of meditation or relaxation. This helps in several ways. First, it resets your brain so you are triggered less easily and less often by other people. Second, it trains your brain to recover more quickly and be more resilient. Third, it gives you a tool you can use for a few moments on the spot (or as soon as you can close your door, if you have one).

Of course, not everyone will benefit from a body-focused relaxer like yoga, just as meditation may not be the most effective way to fight stress for every person.

You don't have to take a psychological test to find out which methods will work best for you -- you can make the match most precisely through simple trial and error -- after all, you are the final judge of what will help you. But once you find a relaxer that you enjoy and that leaves you feeling less tense, try to find a time -- even just 10 or 15 minutes -- in your routine when you can practice it daily. The more you practice, the easier it will be for your body to get into that relaxed state in even a few minutes of applying your relaxation method.

If you’re not sure where to start, listen to a sample guided deep breathing exercise from my CD Relax: 6 Techniques to Lower Your Stress from More Than Sound. You can also watch this recorded webinar to learn more about choosing the right natural stress-reduction technique.