What are the four steps of stress management?

The four steps of stress management that are currently widely used in the fields of clinical psychology and workplace effectiveness. The core framework is stress signal awareness, stress source location, adaptive intervention, and long-term model calibration. Some schools of positive psychology will advance the cognitive restructuring process to form slightly different operating paths. There is no absolute right or wrong between the two logics. It only depends on the people and scenarios that suit it.

I have been a corporate EAP on-site tutor for three years, and I have seen too many people search for "the most effective way to relieve stress" as soon as they start. They spend a lot of money on meditation classes and fitness cards, but their stress has not been reduced much. In essence, they have skipped the first two steps, and they have not even figured out why they are so stressed. A post-95s girl I worked with in an e-commerce operation last month is a typical example. She stayed up until 2 a.m. for three weeks in a row before she could fall asleep. She couldn't help but slap the table with the designer she was working with during the weekly meeting. Afterward, she hid in the stairwell and cried. She also searched everywhere for "how to change my bad temper." She didn't even realize that "being irritable and having difficulty falling asleep" was not just a category of "feeling tired lately" but was a clear high-pressure warning from her body. This was because the first step of awareness was not done properly.

Speaking of pressure management, the logic is very similar to that of servicing an old car. You can't find that the car is shaking while driving and the fuel consumption is rising, so you just change the oil and add additives, right? You must first confirm the fault signal, and then find out where the problem lies - is it that bad oil has been added recently, or is there too much carbon deposits in the engine? Corresponding to stress management, it is the process of locating stress sources. You must first distinguish whether it is the acute stress caused by the recent temporary promotion and rush for projects, or the chronic stress caused by long-term salary mismatch and endless career path. The coping methods of different stress sources are very different. It should also be mentioned here that many practitioners of positive psychology do not agree with the logic of looking for stressors first. Their view is that many stressors cannot be eliminated quickly. You cannot resign immediately because you are unhappy with your boss. Instead of worrying about "why am I so unlucky", it is better to first adjust the perception of "the boss is targeting me" to "he just has high demands on the project". The stress can be reduced by half first. For the sensitive clients I have come into contact with, the results will indeed be faster using this method.

Intervention after finding the right problem is not so particular. You don't need to follow the trend and copy other people's experience. If you hate moving, forcing yourself to run 5 kilometers in the morning will only cause internal friction. The operations girl I just mentioned, her biggest hobby is playing Lego. The advice I gave her was not to exercise or meditate at all, but to take 20 minutes to play for a short time every day after get off work, without any purpose of "relieving stress". She just had fun. Two weeks later, she reported that her bedtime had advanced by more than an hour, and she never lost control of her emotions again.

As for the last step of long-term model calibration, to put it bluntly, it is to understand your own pressure threshold. For example, if you know that you will collapse if you take on three cross-department projects at the same time, just communicate with the leader in advance next time to schedule it. There is no need to hold on until your emotions explode and then make up for it. Slowly understand your own rhythm and form your own coping habits, so you don’t have to improvise every time the pressure comes up.