5 Valuable Strategies to Help You Manage Acute Stress
I recently went for a brisk walk on a warm summer’s day. The sun was beaming down and I could feel little beads of sweat collecting above my top lip. Above me, the sky was a clear, bright blue, and beneath my feet, the grass was limp and yellowing.
Suddenly, a familiar shape caught the corner of my eye - a brown snake was lying in the grass, only a few steps away from me.
Immediately, I froze. My heart rate escalated and I could feel it thumping in my chest. Random thoughts fell away as my attention completely focused on the snake. My muscles tensed up, so I was ready to jump and run away.
After a moment, I realised the “snake” was actually just a long, brown stick. Phew! Since the threat had disappeared, my stress response started to calm back down. My muscles relaxed, my heart rate slowed, and I started thinking about other things.
Acute stress is a brief, intense experience of stress that occurs when your mind perceives a threat and kicks your stress response into action.
It's a powerful process that empowers you to deal with danger, but there are a few potential problems.
The stress response happens very quickly, which means you don’t always have time to determine if a threat is real or not - for example, a snake or a stick in the grass. This can be beneficial as the faster your body responds to a real threat, the more chance you have to survive. But, it can also mean your stress response occurs unnecessarily, sometimes.
The stress response doesn’t care if you’re facing a physical threat (like a snake in the grass) or an emotional threat (like an argument with a friend). However, emotional threats don’t necessarily benefit from the stress response. In some cases, the stress response can even make the situation worse! For example, if you’re in a job interview and the stress response occurs, it might hinder your performance. Your breathing might speed up, making it harder to talk. Sweat might break out all over your body and become a distraction. Rather than looking calm and composed, you might appear flustered, overwhelmed, and agitated.
That’s why it's crucial to know how to manage acute stress so you can soothe your stress response when you need to! While it’s healthy and normal to experience acute stress at times, it can also occur at times when it isn’t helpful.
In this article, you’ll discover five valuable strategies to help you manage acute stress. You might like to apply one of the strategies the next time you want to calm your stress response. If the strategy works well for you, feel free to keep using it. If not, come back to this article and choose another strategy to try. You’re also welcome to experiment with combinations of these strategies, too.
Strategy 1: Practice mindful emotional awareness
Mindfulness is the practice of paying attention to the present moment with open-mindedness and non-judgement. So, mindful emotional awareness means paying attention to your emotions, without judging them.
For example, when you’re experiencing acute stress, you can try to observe the sensations of stress in your body, and acknowledge that you’re feeling stressed without judging yourself for it. You might also find it helpful to remember that acute stress is a temporary experience.
There are a few great things about this practice.
First of all, acknowledging and accepting emotions, like stress, can actually help them ease and settle down faster.
For example, in the moments before I start recording my podcast, The Mindful Kind, I often experience acute stress.
I could react by thinking:
“Oh, I’m such an idiot, why am I feeling stressed? I’ve been doing this for 5 years and I should be fine by now!” which can create frustration and shame.
“I’m not stressed, I’m fine,” which might indicate that I’m suppressing the emotion, rather than dealing with it.
“Ok, I’m feeling a bit stressed right now. I can feel my heart beating faster and my palms are getting sweaty. This is temporary and I can handle this.” Usually, simply acknowledging the stress and it’s temporary nature helps it seem less overwhelming.
Mindful emotional awareness can be a powerful practice, and in my online course, Mindfulness Made Easy, I created a whole module all about it. In fact, it was voted as the number one favourite module by my amazing students! One of my Mindfulness Made Easy students even used the 5-step mindful emotional awareness technique I teach in the course to manage acute stress before a job interview - and she successfully landed the job!
Strategy 2: Take several deep breaths
I talk about breathing exercises a lot (as I use them regularly myself) and deep breathing is also a common tip for dealing with stress. So, you might have already heard about taking deep breaths to manage stress, but there’s a huge reason why – because it’s effective.
Taking several deep breaths can be particularly helpful when dealing with acute stress.
When you experience the stress response, your body automatically kickstarts a number of processes to help you fight or escape from a threat. Hormones get released, blood rushes to your heart and brain, you start to sweat, you might feel dizzy - and your breathing rate increases.
You can’t really control those bodily processes, except your breathing rate. You can deliberately slow it down, helping to stimulate the relaxation response and stop stress from escalating. Next time you’re experiencing a stressful moment, do the best you can to take at least 5 deep breaths, aiming to breathe all the way into your diaphragm, not just your chest.
Strategy 3: Focus on one thing at a time
Multitasking can lead to an increase in the secretion of cortisol and adrenalin, potentially causing more stress. That’s why I do my best to focus on just one thing at a time when acute stress occurs.
Below, you’ll find a few quick tips to help you to focus on one thing at a time!
Stop doing anything that isn’t urgent. Write it down on a to-do list so you can return to it later.
Take one step at a time. Ask yourself, “What is the most important thing I need to focus on right now?”
Ask for help. Delegate tasks and try not to do everything yourself.
Practice! Even when you’re not feeling stressed, try focusing on one thing at a time to help yourself adjust to single-tasking.
Strategy 4: Practice self-care as soon as you can after a stressful experience
I always try to take short breaks after experiences of acute stress. Why? Because I know that the stress response, even when it’s mild, takes energy. And more intense experiences of stress that last a bit longer can require more energy and resources. Even positive stress, like excitement, can leave you feeling depleted.
That’s why self-care is so important to practice and to implement regularly. You could take five minutes to sip a cup of tea mindfully, listen to a relaxing song, write in a journal about what you’re grateful for, or read a chapter of a book. Sometimes, I like doing something simple, like sitting outside in the warm sunshine for a few minutes and watching the clouds to help myself wind down and reset.
You can also try implementing a simple self-care routine, like the one I teach in my FREE mini course, Self-Care for Busy People. I’ve packed this free mini course with powerful practices to support your emotional wellbeing and nourish your resilience and the best thing is, once you’ve learned about these self-care practices, I’ll personally guide you through a 5-minute self-care routine. It’s really fun and such a simple and meaningful way to look after yourself.
Strategy 5: Listen to relaxing music or a guided meditation
Make a playlist of your favourite relaxing songs and take some time to listen to them after experiences of acute stress. Music with a slow tempo can soothe your mind and relax your muscles, making it a valuable stress relief tool.
Try to listen mindfully by closing your eyes, noticing different instruments, comprehending the words, and re-focusing on the music when your mind starts to wander.
You might like to experiment with guided meditations to help you relax after stressful experiences, too! There are many apps, Youtube videos, and podcasts that offer meditations.
As a certified Meditation Teacher, I’ve also created several meditation albums to help you easily implement meditation into your days.
My Relaxation Meditation Album is perfect to help you unwind before sleep with a relaxing breathing technique, a visualisation, and a progressive muscle relaxation to choose from.
Relaxation Meditation Album by Rachael Kable
The Good Morning Meditation Album is designed to brighten your mood and lift your energy in the morning so you can have a more positive and productive day. You’ll find five 10-minute meditations to choose from.
Good Morning Meditation Album by Rachael Kable
In the Self-Compassion Meditation Album, you’ll discover two 20-minute meditation tracks that will help you cultivate kinder self-talk and self-compassion.
Self-Compassion Meditation Album by Rachael Kable
Each meditation album also includes a unique music track (created exclusively for the albums!), so you can relax and unwind.
Acute stress is a necessary and normal part of life.
However, with these strategies, you’ll be able to stop acute stress from escalating or dragging on for too long. You can also go outside your comfort zone and try new things, knowing that you’ve got valuable strategies to help you navigate stress and take good care of yourself!
Do you know someone who would benefit from this article?
Send them the link so they can manage acute stress, too!
