The American Psychological Association and the American Institute on Stress conducted online research to learn more about the impact of stress on Americans. The results were alarming. For example, 48% reported being impacted at home and work by stress, and over 30% claimed stress negatively affected their family life.
Also, 54% reported stress causes them to fight with loved ones. Over 70% have physical and psychological symptoms, including fatigue, headaches, upset stomach, irritability, and anger.
How can something like stress have such a negative effect on families? The answer to this question has multiple layers, one of which starts with its definition.
What is Stress?
Anything that requires your attention can cause either a positive or negative physical, psychological, or emotional reaction. When you perceive something as a threat, chemicals, and hormones, like adrenaline and cortisol, surge through the body. This is preparing you to either fight the threat or run away from it.
After your body reacts, it relaxes. Or it should relax. For some, stress occurs more than it should, putting your body into chronic stress.
What is Family Stress?
Family stress refers to stressors you encounter that involve one or more family members. For example, when your in-laws show up unexpectedly for a visit. Other examples of family stressors are financial issues, relationship problems, the death of a loved one, and moving.
Stressors can be minor, like running late for work or an appliance breaking. Or they can be life-altering, like divorce, remarriage, a new baby, or foreclosure on a home.
Fortunately, there are proven ways to handle family stress, and it begins with taking care of yourself.
Practice Self-Care
To fight off colds, you can take steps to build up your immune system. The same is true for practicing self-care to help you handle family stressors. The healthier you are physically and mentally, the better you can cope with the ups and downs of family life.
Self-care involves taking care of your mind and body. Eat healthier, exercise, and visit a doctor for those aches and pains you have been ignoring for weeks or months. If you have been struggling with anxiety, depression, or other mental health concerns, seek help from an individual therapist.
Take naps, get massages, listen to music, journal, start a new hobby, pray or meditate. Pamper yourself to good health, so when you encounter stressors, you can cope with them appropriately.
Create a Healthy Environment
Often, the environment you live in reflects how you handle stress. If your home is disorganized, cluttered, and chaotic, you likely don’t handle family stress very well. Because your environment influences how you think, feel, and behave, having a healthy environment will lead to healthy reactions to stress. Stress can make you feel out of control. Cleaning and organizing is something you can control, making it a great coping tool. It is also a great teaching tool. Your family can practice worrying and stressing less about the things that are out of your control.
Improve Communication Skills
Just because they are family does not mean you always know the right way to communicate with them. How you communicate with a spouse is completely different from communicating with children, coworkers, or extended family.
This lack of good communication makes it difficult to cope with family stress. Communicating the wrong way can add stress.
You and your family can improve communication skills by working with a marriage and family therapist who uses specific methods for teaching you how to listen, speak, comprehend, and reflect better. Working through family stress will become much more effective.
Have Fun
Laughter is one of the best ways to fight stress. While you may not feel like laughing when you encounter family stress, you can balance out the good and bad by finding ways to have fun. You may find it easier to let some stressors go by laughing them off rather than letting them consume you for hours or days.
There are many benefits to laughter, including beating stress, like:
It relaxes the body
It releases endorphins, "feel good," and pain-relieving chemicals in the brain.
It boosts the immune system
It improves mood
It can diffuse conflicts
It draws you closer to others
It keeps you from focusing on the negative
Know Your Family Stress Cues
Some people claim they go from feeling fine to completely stressed out in a matter of seconds. However, it is more likely they are overlooking cues. There are specific physiological responses that appear before hitting the peak of stress.
Cues like forgetfulness, clumsiness, feeling sore, and experiencing headaches can interfere with your daily functioning. Other cues may include skin irritations, rashes, acne, or hives. Also, having a short temper, low sex drive, or feeling like you need to use drugs or alcohol to self-medicate for physical or psychological issues.
Connect with Supportive People
Everyone needs a support system filled with various people who can offer emotional, informational, and instrumental support. It can include professional support from a counselor, life coach, best friend, and even family members.
Think about all areas of your life that could use support, from personal and professional, to social and spiritual. Find someone in each area that can be a positive resource and be there for you when dealing with family stress.
Help Your Family Cope with Stress
If you follow through with the above tips for coping with family stress, but the rest of your family does not change, it will be challenging to maintain healthy coping long-term. It's essential to help your family understand stress, improve communication skills, practice self-care, create a healthy environment, building a support system, and of course, have fun.
Also, it’s crucial to recognize when you need help coping with family stress. It is okay to seek professional guidance. A therapist cannot eliminate stressors from your life. There will always be family stress. It is inevitable. However, they can teach you how to deal with and overcome family stress so you can focus on living your best life.