Oneill - Stress Management and Prevention: Simple Techniques for Peace & Happiness.

Changes in your normal behavior can be a signof stress. You have to be mindful of your physical and mental behavior to identifykey indicators of stress.

Below is a list of questions that you can answerto help detect early signs of stress.

After a days work, you need to get enoughrest, meditate and enjoy your free time. When you lie down on your bed and youare continuously thinking about your unfinished workload, money matters orlife, in general, your mind is not in good shape. You are being anxious about alot of things making sleep difficult. This eventually leads to disruptedsleeping patterns.

Do you binge on the food you do not normallycrave? People under stress usually find comfort in chocolates or sweets, chips,salty food and fatty food. Eating habits are affected when under stress and theamount is unreasonable consumption. For example, your usual meals arebreakfast, lunch, and dinner with a small snack between meals. However on thedays that you get anxious with a lot of things and when work is problematic,you indulge and add more snacks between meals and even after meals. Disorderedsleeping patterns give you another reason to eat more because you have beenawake for hours thinking too much.

Have you been doing multiple tasks at the sametime? Spreading yourself too thinly over major tasks assigned to you, showsthat you have been accepting tasks that are not reasonable within your skill.You can always say no when people ask you for favors. Make commitments withreasonable deadlines. If you keep pushing yourself to finish more tasks thatyou cannot handle, you will end up thinking about all of them simultaneouslyuntil you cannot decide what to finish first. Eventually, all the tasks will befinished but at a lower quality.

On stressful days, people tend toprocrastinate by giving themselves time to rest. Unfortunately, rest does notcome with reasonable time. You end up watching movies or TV series longer thanyou intended to and you may feel even more tire than resting. You go out withfriends and enjoy their company while you have tasks on your plate. You spendmore time doing unnecessary things like scrolling all day on your socialnetworking sites or just doodling on a piece of paper, making it look like youare having your own therapy session. Procrastination is a sign of stress. Ifyou are giving yourself more time to rest but keep overthinking instead ofresting, you are in a lot of pain and more mental stress.