By Siti Syamimi Muhamad
It is undeniable that all of us will experience stress in our daily life. What is the meaning of stress?
According to Oxford dictionary, stress is a state of mental or emotional strain or tension resulting from adverse or demanding circumstances. Stress is also synonym to pressure, worry, anxiety, nervousness, difficulty, suffering and pain. Stress cannot be avoided because stress is an ongoing process. It is related with our daily activity, so, to experience stress it is normal.
What makes it different is how individuals handle their stress. If the persons can handle it very well, everything will be okay and they feel happy to continue doing their daily routine but if they fail, it will lead them to do something which can harm themselves until the worst circumstance they are willing to commit suicide. So, it is important for all us to manage our stress wisely.
According to Dato Dr. Haji Mohd Fadzilah Kamsah in his book Petua Menangani Stress, there are some factors that cause stress.
Firstly, the individuals will experience stress when they always want to win and do not like to face defeat. This is because they feel that calmness is only obtained when they are able to achieve success in something, but failure and defeat is a matter of shame and sad. This kind of thinking leads to disappointment as a result stress may occur.
Not only that, the second factor is perfectionist. The individuals are too concerned about something until they do not want any mistakes happening in every single thing that they do because it will show weakness of themselves. When any defects or errors occur they cannot seat calmly.
Third factor that may lead to stress is worrying too much. This is because this type of individuals always think of the negative effect that will happen later. According to psychologist, 90% of the things that we are worried will not happen at all. So, no need for us to worry about the difficulties and hardship that we may face later on because our life is full of tests and challenges.
Responsibility is the last factor. Too much responsibility or too little responsibility can cause stress. It happened when a person is exposed to the working environment. Because they have a lot of work to do, and also students too feel this same situation. Too many assignments that need to be submitted and lack of time may cause pressure. Not only that, there are individuals who will feel the stress when they are given too little responsibility because the amount of work is little and they feel no satisfaction as they do not have a chance to show their ability and potentials to other.
When we experience stress, there must be a solution to overcome it. We need to overcome stress to have positive energy in our daily life.
There are some tips and solution given by Dato Dr. Hj Mohd Fadzilah Kamsah in the same book.
Firstly, we need to change our mindset. When we are thinking about positive things, it will be positive but if we always think negative, it will be negative. So, even though we are in a stressed situation, we must try to get the positive energy. For example, when we are stress, do not say œIm stressful. But, change it to the word that can motivate us such as œI am a calm person, It is normal to have stress, stress actually gives me strength to do better, I can face it, Insha Allah.
Secondly, as a Muslim of course we need to rely on Allah when we face any hardship or difficulties. We must ask for help from Him because He is the one who creates us. He is the only one that can give us a peace of mind. We need to pray and make supplication to Him. Not only that, as a Muslim we also can recite the holy Quran, take an ablution, always remembering Allah (zikr), fasting and do charity in order to reduce stress.
The easiest and simplest tip to manage stress is to smile. Smile does not only make others feel happy to deal with us but also it is considered as charity in Islam. More over it is free and we dont need to pay anything for it.
Stress is needed in order to make us become stronger in the future. Stress teaches us to solve the problem. So when we have problem, we are able to solve it without help from others.
Stress can be positive or a stepping stone to motivate us to achieve success in our life but it also can become worst if we cannot handle it in a correct way. It depends on how we look at the stress so it will determine the result of our action.
“Stress is the gap between expectation and reality. More gap, more stress. So, expect nothing, accept everything. ***