These are 5 things I learned to deal with pressure and manage stress.

Extreme pressure is the feeling when we feel so stressed about the things that happen in life. It can happen because of the relationship, financial issues, accidents, failures in business, etc.

Everyone will have their own extreme pressure time. Some will experience these feelings early in life when they are young, some will experience them later.

Because it is a part of our life, we all have the time “up and down”.

Therefore, learning to deal with pressure and manage stress is an essential skill nowadays.

As everyone feels enjoys and relaxed when the quality of life is going up, but most feel afraid and don’t know how to deal when life goes down rapidly, especially during this pandemic year — 2021.

We never can imagine that in the 21st century, we have a virus that can cause the global pandemic that leads to 47 million Americans jobless. And if count on globally, it makes a hundred million people be unemployed.

There are millions of people who are feeling extreme pressure because of losing their jobs, feeling alone, and lack of connection with others.

For me, I totally can understand this feeling when I live in Melbourne, the city which has the hardest restriction in the world for COVID 19 now. By using these methods to get over the extreme pressure time, especially during this pandemic period is super useful.

Personally, when I started my journey as an international student in this city — Melbourne, I used to experience the feeling of extreme pressure when my language is poor, money is limited, no friends, and can’t find a part-time job.

All of these things happen at the same time that makes me feel so stressed and pressure for nearly 3 months before I can find out the way how to control my mind and get over the grim time with a positive mind.

From the moment I applied the following 5 methods to improve my mind, I become more positive and recognize that the extreme pressure time just in the short term and if I can keep a calm mind, I will get over it faster.

During the first month of lockdown, I also fall into extreme pressure feelings when I never can imagine that I will be stuck in the room for a month. But until now, it already 6 months since I stuck here and I feel totally comfortable, positive, and full of energy to work on my career as I did before lockdown.

It all from changing my mindset and health condition based on 5 things that I did for years and recommended for many of my friends during this tough time. And I believe that these 5 methods will help you as well to get over your extreme pressure time in life, such as this pandemic time.

1. To deal with pressure: Let learn to breath

Have you ever heard that just by controlling your breathing, you can control your mind and body to be more relaxed and calm?

This is absolutely insane when the first time I heard my mentor, Berry share with me this technique.

I mean, I never think that we can change the way how to feel just by adjusting the way how we breathe. And when I try to apply this method for the last couple of years ago, it creates an incredible result for me to control my stressful feeling.

Basically, it means that you will control your body and mind by the way how you inhale and exhale the air.

And there are 2 ways that you can choose to do are: “4–2–4” and “4–7–8”.

• The “4–2–4” means that you will inhale the air for 4 seconds, then you keep your breath for 2s before exhaling all the air in your body in 4s.

• The “4–7–8” is a little bit more challenged when you will inhale for 4s, keep your breath for 7s before exhaling for 8s.

And you can choose to do any of these techniques, depending on your present health condition. For me, I started with the first way for 2 months before completely moving to the second way.

I do this breath technique whenever I feel tired, exhausted, or stressed. When I close my eyes, open the binaural beats and relax my mind without concerning anything, just focus on my breath. My body and mind feel totally calm down and my energy recovers just in 5 minutes of practicing this breathing method.

You can start to try it now, just close your eyes, focus on your breath, and count 4s for breath in, 2s for keeping the air inside the body, then 4s breath out. Keep doing it a few times to see how your body will feel, how your mind will be relaxed.

2. To deal with pressure: Let share your feelings with others

This will help you to reduce the level of pressure in your mind when you have someone trustworthy to share how you feel.

Because the feeling of pressure will become more extreme when we just keep it into ourselves. And when you share your feelings with others, let someone just need to listen to your story, you already can reduce a lot of pressure and stress.

This is not just only from my personal experience that I did it for years, but it also is evidenced by the research of scientists about the benefit of sharing to the level of stress.

So don’t try to be a strong person by keeping your pressure in your thoughts, let share it, let make your mind be relaxed. You become stronger when your mind is full of positive thoughts that help you can do more things in life, not by trying to show that you are strong by keeping all the pressure under your mind.

And after years to use this method, I have an important note that I want to share with you and you should be serious about it. This is

You need to learn how to share your feelings with others, and let choose the right person to do it.

Because you don’t want to share your stories with the people who can’t keep secrets and will use your stories to gossip with others.

I used to face this situation before when I share my pressure story about finance with one of my best friends with the thought that just need him to listen and empathy with me. But then, he gossiped the story to many people about what I told him. And this even makes me feel more pressure when I knew that my story is known by the people with who I don’t want to share.

Therefore, letting you choose the right person to share, not mean everyone. Someone who you can trust and keep secret. For me, my mom is the best option. She always feels happy with whatever stories I want to share with her, and usually give me a lot of valuable advice while helping me to keep all secrets properly.

3. To deal with pressure: Let learn to write a journal.

I always have a small notebook in my pocket that I keep everywhere I go. And I use it to write my ideas, my learned lessons, and the feelings I have in a day.

The great point of having a journal is you can use it to keep all your feelings inside and can have look back again later to see what you did and figure out the lessons you can earn from these experiences.

For me, whenever I feel stressed, I will write to my journal, I will try to answer properly these following questions

• How do I feel now?
• Why do I feel stressed about it?
• What do I think I can do to make my mood go up again and get over the pressure-time?

Answer these questions help me to calm down and re-think again about the problem that makes me feel pressured. Normally, after answering the first two questions, I ask myself, do I really need to feel the pressure of this problem? Why I don’t approach this issue in another way that makes me feel better?

It helps me a lot when these questions appear in my mind. Because these questions lead my thoughts to the solutions and help me to stop focusing on the problem itself — the main reason why I am stressed.

We feel stress because we are too focused on thinking about the problem rather than trying to find the solution to solve it.

4. To deal with pressure: Let do exercise

We all know that exercise is a vital part to build up a healthy body. But do you know that daily exercise also helps to reduce the stress level if you keep the workout on your body daily?

The study of the American Psychological Association shows that:

“Exercise and other physical activity produce endorphins — chemicals in the brain that act as natural painkillers — and also improve the ability to sleep, which in turn reduces stress”.

And even just 5 minutes a day of workout like jogging, push up or basic exercise already can boost your mood up and reduce the pressure level that you are facing.

For me, I keep doing exercises for years even before I knew about this research. Basically, because whenever I finish the workout, I feel my body tired, but my mind becomes totally fresh and inspired.

There are many days when I feel down in mood when faced with a lot of pressure and the feeling of laziness. That makes me just want to lay on the bed for a day. But I tried to move my body, did some push-up, and went jogging for half of an hour, even my soul and my body didn’t want to.

The great thing is when your mind and your body don’t want you to do something, it doesn’t mean that they are always right. Especially when both of them feel lazy for doing exercise, but you need to do it.

And after the workout, I always feel myself to be better. And change the way how I see the issues were happening just as the challenges for me to grow.

These things don’t be known as my pressure anymore.

5. To deal with pressure: Let learning from positive contents

This is a life-long process. We all need to learn every single day to live better and understand more about this life.

And especially under high-pressure times, learning can use as a kind of panacea to help your mind be stronger.

“Learning from the positive contents” is my favorite concept not only on the day I am under extreme pressure situations but also be used in my daily routine to help me strengthen my thoughts.

There are many ways to approach positive content nowadays with the internet. For me, I usually listen to podcasts or watch Youtube videos of Tony Robbins, Jay Shetty, Jim Rohn, Tai Lopez,…when I do exercise instead of listening to workout music as I did before.

I don’t know how to describe exactly the feeling when you listen to the motivational content during workout time. It likes “morphine” for me to workout harder while feeling fresher and more inspired.

And I also normally spend around one hour a day reading the contents from the great writer on Medium. These people shared a lot of valuable lessons and inspired stories daily, such as Anthony Moore, Tim Denning, Benjamin Hardy,…

Now, consuming the positive content daily to be my habit, it is not in my “Try To-Do List” anymore.

Because when you plan and take care of your soul with “positive nutrition” daily. The contents themselves be a part of your soul that you want to read, to listen, to apply every single day in your life.

The five mentioned methods are the ways how I used to deal with the extreme pressure moment in my life.

And now, when I face the other big challenges in the middle of my 20s — COVID 19 lockdown, the level of pressure is higher. But the ability I have to control it is far better than my beginning when I didn’t know these methods.

I hope that these methods will help you to work on yourself. That make you feel better and think positive under any pressure circumstance. Together, we will become a better version every day.

If you want to read more about personal development topics, let check it out at “Wiki Personal Development”.