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Spiritual and Existential Coping With Stress
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Thus far, this stress reduction programme has offered guidelines for reducing stress at different levels of self.
On the biological level of self, stress and anxiety can be helped through abdominal breathing (meditation), physical exercise and following a healthy diet.
On the psychological level of self (mental level), replacing fearful self-talk and beliefs with realistic thoughts can help reduce stress levels considerably. Understanding the role that emotions play in stress and how to deal with destructive emotions can also greatly reduce stress levels.
At the social level of self, the quality of our interpersonal relationships is closely related to stress. Factors that contribute to social stress levels include job satisfaction, managing family disputes and experiencing adequate leisure-time activities.
Edmund Bourne says that anxiety can come from not having answered the basic questions about the meaning and purpose of your life. The American existential psychologist Rollo May suggests that when we, for some reason, are unable to reach our full potentiality in life, we experience existential anxiety.
Some people experience stress and anxiety because they believe that their life is unfulfilled. They believe that they have not reached their full potential in life. It is as if there is incompleteness in their life. Questions such as ‘where is my life going’? or ‘what is my life all about’? reflect some form of spiritual stress. By spiritual we do not necessarily refer to any religion as such but to issues that relate to a Higher Power (God).
Values
A life value can be defined as what you really want out of life – something that you will invest time energy and money on. According to Tony Buzan ‘…values are our codes of internal conduct; the principles upon which we run our lives and make our decisions’.
Richard Leider adds: ‘…the ability to clarify your values and to commit energies toward them means having a definite approach to a defined quality of life…’ He asks: ‘How long is it since you have asked yourself, what do I want out of life?’
Value clarification is an attempt to understand your values and their relative importance to you. This can help you to examine your behaviour and decide whether what you do contributes to what you say is important to you. Many people say that something has great value for them, but their behaviour does not bear that out. For example, most people will put health high on their list of values, yet they continue to do many things that are not healthful.
People who do not have a clear sense of their values are usually purposeless, unmotivated and confused.