Understanding and Coping with Stress: Information and Resources
Each person’s experience is different, and so are their needs. The following information may not help everyone who is dealing with stress, but gives general tips and resources for further support that may be helpful in your journey.
What is Stress?
Stress is a normal reaction to feeling uncertain or threatened. It happens when we sense danger or when we have more challenges or demands than we can handle.
If we experience stress often and for a long time, it can negatively affect our mood, behavior, and health.
Ways Your Body May Express Stress:
- Seeking comfort, pleasure, or numbing
- Cravings for sugar or carbohydrates
- Substance use, gambling
- Excessive shopping, gaming, social media
- Overexercising
- Physical Symptoms
- Rapid heartbeat, shallow breathing
- Tense muscles, shaking, sweating, feeling restless or jittery
- Racing thoughts, difficulty concentrating or remembering things
- Stomach pain, digestive issues, changes in appetite
- Difficulty sleeping
- Aches and pains, reduced immunity, health problems
- Emotional “Spill Over”
- A sense of worry or panic, feeling overwhelmed
- Strong emotional reactions, crying
- Feeling angry or irritable, being “snappy”
- Impatience
- Shutting Down
- Lack of energy, being inactive
- Loss of interest or pleasure in things you used to enjoy
- Sleeping too much
- Withdrawing from others, avoiding certain situations
- Difficulty completing daily tasks
Burnout is a type of exhaustion that happens because of too much stress for too long. It usually builds up slowly after feeling overwhelmed for a long time and often happens when you feel like your hard work isn’t valued or doesn’t make a difference. Burnout often comes from having too many responsibilities in different areas, like work and home.
Increasing Resilience and Managing Stress
Resilience is the ability to handle stress and other challenges in a way that helps us deal with them, recover, and maybe even grow stronger. It helps us get back to feeling normal, both physically and emotionally, after stressful times. Resilience is closely related to coping, which means changing how we think and act to deal with specific problems.
Factors that Increase Resilience:
- Being able to speak up for yourself
- Having a strong support system and using it
- Thinking realistically and having reasonable expectations
- Being kind to yourself
- Managing and handling tough emotions
- Having a sense of purpose, optimism and hope
- Taking good care of yourself regularly
- Keeping a good balance between work and life and leaving work at work
- Using a “toolbox” of healthy active coping strategies
Factors that Decrease Resilience:
- Having many stressors, especially for a long time
- Having little support and feeling isolated
- Criticizing yourself often
- Struggling to accept and handle distress
- Not having a good work/life balance
- Using unhealthy coping behaviors (like substance use)
- Having unresolved personal trauma (recent or past)
Tips for Coping with Stress
- Self-Compassion: It’s important to be kind to yourself, especially during tough times. This means recognizing that feeling stressed is normal, talking to yourself in a supportive way, and having realistic expectations.
- Physical Self-Care: Taking care of your body is crucial when you’re stressed. Make sure you get enough sleep, eat well, and exercise regularly. Prioritize self-care, especially when you’re feeling overwhelmed.
- Social Support: Having friends and family to support you can lower stress. Without support, it’s harder to cope and you’re more likely to feel anxious, depressed, or burned out.
- Realistic Expectations: Know what you can realistically achieve with the resources you have. Communicate assertively to set limits and avoid taking on too much. Ask for help when you need it.
- Work-Life Balance: If work is stressing you out, try to leave work at work. Create a routine to help you transition from work to home, like listening to music or going for a walk. Make sure to unplug and focus on other parts of your life outside of work hours.
- Active Coping: When you feel stressed, use active coping strategies like deep breathing, mindfulness, spending time in nature, doing creative activities, exercising, and seeking support.
- Avoid Unhelpful Coping: Be careful with coping strategies that might seem helpful but can be harmful in the long run, like using substances, withdrawing from others, or eating unhealthily.
- Express Your Emotions: Allow yourself to feel and express your emotions without judgment. If you need help understanding your feelings, use resources like emotion charts. Write about your feelings, create art, or talk to someone you trust.
- Positive Self-Talk: Use realistic and positive self-talk to stay optimistic. Remind yourself you can handle challenges. Avoid negative self-talk that exaggerates problems, doubts your ability to cope, or predicts “worst case” outcomes.
- Learn from the Past: Think about how you’ve handled challenges before and use those strategies again. Observe others to see what works for them and ask for their advice.
- Seek Professional Help: Stress is a normal part of life, but if you feel very stressed most of the time, or if your well-being is affected, consider getting professional support.
Resources for Immediate Support
- Individuals of all ages can call or text 988 to reach Canada’s Suicide Crisis Hotline. You will have the opportunity to be connected to a crisis resource that is age/culturally appropriate for you.
- Talk Suicide Canada provides immediate crisis support to those of all ages. Call 1-833-456-4566 (24/7) or text 45645 (4:00 pm - 12:00 am ET).
- Kids Help Phone provides support via phone, text or chat to children, youth, and young adults. Call 1-800-668-6868 (24/7), text CONNECT to 686868 (24/7), or go to the website for live chat (7:00 pm–12:00 am).
- Wellness Together Ontario offers adults 24/7 access to free and confidential mental health and substance use support. Call 1-866-585-0445 or text WELLNESS to 741741. Additional resources (including self-guided courses and programs and peer support) are available via the website.
Community Resources for Stress Management
- Ontario Structured Psychotherapy Program (Ontario Shores) offers publicly funded cognitive behavioural therapy and clinician-guided self-help resources to those aged 18+ to help manage conditions including depression. Self referrals are accepted, and can be made through the website. For details visit the website or call 1-877-767-9642.
- BounceBack is a free skill-building program managed by the Canadian Mental Health Association (CMHA) to help manage issues including mild to moderate anxiety, stress, and worry. Services are delivered over the phone with a coach and through online videos and workbooks. For more details or to request service, visit the website or call 1-877-767-9642. Teens age 15-17 can access the program at BounceBack for Teens, or by calling 1-866-345-0224.
- CMHA Recovery College Wellness Centre offers a range of free in-person and online courses to help participants understand their mental health, develop strategies for personal well-being, develop life skills, and learn skills to manage mood, emotions, and triggers. For more information or to register, visit the websit
- Ontario Shores Recovery College provides a series of virtual and in-person courses on various mental-health topics, including managing worry/anxiety. Registrants are not required to be receiving services from Ontario Shores to be eligible.
- Adult Integrated Mental Health Services (AIMHS) offers in-person groups on topics including relaxation and mindfulness-based stress reduction. Self referrals accepted. Call 905-440-7534 or 1-833-392-7363, or see website for more information.
Free Apps for Stress Management
- MindShift is a free app from Anxiety Canada that provides a range of tools for adults and youth for managing worry, anxiety, and stress.
- Sanvello is a free app for teens and adults that uses the principles of CBT and mindfulness to help with various mental health challenges. Includes a library of tools for relaxation, breathing, mindfulness meditation, coping, mood tracking, and recording/reframing thoughts.
- Medito: Free Meditation, Sleep & Mindfulness is an app that provides guided and non-guided meditations, courses, and other tools to help you practice mindfulness and gratitude, manage anxiety and stress, relax, sleep better, and improve mental health.
- Breathe: Relax and Focus offers a variety of free and customizable guided breathing exercises to decrease the body’s stress response and support mood stabilization, anger control, and anxiety/stress management.
- Insight Timer Wellbeing App provides free access to over 100,000 guided meditations and music tracks and ambient sounds to calm the mind, focus, sleep better and relax.
- Calm provides a range of free meditation and mindfulness tools to help you relax, lower stress, and sleep better.
Online Information and Resources for Stress Management
- Stress Control is a free six-session online class that combines cognitive behavioural therapy and positive psychology to help you tackle stress. Course booklets and relaxation tracks related to belly breathing, mindful breathing, quick relaxation, and deep relaxation) are available for download. Visit the website for more information.
- What is Mindfulness? provides information about mindfulness and links to various free exercises to help get started.
- Getting Started with Mindfulness provides information about mindfulness and links to several guided meditation exercise (breathing meditation, body scan, awareness of breath practice, compassion meditation, loving kindness meditation, guided meditation for sleep, meditation practice for anxiety/stress).
- The Self-Compassion Scale provides information and a self-assessment about self-compassion, and various exercises to build self-compassion.
- Sleep Resources (CCI) provides a series of information sheets and self-help worksheets to help improve sleep.
