Not only adults but also children can feel stressed. New challenges can trigger anxiety and thus harmful stress.

If this condition lasts very long, it can even have serious consequences. This is because stress affects all your organs and makes you feel tired. Tiredness and sleep problems are not long in coming if you can’t stop brooding.

If you still don’t know what stress actually means, then read our article Adults are always stressed. There we explain how stress occurs and what it means for the body.

Tips Against Stress

Try to relax during stressful times. The goal is to switch off your thoughts and worries for a while. Only in this way will you find new strength to master the challenges ahead. Relaxation means to let go inside. In a relaxed state, you only care about yourself and simply feel good.

Basically, it is not so important how long you take to relax. It is much more important that you make time for it regularly.

For each person, there are different things, environments, or activities that make them relax. A long run in the fresh air, some cycling or other sports can be relaxing. But also listening to music, drawing, or meditating give your body the inner peace it needs again and again.

Relaxation Techniques

Meanwhile, there are numerous relaxation techniques that you can use alone or in groups. Most of them are quite easy to learn. If you master such techniques, you can relax completely within a few moments. This helps especially before class tests, presentations, and the like.

With autogenic training, you learn to let your body become calmer bit by bit. You program it, so to speak, to react to certain sentences with relaxation. This way you can become calmer anytime and anywhere within a very short time.

Once learned, autogenic training is a companion for the whole life. You can learn this method without outside help with a book. You can buy such self-help books in bookstores or by ordering them on the Internet.

Another method is fantasy journeys. They take you to beautiful, pleasant places. In your imagination you can be anywhere you feel comfortable. Is there a place in the world where you have always wanted to be? Just imagine that you are in your favorite place.

On Youtube and other websites, there are countless guided fantasy journeys in Germany. With pleasant music, they help you fall asleep or calm you down after difficult situations. Try it out by searching for the term “fantasy journey” in a search engine.

With a little patience, you can also learn how to meditate. When you are in meditation, you can almost completely shut off your thoughts. This is especially for people who are constantly ruminating on a liberating feeling. Those who practice regularly have been shown to become more relaxed in everyday life. Challenges are perceived as less bad and one’s own thoughts can be better kept under control.

You can also learn meditation on your own by reading books. There is a lot of free information about it on the Internet. Even if you don’t know anything about it, you can start meditating right away: Lie comfortably on your bed and make sure you are not disturbed. Quiet, pleasant music at a low volume will help you relax even faster. Then first think of something nice. You can put yourself in a place you like. Try to perceive the colors, sounds, and smells of this place.

Don’t pay any attention to the thoughts that come to your mind. You just let them pass by like a silent observer. In this way, you will become calmer and calmer and you will feel very comfortable.

You can do this every day before going to bed to reduce stress.

Everything Has Its Time – Relaxation Is A Question Of Attitude

Some people approach new situations much more relaxed on their own than others. They know: There’s no point in worrying unnecessarily.

Take some time to think about it. Answer the following questions for yourself:

• Do I sometimes get more worked up than necessary?
• Do I sometimes worry, even though everything is going quite well?
• Am I often thoughtful?
• Do I think about the same things over and over again – sometimes for hours?
• Am I generally a hectic person?

Get comfortable and philosophize with yourself a bit. Question the following statements and note those that feel good to you.

• I can manage everything.
• Even unpleasant times pass.
• You don’t have to manage everything alone. Most of the time there is someone who can help you.
• It is not necessary to master everything perfectly all the time. I try as hard as I can. No one expects me to do more than that.
• I am at least as good as they are.
• Best friends have no problem with me showing my weaknesses sometimes. They understand when I am not doing well.
• It’s not my fault if everything gets too much for me. I always do my best.
• I get support from the people I trust.
• A bad grade doesn’t mean I won’t make it through school.
• Before I panic, I think about everything calmly.
• I am a child. That’s why I can’t know and be able to do everything yet. Every day I learn something new and develop myself further. That also takes time.
• When adults get loud or scold me, it usually sounds worse than it is. I don’t need to be afraid. Nevertheless, I should stick to agreements and always listen carefully when an adult talks to me.

Try to remember these sentences in stressful situations. They will help you to become calmer.

Deceleration

This word is related to the term “acceleration”. When someone talks about deceleration, they mean the opposite of speed. In our time, especially as an adult, you can never be fast enough. Many people go through life hurried and rushed. They feel that their day somehow doesn’t have enough hours. No matter how they turn it around, they never accomplish everything they set out to do.

The tendency to be fast is rarely healthy. It is better to always be deliberate in what you do. When you do something, concentrate on it. Try not to dilly-dally with your head in the future or in the past.

Because the constant brooding on the one hand and the speed, on the other hand, put the body permanently under stress. From now on, try to concentrate on one thing at a time.

If you work carefully and thoughtfully, you will make fewer mistakes. Working quickly and in haste always leads to mistakes in thinking or in being hasty.

So slow, concentrated work is at least as valuable as speed and efficiency. In addition, you put yourself under less pressure. So you save yourself a lot of unnecessary stress.

However, deceleration is not an easy thing to do. That’s because we are used to doing everything as quickly as possible. That’s why you have to keep reminding yourself to shift down a gear. That’s not so easy. But with practice, you’ll get used to it. Then you’ll see that it’s much better to do things in a relaxed and calm way.

By the way, you’re also much more creative if you take your time. Think about it in your next art lesson and try it out!

Finding Your Own Pace

No two people are alike. We are all different. That’s what makes the world so colorful and exciting. That’s why it’s also important to accept differences. This also applies to a person’s pace. You have probably already noticed the following circumstances yourself:

• Some children are faster at tying their shoes than others.
• Some children take twice as long to draw a picture as others.
• Everyone’s speed at writing, arithmetic, and reading varies.
• You, too, are differently nimble in each school subject. This is due to your strengths and weaknesses.

But please do not confuse dawdling with composure! It is important to complete pending tasks quickly. This way you can make the most of a day. Always strive to do your best – at your own pace.

Don’t get upset if others are always faster than you. Before you know it, there will be moments when you are the fastest.

Help For Persistent Stress

In some cases, even all the relaxation methods no longer help. When the first health symptoms of long-term stress appear, your first stop should be your family doctor. If you have problems sleeping, he can prescribe a mild sedative. It’s best to talk to your parents about this in advance.

If you are in pain, you are not alone. There must be someone in your environment in whom you can confide. If you do not want to do this, there are special numbers for you. It is also possible to get help on the Internet.

If you feel really bad, you can ask your doctor to prescribe psychotherapy. In a joint discussion with a therapist, you can get to the bottom of the matter. In this way, you can find out the real problem and solve it.

You can find links to grief chats and free counseling numbers in the corresponding articles on our homepage. Of course, you can also contact us directly if you have a question.

Worksheet For The Text

1) Explain the difficult words in the text.
What does…

• Relaxation?
• Deceleration?
• Meditation?
• Psychotherapy?

2) Do you know what stress is? Take a blank, unlined sheet of paper. Draw on it some situations that are stressful for us humans. When do you feel uncomfortable or anxious? Draw or write down everything you can think of.

Photo: Marco Mayer / bigstockphoto.com