How to Fight Relationship Stress and Win
How can your romantic relationship flourish in this era of non-stop stress?
Chronic stress can kill your joy, optimism, and motivation. It can have adverse consequences for your health. It can make you more withdrawn, overreactive, and less affectionate.
No wonder why stress can split a relationships apart.
But it doesn’t have to be that way. You can turn your relationship into a low-stress oasis by implementing simple stress-reducing strategies together.
Before we get to the strategies, let’s take a quick look at the negative effects of chronic stress.
The Negative Effects of Chronic Stress
Although we often ignore them, the negative effects of chronic stress are well documented.
According to a Yale Medicine Fact Sheet on the topic, symptoms of chronic stress can include cognitive, emotional, physical, and or behavioral changes, including, but not limited to:
Sleep disturbances
Aches and pains
Low energy
Cloudy thinking
Appetite changes
Increased use of drugs or alcohol
Behavioral changes like driving too fast or overeating
Changes in social behavior like isolating oneself
Emotional changes like crying more, edginess, or irritability
But it doesn’t stop there, and in fact can get far more serious.
Chronic stress can be a factor in cardiovascular disease, obesity, diabetes, arthritis, addictions, and mood disorders.
“Stress increases blood sugar and can make diabetes worse. It can create high blood pressure and cause insomnia. It can also make people become anxious, worried, depressed, or frustrated.”—Dr. Ann Webster, Health Psychologist
None of these make for a happy relationship, do they?
It’s difficult to express love and foster a loving ambiance when you’re wound-up, ready to burst or worn down to the bones.
Although stress will always be a factor in our lives, your relationship doesn’t have to be its next victim. As a couple, you can learn how to manage stress together.
As you do, your relationship will grow more empathetic, relaxed and enjoyable. Getting on top of your stress response can give your relationship more staying power too.
7 Ways to Reduce Stress As a Couple
Don’t let stress fracture your love. Be proactive. Use one or more of these seven methods to address stress as a couple.
1. Identify Your Stress Triggers
When you identify and acknowledge your stress triggers, you start to regain control over your life. Once you know what triggers your stress, you can examine each trigger and decide to:
Change yourself
Change the situation
Or, perceive the situation differently
You’ll each have individual stress triggers — like a challenging boss or financial concerns — as well as triggers that set you off within the relationship.
For example, your partner is never on time, drives too fast, or looks at the computer while you’re talking to him. Sometimes, even small annoyances regularly repeated can automatically send you into a state of distress or fuel a stress-riddled argument.
Choose a quiet time when you’ll be free from distractions. Sit down together and individually make a list of your top five stressors. Then individually make a list of your top five relationship stressors. If you don’t have five, that’s okay. Just list the ones that come to your mind.
You can make both lists in the same session or address them at different times.
When you’re done, share some or all of your triggers with each other in an honest, caring, and authentic way. Brainstorm ways you can help each other respond differently or change a situation that’s triggering stress.
Making lifestyle modifications takes time. So, go easy. Decide on one thing you want to change and just start there. When you accomplish the first one, move on to the next.
2. Be Honest with Yourself
You can’t be authentic with another human being if you aren’t already honest with yourself. Often, we live in a state of reaction and don’t take time to look at our own feelings, wishes and needs. So much stress arises when we’re not in tune with and true to ourselves.
Take the time you need to get to know yourself.
This might involve time for journaling, drawing, meditation, walking in nature, talking with a good friend, or taking a course on your own. Allow your partner time for self-reflection so he can come to know, love and express his true self too.
It might feel threatening at first to give your partner personal time away from you. If that’s the case, it’s a sign to look within and explore the fear or sense of inadequacy that fuels your worry.
Learning to deeply and completely accept ourselves — imperfections and all — is a life long journey. But, each step you take peels away a layer of falsity allowing you to reveal more of the authentic you.
Feeling you have to hide your real feelings and wishes from your partner only creates stress, unease, and distrust. Those emotional states will eventually wear away your relationship.
Authenticity is the only true foundation for a healthy relationship.
3. Mini Check-Ins
Don’t be like trains passing in the night. Say a real “hello” to your partner every day for at least a few moments. Find your own best ways to ask her:
How are you doing?
How are you feeling?
How was your day?
Then listen.
It’s far easier to be supportive, when you know where your partner is at.
Unexpressed feelings and concerns tend to brew and then pop out in unhealthy ways like irritation, withdrawal, or insecurity. It’s easy to pick up on the energy of the unspoken and unconsciously react to it in tense or unkind manner. This can spiral into even more inter-personal distress.
Opening the door to communication with these gentle questions will let steam and stress out before the pressure builds up and comes out in harmful ways.
You don’t have to fix your partner’s problems. Listening itself can be a significant healing force.
If your partner needs some time to think things through on their own, that’s okay too. It’s better to know this than to react to their introspective mood with fear or insecurity.
4. Deeper Check-Ins and Regular Planning Sessions
Schedule regular sessions to check-in and plan out your life together. These are valuable times to confer with each other on anything and everything.
Start with a deeper personal check-in. Mini check-ins aren’t enough. You need time to share deeper emotions too. Give each other time and space to share your recent successes, current worries, and emotional mood.
It’s good to clear emotions and feel a sense of connection before you move on to the practical items on your agenda. Otherwise, the unexpressed can lurk and block movement on the practical.
Gently share observations like, “You seem a little sad?” Or, “Your last project seemed to take a lot out of you.” If your observation is on target, it gives your partner the chance to open up even more. If not, she has a chance to clarify the misperception.
After clearing your emotions, move on to focus on your personal and collective visions and the practical things that need to be done from house repairs to phone calls to shopping lists.
Deeper check-ins work well on a weekly basis. You may need practical sessions less often. Decide on a timing that works for both of you and don’t let these sessions slip.
Regular check-ins and planning sessions will keep you on the same page, shield you from unexpected surprises, and ensure that resentments don’t build up.
That all adds up to less stress.
5. Offer Gratitude and Appreciation
Too often we focus on what we don’t like in our relationship instead of celebrating all the goodness we have. It’s easy to get nit-picky and bicker about the small things, isn’t it?
Gratitude, on the other hand, is a powerful way to keep your relationship steady and bright.
Multiple studies have shown that gratitude can reduce stress. Gratitude can also lead to more optimism, reduced physical symptoms, and better sleep. Yet another study in the journal Personal Relationships has shown that expression of gratitude is a significant predictor of marital quality.
So, don’t let a day go by without expressing appreciation to your partner. Let him know how much you enjoy being together and express gratitude for all the small things that often go unnoticed.
Try out these appreciative phrases to get started.
“I appreciate you.”
“I’m so grateful we’re together.”
“Thank you for doing the dishes.”
“Thank you for getting the car fixed.”
Gratitude is powerful.
6. Laugh Together
Laughter is a fun and effective way to reduce stress. A good laugh has the added benefits of improving your physical and mental health.
Research shows extended periods of laughter can:
Reduce levels of stress hormones like cortisol, epinephrine, and dopamine.
Increase blood flow to the heart.
Boost your immune system.
Strengthen and tone your abdominal muscles.
Deliver more oxygen to your tissues.
Relax your muscles.
Reduce pain.
Improve your mood and outlook.
Laugh together regularly. This simple practice will naturally strengthen your relationship and safeguard it from stress.
7. Learn How to Invoke the Relaxation Response Together
The relaxation response is the physiological antidote to the stress response discovered by Harvard physician Herbert Benson more than 30 years ago.
According to this stress pioneer, you can invoke the relaxation response through the repetition of a sound, phrase or movement while setting aside intruding thoughts by returning to the practice at hand.
Here are some ways you can invoke the relaxation response: Abdominal breathing, progressive muscle relaxation, prayer, meditation, yoga, tai chi, and jogging.
Choose one of these stress-busting activities and do it together often.
Closing Thoughts
Stress is a natural and needed physiological response intended to protect you from danger. But, given the craziness of modern life, many people have their stress response turned on far too often. Chronic stress can contribute to a host of undesirable disorders from heart problems to immune-related dysfunctions to depression and anxiety.
Stress can easily infiltrate a relationship and bring it down. Instead, reach out to your partner and decide to work together to protect your connection and yourselves from the negative effects of stress.
What’s one step you can take today to protect your relationship from stress?
Thank you for your presence, I know your time is precious! Don’t forget to sign up for Wild Arisings, my twice monthly letters from the heart filled with insights, inspiration, and ideas to help you connect with and live from your truest self.
You might also like to check out my Living with Ease course or visit my Self-Care Shop. May you be happy, well, and safe – always. With love, Sandra
