Stress management is essential to preserve our mental and physical health, yet if we want to better understand how to manage stress, we have to test our stress levels first. In this post you can test your stress level by taking a simple quiz and you will also learn some tips to manage the stress effectively.
We all have an inner space of calmness, serenity and satisfaction, but life may often harm this precious space. Managing stress means to find ourselves again, to find this inner space again, letting negative emotions go. Negative emotions make us weaker both emotionally and physically – lowering the immune system, increasing the cardiovascular risk and harming our physical shape.
Test your stress level – QUIZ
This test was come up with by psychologist Dr. Lisa Firestone and it is made up of 9 questions to answer and that help us check our stress level, handle it better and thus prevent its negative consequences.
This test is just an emotional evaluation of ourselves, which helps understand if our emotional balance has been compromised.
Question #1: How often do you feel fit, healthy, full of energy and relaxed?
A – Almost every day
B – Almost 50 % of time
C – Seldom
Question #2: How often do you experience these emotions and feelings: sadness, guilt, fear, bliss, love, enthusiasm?
A – Every week
B – Every month
C – I don’t remember when I last experienced one of these feelings
Question #3: How often do you express your emotions in front of other people?
A – Only when I think it is necessary
B – Only when emotions are too strong
C – Always
Question #4: How often do you feel unenthusiastic after watching TV, taking physical exercise, reading a book, finishing a work, surfing the Internet?
A – Seldom
B – Once in a while
C – Always
Question #5: When you feel sad, what do you do more often?
A – Spend some time with other people (friends, family)
B – I spend time with other people only If I feel like doing so
C – I’d rather stay alone when I feel sad
Question #6: How often do you worry excessively about problems which are easy to solve?
A – Only when I feel very stressed out
B – Once in a while, not consistently
C – Always
Question #7: Do your partner, family, friends, children support you?
A – Always
B – Only when I really need it
C – Not enough
Question #8: How often do you ask your friends, family, partner, children for help/support?
A – Every day or at least once a week
B – Once a month
C – Only when I feel helpless
Question #9: Do you have passions, hobbies?
A – Yes, and I consistently devote myself to them
B – One or two, but I generally overlook them
C – I don’t have time for passions or hobbies
How to interpret this quiz?
If you answered all the questions sincerely, now you have an idea on how your emotional balance is going.
If most of your answers are As – congratulations, you can handle your emotions, stress and your daily life very well.
If most of your answers are Bs – you are on the right path, though you have to work a bit harder to manage stress effectively.
If most of your answers are Cs – your emotional balance is strongly compromised and stress is prevailing over your life and wellbeing.
A few tips to manage the stress
If most of your answers are Bs or Cs, have another look at questions and answers. Here’s what you can do.
Question #1:
Negative emotions and feelings often result in physical symptoms. For instance, it may happen to feel tired, exhausted, listless before facing hidden emotions (like anger). When you feel tired, seemingly without a reason, your body sends you signals and says you have to face and manage your emotions better.
Question #2:
Lots of people don’t feel comfortable expressing negative emotions, like anger and jealousy. Yet these emotions don’t have to be restrained and here’s why: some people prefer to address their emotional energies to guilt feelings, and before they may realize, these guilt feelings start to destroy them because it’s the only emotions they choose to experience so strongly.
Question #3:
Expressing one’s emotions in front of other people is very important. This doesn’t mean you have to lose control each time people try to provoke you. It doesn’t even mean you always have to say what you think.
Within healthy human relationships, emotions have to be healthily expressed. If people (colleagues, friends, family members) cause you slight problems and you react excessively, then your emotional balance gets distraught and so do your relationships with people.
Question #4:
Most of us have precise ways to react to negative emotions. A common strategy is to try to lessen these emotions (be it guilt or anger) with routine activities carried out exaggeratedly and obsessively (like watching TV, going to the gym, cooking) instead of facing and managing these emotions, and not letting other people offer us the help we need.
Question #5:
Negative thoughts get stronger when we are alone. The stronger these thoughts get, the less we want to be with people. This is the reason why melancholic people are advised to spend as much time as possible with other people. Even though you are not willing to talk about your problems, the sole human presence can boost your mind and improve your mental and physical wellbeing.
Question #6:
When the emotional balanced is compromised, concentration and attention become weak. Tasks that are actually very easy to carry out, now seem hard and tiresome.
Question #7:
We all have lots of tasks in everyday life: work responsibilities, we take care of children, we do the grocery shopping, we do house chores, and if we are not properly supported and helped, our emotional balance and our health start to suffer.
Question #8:
Lots of people are highly self-exigent. They think they can do everything and HAVE to do everything, without letting themselves ask for help and support. Feeling embarrassment and pressure because of all those things to do is a warning signal. Not only you have to understand that your emotional balance and health are being compromised, but you also have to ask for the help you need.
Question #9:
Your passions and hobbies (collecting, photography, drawing, bird-watching, playing a musical instrument…) are valuable tools to ward off bad mood.
If you don’t have passions or hobbies, you are likely to spend too much time at work, too much time taking care of other people, and too little taking care of yourself.
If we want to stay fit and healthy, it is essential to test our stress level by taking this quiz from time to time, in order to ward off negative emotions and make room for serenity and peace of mind.
Thank you for reading Test Your Stress Level – Quiz And Tips To Manage The Stress, and if you find this article useful, please comment below and share it so other people can benefit from it as well!