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Therapist Sasha Lopez shares advice on managing stress and what to say instead of “just relax”.
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Here’s the scenario- you’re upset, flustered, perhaps your palms are sweaty, and you’re breathing heavy. Someone says, “Just relax,” and a new batch of emotions rises as your feelings are dismissed. In truth, telling someone to “just relax” should never be a common thing to say when we see someone stressed or experiencing an emotionally difficult situation. Or when we’re experiencing it ourselves. Part of the reason is that, similar to heartache, laughter, and those moments when you’ll have to say “sorry” for your emotions, stress is one of life’s guarantees. At one point or another in our lives, we’ve all experienced it. And, according to experts like Sasha Lopez, a therapist MFT-LP from eyMtherapy, it’s more about developing the tools to manage our emotions during times of stress than it is about “just getting over it.”
While regulating and “just relax” might sound like the same thing, one focuses on the steps to acknowledge, access, and regulate your nervous system, while the other implies simply ignoring it and moving on. One will help you better manage your emotions in the future, and the other can give rise to feelings of neglect when it comes to your emotions.
With climate change giving rise to a new crop of stressors, in particular ones that impact women more than men, it’s important to learn how to navigate these stressors in the healthiest way possible. “Instead of trying to eliminate it [stress], I believe a better alternative is to learn skills to help us cope with stress.” Ms. Lopez breaks down what stress is and how it affects our bodies and shares the advice she gives her clients and the advice she gives herself.
How can we tell when stress is healthy and when to seek help?
Healthy stress, or eustress, is motivating and generally short-term. If the stress you’re feeling is debilitating, impacts your quality of life, and limits your ability to function, seeking out a certified mental health clinician could be helpful.
What lifestyle habits protect us from the harmful impact of stress?
While we can make preparations to alleviate small stressors – for example, prepping your outfit and lunch the day before – it is not possible to prevent stress altogether. Stress is an important part of the human experience. Instead of trying to eliminate it, I believe a better alternative is to learn skills to help us cope with stress and seek support when it becomes overwhelming.
Mindfulness and self-compassion can go a long way in protecting ourselves against the harmful impacts of stress. Mindfulness is more than just meditation. To live mindfully is to remain in the present moment, without any judgment. A lot of stress comes from feeling the need to have all the answers for future problems. Stress is protective in a sense – we want to protect our future selves from harm that our current selves may be enduring. It is best to look for balance. We can acknowledge the desire to have a plan for our future selves, while also mindfully existing in the present. We can be compassionate with ourselves by acknowledging that every day we are doing our best, and our best will look different every day because new challenges or life events create a new reality that we have to live in.
What is emotional regulation? Can we practice it daily?
Emotional regulation is a skill. It is a person’s ability to examine, monitor, and respond to emotional stimuli. You are likely practicing this skill and not even realizing it. Think about the last time you were angry and arguing with someone. Maybe you had a desire to scream, but instead you walked away from the problem to collect yourself for a moment – that is emotional regulation. You sensed yourself getting upset, you noticed how you wanted to react, and you consciously chose a different path that helped to manage the emotion and aligned with your goals and values.
We emotionally regulate all the time; some of us have just practiced and honed the skill more than others. It’s also important to note that emotional regulation does not mean the feeling goes away—I can practice emotional regulation and still feel angry. The goal of emotional regulation is to help us live with our emotions, especially the more intense emotions that dysregulate us and cause dysfunction in our relationships and day-to-day lives. If you feel like you struggle with this skill, a licensed mental health clinician can help you grow this skill.
What is emotional resilience? How can we practice it?
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Emotional resilience is another skill – a person’s ability to adapt and overcome in emotionally taxing situations. A person with emotional resiliency may have an easier time “bouncing back,” so to speak, after an emotional crisis. Before discussing how we can practice emotional resiliency, it is important to note that emotional resiliency has a biological basis, meaning that at a genetic level, some of us are predisposed to being better at this skill. However, it is also a learned skill. So while some of us may have a genetic predisposition to be “better” at this skill, that doesn’t mean that we all cannot learn and practice it.
To practice this skill, we can try taking another person’s perspective or reframing our thoughts around a problem. For instance, if you are having the thought, “I am a failure,” you could reframe that to make it, “There is just more of me to learn.” One stance devalues us, while the other can encourage us to keep trying. You can also reach out to friends or loved ones for support, as they can offer further perspective or insight.
It may also be helpful to maintain self-care habits such as journaling. Journaling can help us cultivate emotional resilience by helping us actively and retroactively reflect on what we’ve endured and how we’ve overcome past experiences that may have been similar, instilling a sense of confidence that we can overcome this difficult situation as well.
What is DBT? Can we practice it even if we don’t have a therapist?
DBT, Dialectical Behavior Therapy, is a cognitive-behavioral therapeutic modality created by Marsha Linehan that pairs mindfulness with cognitive behavioral techniques. While it was initially created and utilized for people with Borderline Personality Disorder, DBT skills have been utilized and applied in many different therapeutic scenarios, with many positive outcomes.
A person can absolutely adopt DBT skills even without a therapist. Googling “DBT Skills” will provide a plethora of online educational materials, such as YouTube videos and resource guides. However, working with a therapist who has experience with DBT could lead to better understanding, implementation, and usage of the skills.
Studies link spending time in nature to lower levels of stress. Is this something you recommend to clients?
It is something I have recommended to clients. While it may seem difficult to engage in this in NYC, it could involve being in local outdoors spaces, community gardens, parks, or even tending to plants indoors.
What viral misconceptions about stress do you want to debunk?
The internet sells us this illusion or idea of a magic cure to stress. I see influencers tout apps or products that will make a person’s life infinitely better, and with it the idea that our life could be less stressful. While we may wish it were that simple, it’s important to acknowledge that stress comes from a multitude of factors, including those that exist outside of ourselves. There are sociological factors that are beyond our control that absolutely increase our stress.
A person can experience racism, homophobia, xenophobia, and sexism, all of which play a role and impact our lives and can lead to an increase in stress. While we can hope and work towards creating change in our society, it is important at an individual level to acknowledge these factors that are outside of our control. The internet is selling an individual solution to a problem that is much more complicated.
How do you manage stress in your everyday life?
Broadly, I eliminate the sources of stress that I can and learn how to live with the ones I can’t. Social media brings me stress, so I stay off it. I delete apps from my phone so I’m not tempted to scroll. Instead, I find time to invest in learning new skills or hobbies.
For stressors I can’t eliminate, I utilize mindfulness and social support. I have a few mantras I tell myself when I’m stressed. For instance, when I find myself stressing about the future too much I stop and tell myself, “I trust future me to have the answers for future me’s problems and they haven’t let me down yet” as a way to remind myself that I need to be here and present to gain knowledge and insight to help inform future me to make the best decision possible. When I feel like my stress is unmanageable I take it to friends or loved ones for some perspective, and I stay in talk therapy regularly to help me manage the weekly stress that comes with existence in 2026.
