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Have you been stressed out lately and trying to find out how to cope with it but without any success? Then you should seriously consider putting your social support network into action. Stress and social support network are connected to each other very deeply. However, to understand their relationship better you have to know about them at least at the basic level. By doing so you can have a much clearer concept than before of how social support network could help you deal with stress.
Stress
By definition, the term 'stress' refers to the responsiveness of a person to a particular stimulus. This responsiveness could be physical, emotional and mental. This can also be either positive or negative but it affects most people negatively so people tend to count it as a negative thing.Social Support Network
When it comes down to defining 'social support network', many of us complicate the thing by beating around the bush. However, the definition of it is quite straightforward indeed. To tell you to the point, the people around you including your family members, relatives, friends, neighbors as well as peers can be counted as your social support network. These people care about you to help you deal with your life when you are under a lot of stress. Here are some key ways by which they help you in your time of need:Emotional Help
One of the most important things your social support network can do for you is to help you emotionally when you have a crisis. For instance, a friend or a relative can call you up after a divorce or break up and can keep doing it for a while to help you out to heal the fresh wound.Practical Support
Well, when your near and dear ones help you financially or any other way such as sending you gifts, offering you a job or even handling your kids for you can be defined as the practical support. When in need, do not feel shy to accept such support because this is a very good way to get you out of the tight spot that is making you all worked up.Counseling and Advice
Many of us has a preset idea that counseling and advice should come from professionals. Well, this is true in some cases but not in the most ones. In your day-to-day life, you will see a lot of people you know are some kind of expert in some special sort of knowledge. Many of them in fact are self-taught from experience. They might not be professionals, but do not discredit their expertise by disregarding their help when offered. It is not that you are supposed to jump at every advice or suggestion you get from them but keeping an open mind can certainly be rewarding.Information Support
You might be wondering why you would want to use your social support network as your information bank especially when you can simply Google them on the internet. Well, the answer is simple; you would simply want it because doing so you would actually know not only the information on a particular thing but also the realistic feedback on it. This could be really reassuring while you are dealing with stress.Being stressed out is very normal for every human being. Similarly, finding it difficult to deal with it is also very normal. On the other hand, nurturing the reasons behind stress or not letting your social support network help you through – that is not normal at all. In addition, when you are really stressed out, you should absolutely go for the normal, in this case which is your social support network.