3 Tips For Better Communication In Stressful Situations
In life, there are going to be all kinds of stressful situations that you’ll find yourself in. Regardless of your position or profession, you might find yourself as a police officer having to deal with dangerous people or a parent having a hard time with a child. Whatever the case is, if you know what to do in stressful situations to ensure that everyone comes out on the other side unscathed, you may find that your own stressful situations don’t stress you out quite as much anymore.
To help you in getting to this point, here are three tips for better communication in stressful situations.
Keep Your Body Calm
As soon as you feel yourself getting into a stressful situation or in a stressful conversation with someone, one of the best things that you can do is to take steps that will enable you to keep your body calm. When your body feels out of control, your mind will feel out of control as well. And if you’re hoping to work through a stressful or tough situation, the last thing you want is to feel out of control.
To help you in doing this, one of the main things you’ll want to focus on is your breathing. When your body is feeling stress, your heart beat can elevate and your breathing can quicken. This can make your mind feel like you’re in a fight or flight scenario. So to avoid this, you’ll want to calm down your body by maintaining slow, steady, even breaths. This will help to clear your mind and regulate your body.
Be A Better Listener
When you’re trying to communicate with someone as you’re both in a stressful situation together, it’s very common for both sides to feel so entrenched in their own arguments that they don’t listen to the other person. Ironically, it’s only when you can listen to and understand the other person can you really make any headway toward a solution.
With this in mind, when you feel yourself starting to get stressed when communicating with someone, your immediate response should be to talk less and listen more. As you listen with empathy and without interrupting the person you’re speaking with, you’ll be better able to see the whole picture and relieve some of the stress from the situation.
Seek To Find A Compromise
Sometimes, stressful situations become so stressful because each side thinks that they know what’s best. But when you’re feeling this way, it can be incredibly hard to get out of the stressful situation without something changing. And since you can’t change anyone but yourself, the change is going to have to come from you.
Rather than trying to “win”, you should seek to find a compromise that will work for both sides. Look to give a little on your side and then request the other person to give a little one their side as well. This can ease some of the tension and get more effective communication going.
If you want to communicate better when you’re in stressful situations, consider implementing some of the tips mentioned above.
