There are five stress management areas to consider:
1. Attitude, thoughts, feelings!
The inside: As my mother always told me, 'Sometimes you can't choose what happens to you in life, but you can choose how to respond to what you are given.'
Your internal beliefs, thoughts and feelings all help you to deal with stress. Stress management techniques will strengthen your mind and spirit. These are the most powerful strategies to implement. If you practise them, you will be able to deal with stress of any kind.
Feelings - Let go of unexpressed feeling using John Gray's Feeling Letter.
Meditation. This helps to slow down your breathing, heart rate and thoughts. It also increases your stress threshold.
Relaxation. Do anything that helps you relax.
Beliefs. Change your beliefs and you'll change your stress levels.
Thought patterns. Your feelings are indicative of your thoughts.
Meaning and purpose. Create meaning in your life. You'll soon let go of the small things.
Visualization and imagination will free your mind of your worries.
For an immediate giggle, click below
2. Lifestyle Choices
Drinking 10 cups of coffee a day has physiological effects that induces stress symptoms. So does getting only 2 hours sleep a night. You start to look crazy - running around like a headless, sleepless chicken.
Everything you put in to your body and everything you interact with affects your body, mind and spirit.
Especially if you are addicted to drama yourself.
Yes, I know. You don't want to change. You'd rather not deal with stress at all. Humans would rather die than change. That's why you're in the right place. We understand what you're going through.
To learn more about the effects of stress on the body, go to
Stress & Health!
3. StressThreshold!
Your Threshold is the line where your pain tolerance reaches an unbearable level. Every now and again you will experience a period of chaos that pushes you to your threshold. But take comfort in the fact that it enables growth.
Everyone has a different threshold. If you experienced early childhood traumas, your threshold may be low.
And, if you have a low pain threshold, it won't require much to take you there.
You will have to work at raising your threshold. Think of the process as building yourself up to run a marathon.
How do you do this?
1. Meditation is the single most powerful technique to raise this vital threshold.
2. Changing the way you think changes what you perceive as stressful.
As your threshold rises, so will your ability to handle challenges.
4. Your Capabilities!
Your capabilities and self efficacy determines what you can handle. New situations may leave you overwhelmed if your stress management skills are not developed. As you grow with experiences and with practice, you are able to cope with new situations. Change is what grows your capacity levels. This accelerates your growth. People who have been allowed to follow their instinctive talents are far more content no matter how much work is on their plate. It may be that you're not using what you're naturally good at. There is a wonderful index you can check out which will determine your best Modus Operandi in relation to information, systems, managing change and risks and dealing with tangibles. Once you start to do what you do using your talents, your stress levels will be way way reduced.
A child cannot cope at the age of 10 what he can tolerate at 17 years. Acquire patience and allow time to take care of you. The rest will take care of itself. Click here to understand more about
change!
5. Habits and behaviour!
You learn behavior from your parents and older siblings, from TV, teachers and peers. Your automatic response to stress is not always YOU reacting. You are a product of your habits.
How you deal with stress has been handed down to you. But, hey, it's not in the gene pool. You can change a habit. Actually, habits are key to managing stress.
YAY! You can change any habit. One at a time remember.
This is just an overview. Each of these areas will be broken down with practical tips and exercises. The great news is that stress management will allow you to have fun with change and challenges.
To increase your awareness of your own stress response, do the exercise here at
Stress Symptoms!
