6 Great Tips Too Help You Successfully Manage Stress

“Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.” – Ferris Bueller’s Day Off

6 Great Tips Too Help You Successfully Manage Stress

How do you say “Goodbye to Stress?” You don’t say “Goodbye” to stress; stress happens; it’s called LIFE!  What you do is learn to manage life’s challenges more effectively.  A Mayo Clinic Study determined the most common time for heart attacks to occur is Monday morning, the first day of the business week.  If you feel overwhelmed, under appreciated, unfulfilled, and can’t even think about taking a day off or even day dream for a minute, you need to kick your stress habits and change your results. It’s time for you to make Monday morning feel like Friday afternoon!

There are many ways to manage stress. Here are just a few habits you might like to trade in for your old stress producing habits.  These new habits can help you NOW! They have the potential to reduce tension, calm your mind, increase your sense of fulfillment, elevate your mood, and increase your “Happiness Quotient!”

Prepare To Kick Your Stress Habits!

Your Average Day: You wake up in the morning; you’re grouchy, you already decided it is going to be a “bad” day; you begin complaining about not being able to get all of the things done on your “to do list,”  and you don’t expect much help from your co-workers. After all, you can do the work much better than they do anyway! You are also thinking about the chores your children were supposed to do, and you don’t think they will be accomplished to your satisfaction either.  Of course there was no time to eat a so called “healthy” breakfast; you’ll have donuts and coffee when you get to work. If you’re lucky, you might get to eat lunch at your desk; it’s almost impossible to change your lunch environment. There’s too much work to do. You are full of anger and resentment. You can’t get rid of the pain in your back. For some reason you seem irritable most of the time.

By the way, when you do get to go home; it’s a martini or a beer or two, pick up the kids from soccer practice, or maybe you had to pick up the kids on the way home from work, then have a quick bite out or order dinner in, and then it’s off to a night out with the gang!

Was your day filled with things that make you feel joy, relevance, and significance?

Change Your Habits; Change Your Results

Old Stress Habits:

• Negative Attitude/Complaining A Lot
• Poor Nutrition Choices
• Unrealistic Expectations
• Judge And Jury About Everything
• Not Focused on What’s Really Important To Your Mission
• Lost Your Sense of Humor

Effective Stress Management Habits:

• Adopt a Positive Enthusiastic Attitude: Dedicate yourself to the way you think with a “can do” approach, encouraging others and open to all possibilities. Appreciate yourself for the gifts from your head and your heart.

• Implement a Healthy Nutrition Plan: Stress zaps vitamins and nutrients from your system. Regard food as medicine. Nutritionally dense foods promote emotional well being.  Eat foods that are not grown with the aid of antibiotics, pesticides, or hormones. Foods that are processed do not have as much nutritional value as whole unprocessed foods.  Try incorporating more whole grains, beans, fruits and vegetables into your meal plan. Decrease your intake of high fats and high sugar foods.

• Embrace the Habit of Mindfulness:  Mindfulness is a state in which one is “attentive to and aware of what is taking place in the present.”  You have so much chatter going on in your head about what was done or not done and what has to be done that you do not pay attention to the NOW or present. When you focus on what is only going on in the very moment or pay attention to the present environment, you can achieve a state of calmness, mental clarity, and a feeling of fulfillment (Kabat-Zinn, 2007).

• Let Go Of Judging Everything You And Others Do As You Let Go Of Your Attachment To Expected Outcomes: A foundation for reducing and managing stress is to ACCEPT life as it happens without judgment and to be fully aware of the moment (Kabbat-Zinn, 1990). Realize the law of Impermanence where nothing in life remains stable; it is uncertain. Wherever you are, the present moment contains both cause and result. Chah (2005) refers to this concept as “the present is the fruit of the past and the past is the cause of the future.” It is where everything comes together. “We take care of the future by taking care of the present now” (Kabat-Zinn, 2007).  When you are accountable and responsible for your actions, accepting the present, letting go of judgment, and trusting yourself, you will discover new opportunities to achieve desired outcomes making the best of your resources and making the best of what you made.

• Live Your Purpose: How much do you believe you are the best at what you are doing now? If you are living in the Fast Lane and feeling stressed most of the time, consider answering the following questions and taking action on the answers:

• What is your mission or your purpose in life?
• What is going on right now?
• What are you happy about today?
• Are you able to live with gratitude for all life and finding joy and purpose in life even in the midst of crisis?
• What changes are needed to help you get where you want to be?

• Develop A Sense of Humor: Humor is what gives our life balance. Engaging in activities that stimulate mirth and laughter are known to decrease feelings of loneliness, anger, tension, depression, and increase the ability to cope with problems associated with stress, and lifts our spirits.

• Identify what and who makes you laugh and smile.

• Create a humor library in your office and at home.

• Read, watch, and laugh daily from your humor library.

• Read or tell stories that make you laugh and cheer you up.

• Stories teach us about the world and create magic and wonder and memories that last a lifetime.
• Bring out your inner child and visit http://zooprisepartyfiestazoorpresa.blogspot.com/ to explore the wonderful world of imagination, love, fun, and inspiration. My friend Joy Delgado owns an independent publishing house with a children’s book division called “Laughing Zebra Children Books.” Her books and book reviews will lift your spirits.

References:

Chah, J. (2005). Everything rises, everything falls away. Boston;  

      Shambhala  Publishing p37

Kabat-Zinn (2007), Arriving at your own door. New York; Hyperion

Kabat-Zinn, J. (1990). Full catastrophe living. New York; Bantam Dell

Comments

[Connie Ragen Green]

Roz - we all know that stress can be a killer. Thank you for sharing your stress management habits. Having a sense of humor has always worked for me.
Connie

[Roz Trieber]

Thank you for your response Connie. I am so glad you are a believer in humor as a coping strategy. The benefits are really a well kept secret although Laughter is getting more respect lately.

You have reduced my level of stress with all of your knowledge about internet marketing.

Thanks again.
Roz

[I Need Help]

I'd like to share a life help technique that I've become extremely enthusiastic about. It's a process called ho'oponopono (sometimes spelled ho oponopono or hooponopono). What is ho'oponopono? In a nutshell, it's a way to solve problems. Very simple to do. All one has to do is repeat the following phrase: I love you, I'm sorry, please forgive me, thank you. Say this phrase silently to yourself, say it as often as possible and as close to constantly as you're able. The results of engaging in the ho'oponopono method are twofold: Firstly, one feels an almost immediate sense of calm and peace. The second outcome from using ho'oponopono, when it is used on a regular basis, is that a person's life comes into ideal form -- this is not to say that a person will have all of his or her ego desires met, but that his or her life will come into form in a way that is ideal for that particular individual. I can hear eyebrows being raised (virtually, of course) right now. I realize that on its face ho'oponopono sounds unbelievable. Life peace and an individually ideal existence, just by saying a phrase. Come on! Okay. I understand any cynicism that may come up, and I absolutely appreciate the valuable role that cynicism sometimes plays. Honestly, I am not trying to convince anyone about anything. All I suggest -- and a suggestion is all that it is -- is that people try ho'oponopono for themselves and see how it affects them. I can absolutely say that it has positively affected me. But ultimately people will make up their own mind, as it should be. 'I love you, I'm sorry, please forgive me, thank you.' There you go. Here's a web site that offers info about the ho'oponopono method if anyone is interested: http://www.hooponoponohelp.com/god-help-me.htm . Peace and blessings.