Stress management is often seen as a process of problem solving, taking control of pressured situations, and managing the stress triggers in your external environment.
While problem solving is one useful aspect of reducing stress, it is not enough.
Focus on what you want, such as harmony and balance. Using the tips below, start creating that for yourself. You will naturally, automatically be less bothered with worry, anxiety, frustration and the mental and physical symptoms of stress.
Put these practices to work in your life for gentle and gradual transformation, from frazzled to overflowing with personal peace. These suggestions work if you work them.
1. Love Yourself
Before you can really love others you need to learn to love yourself. Self-loving helps to keep your cup full and overflowing so you can give of yourself without excessive stress.
I've been encouraging clients to practice greater self-loving for at least twenty years. Researchers are now beginning to say that self-compassion is more important than self-esteem for a happy and successful life.
Loving yourself creates a solid foundation for successful stress management in your life.
2. Forgive Yourself
This is a powerful inside out strategy for stress relief.
Self-forgiveness creates a a safe place for inner peace to grow.
Self-forgiveness also melts the resistance that perpetuates your stress struggles.
Whatever judgments you've held against yourself, forgive yourself and let the judgments go. Clue: watch for the "shoulds" that stress you out and forgive yourself for those
3. Become a Neutral Loving Observer
For stress reduction in a moment of challenge, practice stepping back from the chaos so you can simply observe.
Get a higher perspective. Imagine observing your stress situation from a mountaintop where you can see the opportunities for learning, the hidden benefits and the solutions.
When you observe neutrally, you are in a position to see many options. You can make wiser choices based on the big picture, rather than on the limited picture defined by your stress.
4. Turn Within
To create a reservoir of inner peace, practice some form of meditation, spiritual exercises, contemplation or prayer every day.
You'll relax body and mind and come into alignment with your spirit and that greater Spirit according to your faith.
Research has well-documented the stress reduction and health enhancement benefits of meditation.
5. Reframe
When you face a stressful situation, as soon as possible, look for its hidden benefits and opportunities.
Is it an opportunity to learn and grow? A teaching moment with your kids? Is it a loss on one hand and freedom for new directions on the other?
Rather than saying, "This is terrible," talk to yourself about the positive potential in the situation. "I can use this challenge to learn and grow."
How you talk (think) to yourself profoundly affects how you feel. How you think and feel impacts your health and can aggravate or alleviate symptoms of stress.
Define the event as having some value and purpose, and you will feel empowered with less stress and more inner peace!
6. Develop Resilience
When you can accept what is going on, even though you don't like it, you have the freedom of resilience. You can bend but not break in difficult situations.
You develop resilience by loving and accepting yourself just as you are.
Your inner acceptance of you makes it easier to adapt and either master, circumvent or release stressful circumstances and challenges.
Who you are is not threatened by external challenges. Rather than wasting energy resisting circumstances you cannot change, you find it relatively easy to "go with the flow" in most situations.
This means less stress and more inner peace on a daily basis.
7. Watch Your Language
No, I don't mean four-letter words! I mean the downer words, the shoulds and shouldn'ts, the I can'ts and the "terrible too's" -- too fat, too dumb, too broke.
These are implied judgments that gnaw away at the wonderful you inside.
Change your language to "I can, I could, I want to, I don't want to, I will or I won't," and find
positive or neutral ways to describe other people and yourself. "He's remarkably lean." "I want to learn more right now.
You will eliminate subtle triggers for stress and create space for inner harmony.
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
Thursday, May 22, 2008
How To Help Fight Stress With Healthy Eating
Whenever we get too busy or stressed, we all tend to make poor food choices that will actually increase stress and cause other problems. To get the most of your healthy eating and avoid stress, follow these simple tips below and click Here for more tips
Always eat breakfast - Even though you may think you aren't hungry, you need to eat something. Skipping breakfast makes it harder to maintain the proper blood and sugar levels during the day, so you should always eat something.
Carry a snack - Keeping some protein rich snacks in your car, office, or pocket book will help you avoid blood sugar level dips, the accompanying mood swings, and the fatigue. Trail mix, granola bars, and energy bars all have the nutrients you need.
Healthy munchies - If you like to munch when you're stressed out, you can replace chips or other non healthy foods with carrot sticks, celery sticks, or even sunflower seeds.
Bring your lunch - Although a lot of people prefer to eat fast food for lunch, you can save a lot of money and actually eat healthier if you take a few minutes and pack a lunch at home. Even if you only do this a few times a week, you'll see a much better improvement over eating out.
Stock your home - As important as it is to get the bad food out of your house, it's even more important to get the good food in! The best way to do this is to plan a menu of healthy meals at snacks at the beginning of the week, list the ingedients you need, then go shop for it. This way, you'll know what you want when you need it and you won't have to stress over what to eat.
This free article is provided by the FreeArticles.com Free Articles Directory for educational purposes ONLY! It cannot be reprinted or redistributed under any circumstances.
Always eat breakfast - Even though you may think you aren't hungry, you need to eat something. Skipping breakfast makes it harder to maintain the proper blood and sugar levels during the day, so you should always eat something.
Carry a snack - Keeping some protein rich snacks in your car, office, or pocket book will help you avoid blood sugar level dips, the accompanying mood swings, and the fatigue. Trail mix, granola bars, and energy bars all have the nutrients you need.
Healthy munchies - If you like to munch when you're stressed out, you can replace chips or other non healthy foods with carrot sticks, celery sticks, or even sunflower seeds.
Bring your lunch - Although a lot of people prefer to eat fast food for lunch, you can save a lot of money and actually eat healthier if you take a few minutes and pack a lunch at home. Even if you only do this a few times a week, you'll see a much better improvement over eating out.
Stock your home - As important as it is to get the bad food out of your house, it's even more important to get the good food in! The best way to do this is to plan a menu of healthy meals at snacks at the beginning of the week, list the ingedients you need, then go shop for it. This way, you'll know what you want when you need it and you won't have to stress over what to eat.
This free article is provided by the FreeArticles.com Free Articles Directory for educational purposes ONLY! It cannot be reprinted or redistributed under any circumstances.
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Successful Tips On How To Reduce Stress
Meditation As A Stress Relief Tool
Do you remember seeing comedy shows or skits when you were young where someone is practicing meditation. There was usually one person closing their eyes and "ohm"ing while the other person tried to imitate them or simply made snide remarks. While we used to look upon meditation as being funny, ridiculous, or just plain odd; we now know about all the benefits it has to offer. Originally, meditation was used to focus and gain religious knowledge. Now, it is commonly used to reduce stress and live longer, happier, healthier lives.
So why is mediation so helpful for relieving stress? First of all, it helps focus the mind on something that is deeply and spiritually rooted. By focusing on one thing, you're forced to forget the world around you and all the stressors that come with it. By closing your eyes and sitting in a quiet room, you also filter out the sights and sounds that may stress you. Meditation also helps repair the physical and mental damage caused by stress. The chemicals present in your body actually change during meditation making you more relaxed and peaceful.
The relaxing benefits from above are only the short term benefits Those factors are only successful in filtering out stress that you've already experienced and making you relaxed during and after your meditating. The real benefit of meditation is its longer term effects.
If practiced on a daily basis, meditation can actually balance the levels of hormones and other stress related chemicals on a day-to-day basis; even when you're not meditating. This means that meditation will not only help you unwind at the end of a stressful day, it can also leave you more peaceful and less stressed during your long day at work.
The best part about meditation is, unlike yoga, it requires no special physical skills. While good meditation requires mental skills, you can start small and build your way up as you get more practice. Here's how to get started.
* Find a quiet room and sit in a comfortable position. There is no specific "better" position, just one where you feel comfortable and can relax.
* Close your eyes and relax your muscles. Do this by focusing on each individual muscle, starting at the feet and working your way up. Focus on the stress leaving each muscle as it relaxes.
* Begin to breathe slowly while you repeat your mantra. This can be anything from the traditional "ohm" to something you find personally important. If you are religious or spiritual, you can chant something related to your beliefs.
* If you find your mind wandering, don't beat yourself up about it; simply remain calm and return to your focus word.
* After 15 to 20 minutes, you can stop meditating and sit quietly for a few minutes before you return to your regular life.
By doing this regularly, you will train your mind and body to be more relaxed, peaceful and focused. You will find this not only affects your stress levels, but also your physical and mental functioning.
For more tips on how to reduce stress click Here
Do you remember seeing comedy shows or skits when you were young where someone is practicing meditation. There was usually one person closing their eyes and "ohm"ing while the other person tried to imitate them or simply made snide remarks. While we used to look upon meditation as being funny, ridiculous, or just plain odd; we now know about all the benefits it has to offer. Originally, meditation was used to focus and gain religious knowledge. Now, it is commonly used to reduce stress and live longer, happier, healthier lives.
So why is mediation so helpful for relieving stress? First of all, it helps focus the mind on something that is deeply and spiritually rooted. By focusing on one thing, you're forced to forget the world around you and all the stressors that come with it. By closing your eyes and sitting in a quiet room, you also filter out the sights and sounds that may stress you. Meditation also helps repair the physical and mental damage caused by stress. The chemicals present in your body actually change during meditation making you more relaxed and peaceful.
The relaxing benefits from above are only the short term benefits Those factors are only successful in filtering out stress that you've already experienced and making you relaxed during and after your meditating. The real benefit of meditation is its longer term effects.
If practiced on a daily basis, meditation can actually balance the levels of hormones and other stress related chemicals on a day-to-day basis; even when you're not meditating. This means that meditation will not only help you unwind at the end of a stressful day, it can also leave you more peaceful and less stressed during your long day at work.
The best part about meditation is, unlike yoga, it requires no special physical skills. While good meditation requires mental skills, you can start small and build your way up as you get more practice. Here's how to get started.
* Find a quiet room and sit in a comfortable position. There is no specific "better" position, just one where you feel comfortable and can relax.
* Close your eyes and relax your muscles. Do this by focusing on each individual muscle, starting at the feet and working your way up. Focus on the stress leaving each muscle as it relaxes.
* Begin to breathe slowly while you repeat your mantra. This can be anything from the traditional "ohm" to something you find personally important. If you are religious or spiritual, you can chant something related to your beliefs.
* If you find your mind wandering, don't beat yourself up about it; simply remain calm and return to your focus word.
* After 15 to 20 minutes, you can stop meditating and sit quietly for a few minutes before you return to your regular life.
By doing this regularly, you will train your mind and body to be more relaxed, peaceful and focused. You will find this not only affects your stress levels, but also your physical and mental functioning.
For more tips on how to reduce stress click Here
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