Dealing With Stress

Summary

Stress is an inevitable factor for us all. It can occur anywhere and anytime throughout our life. It is our body’s response to pressures that we encounter on a daily basis. Our ability to manage and mitigate stress will greatly affect our overall enjoyment of life and level of success. There are simple strategies you can use to take control of your response to life’s stresses and help you achieve all that you want out of life.

Stress can occur as a result of physical aspects such as a reaction to something dangerous (for example, parachuting out of a plane or facing an attacker with a knife or gun). Stress can also be caused by emotional aspects, such as being anxious over your job security or grades at school, an overload of work and tight deadlines, as well as difficult personal relationships or pressures from family and friends. You can accept it and live with it, or you can manage and overcome it. I am always for this second option.

There are many strategies and techniques to help you manage and relieve stress. These include maintaining a healthy lifestyle, learning to recognize and manage your triggers, establishing daily routines and practicing self-relaxation exercises, as well as utilizing positive self talk and personal programing messages (PPMs).

The whole idea of creating and using your thoughts on purpose and with purpose, as well as the importance of having positive self beliefs, are all key aspects of relieving yourself of stress and coming out of stressful negative situations in a stronger position. These aspects reaffirm the idea that dealing with stress starts with you. When you believe in yourself and live your life on purpose, you will subconsciously become attracted to life situations that are positive.

Ultimately, reducing your stress starts with having a direction in life and moving in that direction each day. Find what you want in life, set a plan and go after it. This will bring joy and fulfillment into your life instead of stress.

Be sure to live life to its fullest each day. Subscribe to my YouTube Channel and follow me on Facebook.

And always, be a SuperRicher and Live Rich!

Transcript

People often take stress for granted. They think it happens to everyone, and that they can’t do anything that will make a difference. But an attitude like this can have some seriously negative consequences for you, your life, and the people you love. You have to find ways to overcome stress in order to eliminate it or at least minimize its negative effects. Before I share some of the ways to deal with stress, let’s find out what exactly stress is and what causes it.

Stress is defined as an organism’s total response to environmental demands or pressures. It becomes a normal part of life and in most cases can result from everyday occurrences. A person can be stressed due to a variety of scenarios that range from physical pressures to emotional situations. One of the first steps in dealing with a person’s stress is to determine its source. Once a person knows what is causing the stress, they can then learn and utilize different techniques to help handle and minimize the negative effects of their stress. These include recognizing and changing your own behaviors that contribute to stress as well as living a healthier life.

What Are the Causes of Stress?

As mentioned earlier, stress can occur as a result of physical aspects such as the fear of something dangerous (for example, parachuting out of a plane or facing an attacker with a knife or gun). Stress can also be caused by emotional aspects, such as being anxious over your job security or grades at school, an overload of work and tight deadlines, as well as difficult personal relationships or pressures from family and friends.

You need to identify the warning signs of stress, which may vary from person to person depending on your personality, habits and the situation you are in. You may notice tensing jaws, grinding teeth, unexplained headaches, or generally feeling irritable and short tempered. Very often there are known triggers, which raise our stress levels and make it more difficult for us to manage our stress. If you know what your most common triggers are, you can aim to anticipate them and practice calming yourself down beforehand, or even find ways to remove the trigger altogether. These triggers might include late nights, deadlines, interacting with particular people or hunger.

Let’s look at some ways to eliminate the stress in your life today.

Positive Self-Talk or PPMs

PPMs are Personal Programing Messages. They will help you stay focused and manage stress as you move toward your goals. They are simply messages that you program your subconscious with on a daily basis. Your PPMs will also keep you motivated and inspired while helping you to move through times of stress.

We all practice self-talk and are also affected by random outside influences that are constantly bombarding us with messages. It’s now time to take charge of these subtle yet powerful messages and start programing your subconscious with a positive, intentional purpose.

Sometimes we talk to ourselves out loud but usually we keep self-talk in our own heads. Self-talk can be positive: For example, “I can and will do this”; or negative such as, “I’ll never get this done” and “I’m not good enough”. Negative self-talk increases stress while positive self-talk helps you calm down and control your stress levels.

With practice, you can learn to turn these negative thoughts that only serve to bring you down, into positive ones. Not only will this help calm you down but it will also serve to improve your character in the long term.

To help you feel better, practice positive self-talk every day — in the house and first thing in the morning, at your desk at work, before you go to bed or whenever you notice yourself starting to have negative thoughts. For example, if you find yourself thinking, “I can’t do this,” try to think this instead: “I’ll complete this to the best of my abilities”. Positive self-talk helps you to relieve the symptoms of stress and also manage stressful situations.

If you practice making PPMs a part of your daily routine, you will change your life for the better. They have changed literally changed my life and helped me gain the success I have today.

Emergency Stress Stoppers

There are many stressful situations — at work, at home, at school, on the road or in public places. We may feel stress due to a lack of communication or feeling overworked.

Emergency stress stoppers are there to help you to deal with that stress on the spot. For example, if you find yourself in a stressful situation, you can do the following:

Go for a walk, count to 10, take deep breaths and consider using meditation or prayer to break the negative cycle. Find what works best for you personally.

Finding Pleasure

When stress makes you feel bad, counter it by doing something that makes you feel good. Doing things you enjoy is a good way to fight off stress. You can find pleasure in simple things such as going for a ride, chatting with a friend, reading a good book or playing a computer game. Doing the tasks you set for yourself each day also relieves stress and having a plan to accomplish them really helps to reduce and eliminate stress.

Spend Time with People Who Care About You

Spending time with people you care about, and who care about you, is an important part of managing the ongoing stress in your life. Whenever you feel stressed share these thoughts and feelings with others whenever an opportunity arises. Knowing someone is there for you when you need it the most can help relieve you of stress.

Practice Relaxation

Make time to practice relaxation. This will help your body and nervous system to settle, readjust and balance. Some of the most effective things to do include: practicing yoga or meditation; listening to music; gardening or just about any hobby you enjoy doing in your free time.

Look After Your Health

Make sure you are eating healthy food and getting enough exercise. Take the time to do activities you find calming or uplifting, such as listening to music, walking, dancing or singing. Avoid using alcohol and tobacco. Always remember that a healthy body leads to a healthy mind, and keeping your body fit is one of the best ways to ensure you are capable of handling stressful situations when you encounter them.

Establish Daily Routines

Try to establish rhythms and routines in your daily life and plan each day in advance. You can use my Daily SuperRicher Organizer, which can be found on my site. This can include regular times for exercise, relaxation and meals as well as set waking and sleeping times. Having a routine can be very calming and reassuring, enabling you to better manage your stress levels.

Accept the Things You Can’t Change

You can never prevent or change certain stressful scenarios such as the death of a loved one, a serious illness, or a national recession. In these situations, the best way to cope with stress is to accept things as they are and reassure yourself that even though you might not be able to change many of the things happening around you, it is still possible to make the best out of a bad situation. Know that these events do eventually pass and usually result in something better for you in the future. Acceptance may be difficult but it is easier than railing against a situation you can’t change.

Look From the Upside

“What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.” When facing major challenges, try to look at them as opportunities for personal growth. If your own poor choices contributed to a stressful situation, reflect on them and learn from your mistakes.

Learn to Forgive

We are living in an imperfect world that can put you in all types of unwanted situations. Free yourself from negative energy by forgiving and moving on.

Write It Out

Keeping a journal can be one of the most effective ways to relieve you of stress-related symptoms, due to its meditative and reflective effects. A gratitude journal can really help you put things in perspective, so pick a time each day to write down a few things that make you happy.

A friend of mine has a journal specifically for what he is grateful for today. At the end of each day he takes a few minutes to write out what he was grateful for over the course of his day.

Seek Help

If a person is under stress for long time, it can result in harmful mental or physical problems. Sometimes you may need to talk with someone, either a friend or a professional. Be willing to seek help when it is necessary.

In her book “The Secret”, Rhonda Byrne talks about the law of attraction. This, as you may know, is about creating what you want in your life by focusing on it with purposeful thoughts. In the past I have talked about how you can create the life you want by focusing on it daily and throughout the day. You can also use this technique to focus on being relaxed and calm as you go through your day and to protect yourself from outside stressors and know triggers of stress.

Be sure to live life to its fullest each day. Subscribe to my YouTube Channel and follow me on Facebook.

And always, be a SuperRicher and Live Rich!