Deal With It - Proactively! Reduce Your Stress With This Proven Tip, Part 2

Would you prefer an easier life? Me, too! Yet how many of us are willing to put in the effort for life to become easier? You already appreciate the value of investing so you have money for later, but is that the only thing that will give you an easier life?

Let's agree what's plain to see: any area giving you unsatisfactory results will also cause you some stress, right. Then the way to ensure you don't stress in the future is to ensure you don't end up with unsatisfactory results. So you need to look at those areas today.

This seems obvious, and it is. But do you know anyone who buries their heads in the sand and ignores the obvious? Perhaps even intimately?

To avoid the peak in the stress curve, invest some time and energy in the future. Do this before it gets too late. Pick up a pen and write down a list of areas that have potential for becoming stressful. Don't just think about doing this, do it!

Then explore each one. Ask yourself what could cause problems, and how can you reduce the stress that it'll bring. Well before this starts giving you lots of stress, what can you do towards resolving that issue today?

You need to come up with some possible strategies. Estimate which ones could increase - as well as decrease - your stress. You want enough different choices to have this area work for you, rather than against you.

Every cloud has a silver lining is a time-tested proverb. You need to invest time to find the beneficial silver lining in this particular stressful cloud. Any frustration over this area's continuing lack of cooperation simply says you aren't looking powerfully enough. So 'it' is causing you to be frustrated. Then you might be tempted to say: it's not my fault!

Yes indeed, it may not be, but such a stance is still pure self-sabotage, because you are involved. If you have decline responsibility, then you have no power to change things. Taking responsibility gives you the opportunity to reduce the peak of the Stress Curve. Remember that irresponsible is one opposite of responsible!

So regain the power in your life by choosing to be responsible! Put energy into the areas that aren't working so well. Explore the various options that exist, as well as those that don't - yet.

When you do this in advance, before getting stressed, you are creating your life the way you want to have it. To use Stephen Covey's phrase in his seminal book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People - you're being pro-active!

Copyright Cris Baker, all rights reserved.

Cris Baker is well practiced in overcoming adversity, he's been screwing things up for years!:-) Now you can benefit from real experience, his hard-earned know-how at http://www.reducestressnow.net/
Why make your own mistakes when you can discover how to minimize your suffering from an expert in self-sabotage? Download the free online seminar and reduce your stress today!

Original article

Proactively Dealing With Stress

One day, at my last place of work, the managing director asked me to write our new stress management course. At the time, I remember telling him that I did not think it would be a success. If people wanted stress management, I reasoned, then they might as well enrol at the local college where they would be sure to get it for a fraction of the price we would be charging.

However, he wanted the course and so, once handed the responsibility, I looked into what we mean by stress and how it can be dealt with effectively. My approach was that prevention would be better than cure and so the course took a close look at Habit #7, sharpen the saw, from Stephen Covey's The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.

Essentially, the basic premise is that if you choose to live your life out of balance, then the likely consequence is that you will need to deal with stress. If you examine your life and seek to redress any imbalance, however, then you will quite naturally manage stress proactively.

What is Stress?

The definition I like is that stress is what we experience as a result of facing a perceived demand/capability imbalance. Fundamentally, stress is a perception and despite the pressure we are operating beneath, whilst we think we are ok, basically we are ok. It is when we make the mental decision that we can't cope that we get into trouble.

Faced with some demand/capability imbalance, our brain tries to help out and, of course, it does this by initiating the famous fight or flight response. This is a series of physiological changes that are designed to help us to run or fight - very useful in a physically threatening situation, but largely useless in the workplace.

The Fight or Flight Response

Adrenaline ReleaseAccelerated PulseBlood Directed to Viral OrgansNostrils OpenEyes DilateNauseaActivation of Clotting Agents in the Blood

These changes are all helpful if we need to run or fight. However, if we don't deal with them, the resultant chemical changes within the body can actually cause illness.

How to Deal with Stress

Based on habit #7, I suggest that you work on getting your life into balance and by that I mean to ensure that you are doing enough physical exercise, that you are feeding your mind with good stuff and that you get focused on what is really important to you in life i.e. your mission and your goals. If you will simply do those three things, then you will naturally and proactively manage stress.

It is relatively easy to see how physical exercise is an effective stress reduction strategy after all, if you take regular aerobic you are effectively taking the flight for which the body has prepared you. Aerobic exercise cleanses the body of adrenalin and also increases your capacity for processing oxygen. Reading has been shown in studies to significantly reduce stress, so you can easily couple this stress management technique with the important business of feeding your mind and stimulating your thinking. Finally, developing a proper focus on your mission and goals will help you to keep things in proper perspective.

All in all, habit #7 is a very effective way to tackle the problem of stress even before it starts.

If you enjoyed this article, you will also enjoy The Inspiration Blog

Will Edwards is Founder of http://www.whitedovebooks.co.uk/

Original article