Saying Goodbye to Stress

Anxiety disorders are often a product of stress. From GAD (generalized anxiety disorder) to panic disorder, you can cut back on the anxiety in your life simply by reducing stress. Stress is normal in daily life no matter who you are, but if you let your stress take control of your life, serious problems will arise. Fortunately, ongoing stress is easy to overcome, but it is important to know the steps to doing so.

Stress is an internal reaction triggers by external factors, like pressure. One of the best ways to overcome these reactions is with plenty of exercise. Daily exercise can help you learn to physically deal with stress by improving your tolerance to stress during exercise. During a panic attack, most people feel short of breath and a pounding heart. A hard workout gives you these same experiences, but in a healthy way. AS you exercise more and more, you push your body to accept these conditions without panicking.

Getting a good night’s sleep is also very important to reducing stress. Stress can physically wear out a person’s body, and without sleep, you will feel the effects of stress much more readily. This can lead to anxiety disorders very easily. To get enough sleep, make sure that you schedule at least 8 hours for sleeping. Don’t eat or drink lots of sugar or caffeine products before bedtime and try to do relaxing activities in the few hours before bedtime. If necessary, see your doctor for help with sleeping problems.

Another key to reducing stress is to schedule time for non-work related activities. Take vacations or at least days off in order to have fun. Work is a major cause of stress, and with that stress comes worry about money, health, and many other things. By setting aside specific time to enjoy yourself with loved ones or on your own, you can physically and mentally set aside the stress for at least a few hours. Try to have at least an hour to yourself every day and an entire long weekend every few months to purely enjoy fun activities.

Lastly, work to reduce stress by learning to think a bit differently about life. Some of the most stressed-out people are perfectionists. While this can be a good trait, it can also go too far. Know when to let something go. Also, think positively about your life. When you worry that you aren’t good enough or are upset about little things, they really add up to hurt you. Managing your thought process is just part of the battle, but if you work at reducing stress, you can avoid developing anxiety problems.

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Coaching Can Help: Here’s how

No matter how well you’re doing in your life and career, I guarantee that a life coach can help you rise to an even greater level of success. So, if you’ve never heard of a life coach, or are familiar with the concept but aren’t really sure how they can help you grow, let me fill you in.

A life coach specializes in inspiring you to go beyond the ordinary, to raise your standards and definition of success to a level that you’re truly capable of reaching. Most people will never achieve what they’re truly capable of, simply because they haven’t formed the right partnership to make it happen. A life coach is exactly that – a true partner in your success.

Here are three more concrete reasons why you should consider teaming up with a life coach:

* A life coach not only celebrates your victories, but helps you learn from your setbacks. A coach can help you realize how you use and learn from that rejection is a major determining factor in how successful you can be. A talented life coach helps put perspective on your successes and failures, so you can benefit from both.

* A life coach doesn’t judge you. I’m not saying that all you’ll ever hear from a life coach is a rosy picture of where you’re headed. That wouldn’t be fair and it’s not the way I handle my clients. But what a life coach should do is listen to what you’re saying without sitting in judgment, and without over-analyzing you.

* A life coach gets to know your values, passion and life-purpose …and holds you to them. It’s easy to get sidetracked, to lose sight of what’s truly important for your life and career. A life coach’s job is to help you maintain your focus so that you don’t get sidetracked. Simply keeping you working towards your ultimate goal is one of the most powerful services a life coach can provide. Take advantage of it.

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Develop A Motivated Mindset

From time to time, each of us will find ourselves in a rut of boredom and disinterest. We seem to lose our zest for life and feel tired, irritable and unmotivated. We want to hide under the covers rather than face the day. Perhaps you’re feeling overwhelmed by work, or sad about the pain and suffering in the world, or just bored with the routine of your daily life.

You are not alone. We all go through periods like this at some point. The good news is that we can do something about it. Here are some tips to help break out of the rut and feel excited about life again:

1) Take a “Time Out” - Prolonged stress can wear us down and zap any enthusiasm we once had. Before doing anything else, take a few minutes to breathe and just BE. Empty your mind of all stress and worry. This takes practice, but don’t give up! As thoughts come into your mind, gently push them back out and continue to keep your mind empty and calm. Take slow, deep breaths and let all of your muscles relax. Sit quietly and recharge your batteries. Try to do this daily, or even twice daily (morning and night). We need quiet time as much as we need anything else in life. Give yourself the gift of inner peace.

2) Get Inspired - Read something motivational, inspirational or uplifting. Look at some beautiful nature photos, or read something humorous. Consciously move your thoughts to a more positive place. Focusing on nothing but work and our daily tasks in life can leave us feeling pretty uninspired. It’s easy to turn it around if we want to. We just have to seek out things that will lift our spirits and our moods. Make it a point to laugh, be happy, joyful and lighthearted each day. Don’t wait for inspiration to come knocking on your door, go out and find it, or create it. Conjure up some funny or touching memories. Write them in a journal so you can go back and read them when you’re feeling down.

3) Get Excited - Think about the things you have planned for the day, and rekindle the enthusiasm you once felt for them. When we first begin a new project, or start a new job, we are excited about the possibilities and eager to get moving! Over time, we can lose that enthusiasm for a variety of reasons. Travel back in time for a moment, and think about what got you so excited at the beginning. What made your heart beat a little faster? Recapture that feeling and hang onto it! Even if your tasks aren’t anything to be really excited about, at least think of some positive benefits to doing them. For example, list the ways they will benefit your children, your spouse, yourself, your job or your home. Identify the payoff, and focus on that. Even mundane tasks have some benefits. Sometimes it’s just a matter of switching our mindset to see the positive side.

4) Baby Steps - Sometimes the hardest part is actually getting started. A project seems so monstrous that we cringe at the thought of all that time and energy we’ll have to expend. Instead of overwhelming yourself, start small. Set a timer for 15 minutes and just start working on it. Allow yourself to stop after 15 minutes if you really want to. But most often, once we actually start working on something, we won’t want to stop. Don’t focus on the big picture, look at the smaller details and take them on one at a time. Any large task seems manageable once we break it down into smaller steps.

5) Care of the Body - Sometimes our feelings of fatigue are caused by physical deficiencies, not mental. Be sure you are getting enough rest, eating food that nourishes your body, drinking enough water, getting enough exercise, etc. Especially when we’re very busy, we tend to grab the quickest, easiest meals, which aren’t always the best choice for our bodies. Eating a lot of highly processed foods and sugar is like putting watered-down gasoline into our cars. In order for our cars to run smoothly, we need to maintain them properly, and so it is with our bodies also. Remember, the body is the vehicle for the mind and soul!

Finally, remember to reward yourself from time to time, and be gentle with yourself! There will always be things that “need” to be done. But some of us take on way more than we can handle, and our lives turn into a pit of drudgery because of it. Try to eliminate the things that truly don’t bring you joy, or at least minimize the time you spend on them. Do what you can, and let the rest go. Or ask for help. Don’t feel you have to do everything yourself.

Remember that motivation, just like happiness, is something we CHOOSE. We may need to give ourselves a little push at the beginning, but once we get into the right mindset, it’s simple to stay there if we choose to.

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Turn Stress Into a Positive Tool

While the words positive and stress may not be synonymous, there are many advantages in having a positive outlook than can reduce and alleviate stress before it takes over.

Studies have shown that we all need a bit of stress it our lives. It motivates to accomplish the most daunting tasks. Can stress, therefore, be a positive tool? The answer is an unequivocal yes.

Assume you have a deadline to meet, while your stress levels become elevated; you nonetheless find the strength within you to complete the assignment on time. Stress allows you to become more focused, and in some cases increases your strength when in a pressured situation. Perhaps you’ve noticed you can think more clearly when attempting to complete that deadline. The report becomes deplete of errors because no outside force can make its way through and interrupt your train of thought. Without any thought to the lunch you’ve put aside or the break not taken, you are fully engaged in the task at hand.

Throughout time, many individuals achieved greatness by setting their stress aside in order to meet every challenge. Their positive thinking allowed them to carry out the most daunting tasks, and enabled their creativity and potential to lead them to successful endeavors. Yes, stress can stimulate the mind and sharpen one’s performance.

Here is another classic and well known example of how stress can result in a positive outcome. You’ve probably seen or heard of the true story of Erin Brockovich? In the movie, Erin’s character single-handedly took on a major company who was polluting the drinking water of an area with chromium toxins. Ms. Brockovich had to work under tremendous stress while fighting the owners of the company. She had to study as many as 120 research articles to find if chromium 6 was carcinogenic. Keep in mind she had had to begin from scratch to determine exactly what chromium 6 was and how it affected the local community. Going from door to door, Erin signed up over 600 plaintiffs, and with attorney Ed Masry went on to receive the largest court settlement for the town people ever paid in a direct action lawsuit in the U.S. history; $333 million dollars. This is a prime example of how an ordinary individual triumphed over insurmountable odds under pressure. If handled positively, stress can induce people to discover their hidden talents.

It is clear, then, that stress is a necessary component used to occasionally clear the clutter from your mind. When approached positively, stress can help you evolve by letting go of unwanted thoughts. Very often, during different stages in your life, stress may remind you of the ever-changing nature of your experiences, and may prevail upon you to look for the true happiness of life.

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Positive Ways To Deal With Anger

“This is making me a headache!”

That lovely line above came out of my now 5yo’s mouth when he was frustrated over the daunting task of trying to learn how to tie his shoes. He blurted the sentence out then tossed the sneaker across the room. I walked over to him and talked to him about his frustration (Heck, getting those loops just right is hard work — smile). I explained to him that while it is OK to get angry and frustrated that there are proper ways to do it.

Anger is a completely natural response to frustration. Let’s face it, life is filled with things that can become frustrating, and most of those things are totally out of our control. What we do control is how we deal with those issues. In this message that I also share with my Journey to Joy students, I wanted to touch on positive ways that we can deal with, express and release our anger and frustration in positive ways.

Think it out - When you begin to feel angry — sit down, relax and then try to think about how you can solve the issue.

Talk it out - Talk to a friend, coach, counselor, or a church member. Expressing your anger by talking to someone about it is a great way to get the anger out.

Write it out - Keep a journal about your feelings. It really helps to get your feeling out of our head and heart and onto paper.

Let it out - Find a place that is secluded and SCREAM!! Yes, let it out - you can scream into a pillow, punch a pillow or stomp. Sometimes a good temper tantrum is in order.

Channel it out - Find some creative way to channel your feelings. Listen to music, paint, turn on the music and dance! There are many ways to creatively channel out anger.

Chill out - Try listening to calming music, taking in slow deep breaths, meditating or doing yoga.

Work it out - Do something physical. Get out and run, go to the gym or go for a brisk walk.

Please keep in mind that anger isn’t always a bad emotion but sometimes the way we deal with our anger is bad. There are many times where anger can be good and is quite appropriate. At can be protection from allowing other people to manipulate or dominate us. It can also motivate us to take action when needed.

Next Steps:

For more help, instantly access your Journey To Joy tools, for more time a happier and more fulfilled life. This inspiring eBook with accompanying audio recordings, worksheets and easy-to-apply action steps shows you how to squeeze more time and happiness into every single day.

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