Manage Your Stress Through Journaling
In times past, it was common to keep a diary or a journal for writing down thoughts and events that occurred in an individual’s life. With the advance of technology, many people today are enjoying the fun of having online journals.
There is an added benefit to journaling, though, one that most people aren’t aware of. Writing down one’s thoughts and innermost feelings, be that method in online form or by using paper and pen, can be an excellent method of releasing pent-up emotion and reducing stress, as well as giving a path of information to look back on and identify areas of life in need of change.
Journaling, like other stress management strategies, must be tailored to your lifestyle and habits. Writing in your journal every day would be ideal, but this may not be practical, especially if you have a lot to say. You can expect for your first several entries to be fairly long, since you have probably been holding things in for a while.
Once you get some of your bigger problems on paper, your entries will begin to get shorter. Making writing part of your daily routine would make journaling the most effective, as it would give you a way to vent everyday. You may want to write for a few minutes in the morning, or right before you go to lunch.
It may be helpful to journal before you go to bed, just to get a few things off your chest before you sleep. Many people find that journaling before sleeping helps them sleep better because instead of laying awake wrestling with things in your head, you just write until you are done thinking about whatever is on your mind. Regardless of when you choose to write in your journal, it will provide an outlet for your worries and emotions.
Once you’ve begun writing and have carried on the habit for some time, it’s often a wise decision to go back from time to time and read what you’ve written about the past. Doing so is an effective way to isolate feelings or emotions that reoccur or discovering something about yourself that you didn’t realize.
You might find that you focus on one aspect of your life or a given situation and thus discover the particular reasons, empowering you to do something about the situation or your emotions. The benefits of stress reduction from coming to terms with such things can be incredible.
The greatest advantage to writing is that you can pen down thoughts and feelings without having to expose yourself to others, something that many people find uncomfortable. You can write very private thoughts and allow the pressure of keeping them inside to ease.
Even if all you do is jot down notes on a napkin as opposed to keeping a detailed journal, the mental benefits of being able to let out the truth can help you relax and feel more at ease with yourself and the world in general.
Mike Selvon’s portal at http://stressmanagement.niche-education.com/ will expand your knowledge about how journaling helps to manage stress. Visit us and leave a comment at our blog at http://www.mynicheportal.com/health-beauty/ where a free gift awaits you.
The Importance Of Eliminating Stress
Stress management is absolutely necessary for leading a happy and healthy life, but many stress management guides take a rather lackluster approach. Yes, you must relax and get away from your problems to reduce your stress level. However, many people are overly stressed, not because they cannot effectively manage stress, but because they have too many stress-causing factors in their life.
In the modern world, the quest for money and possessions has taken precedent over being happy. Our consumer culture and its endless ad campaigns have brainwashed us into believing that having money and nice things is happiness. This is obviously a ploy to push a population into buying status symbols to keep up with the Joneses, an imaginary super-cool family that exists in our collective consciousness.
This mindset has caused people to place image on a pedestal and replace substance with style. This ultra-consumer mindset we have taken on is causing many people to work high-stress jobs in hopes of making tons of money and buying tons of stuff that will make them seem cool. However, many of the highest wage earners are not happy and complain constantly about being broke despite have huge salaries and tons of ‘cool stuff.’
Figuring out what’s really important, what would make you happier, and when enough is enough is important to truly managing stress. You may be trying to keep up with society’s standards by continuing to struggle to make payments on that big SUV, but maybe you’d be happier with a smaller, more affordable car or even an old pick up truck.
You might even find that not only do you prefer the feeling of a truck, you may not even really enjoy your office job in the city and would like to live out in the country doing something completely different for employment. Relationships factor into happiness too – how many arguments with your spouse are you going to have before enough is enough and you sit down together to figure out a plan that works for you both?
If some area of your life isn’t satisfying you, then it’s not the right situation for you to be in and you should look for a better fit, be that where your home is, what you do for income, and who you choose to live with.
While stress management is important for everyone, more people should consider stress elimination. Most stress management techniques are designed to help you relax by taking your mind off your problems. They are a temporary fix to help you stay balanced.
However, you are in control of your life, and although some people are more limited than others, your stress level is your responsibility. At some point, you must decide if something in your life is more trouble than what it is worth.
The key to eliminating stress factors is awareness and self-examination; you must decide if factors in your life are worthwhile or if they are draining the joy from your life.
Mike Selvon’s portal at http://stressmanagement.niche-education.com/ will expand your knowledge about eliminating stress. Visit us and leave a comment at our blog at http://www.mynicheportal.com/health-beauty/ where a free gift awaits you.
When The Going Gets Tough
We all know that life can get tough when we face unwelcome experiences or we are closely involved with the misfortunes of family or friends. Everything hits us at once, as if one thing to cope with at any given time is not enough, and this in turn gives us the impression that everyone and everything is against us and trying to break us down.
So as to avoid being considered to be, and treated as, a conspiracy theory nutcase by the people you happen to mention this to, it is better to try to keep your distance from those who are unlikely to offer you help and support. After all, the very last thing you want to happen in your present negative state of mind is to be criticised or made fun of as this will only send you spiralling further downwards.
So, lets imagine that you have read several books on the subject of personal development or maybe you have listened to audio instruction in your motor car or in your home. You will have gleaned from these methods of learning that you do not have to be controlled by your own emotions and that you can actually have a great deal of influence on the outcome of events in your life. You should remember you cannot control everything that happens to you but you do have full control over how these events make you feel and how you react to what happens to you. Simply just believing in this can produce a dramatically positive effect on your life and of the lives of those close to you. It is said that “mastery of emotional response is the key to winning.” In most instances, if not all, this saying is quite true.
A high degree of control over your emotions is paramount if you dream of great achievements. Many successful people have reached their status by simply being willing to do things that other people will not attempt. You have to ask yourself the question “Am I willing to do things 95 percent of people are not happy to do in order reap the returns?”
In an idea world, you know and believe all of this. But occasionally when things appear to be going wrong, you cannot help but feel disheartened and negativity sets in and surrounds you. Is it that you are weak? Is the path of least resistance proving to be far too tempting for you? Can you only be strong willed, committed and positive when faced with perfect conditions. When minor obstacles get in your way does your strength of character rapidly fly out of the window? This is often the case for some people – but not for you! You are a winner not a loser!
So here are the reasons why you don’t always feel like you are winning. Firstly you are human and after all, we humans make mistakes from time to time. Let’s face it, if errors are not made then there is not enough experimenting taking place. Being faced with adversity does not necessarily grind you to a halt but it can sometimes knock you down and with your confidence gone, this will not make you feel at all good. The fact that you pick yourself up, dust yourself off and get straight back into the game following a knock down or setback is what separates you from the others.
Remember, when you find yourself down in the dumps and through this discover your mindset is not where it should be, don’t be hard on yourself. Putting yourself down will only set you back further. Try not to worry about things too much, and accept that the fact you have actually recognized all is not well, is a positive start to getting back on the road to recovery and making yourself feel better. Have a short break, then bounce back all the time telling yourself “When the going gets tough, the tough get going!” and everything in your world will surely look good again.
Kevin Sinclair is the publisher and editor of Be Successful News, a site that provides information and articles on how to succeed in your own home or small business. http://besuccessfulnews.com/
7 Steps to Living a Calmer Life
Are your nerves frazzled? Are ready to get away on a long vacation but you can’t get any time off for the next 40 weeks? Relax; you don’t need to go somewhere far away to calm down. Just follow these 7 easy steps and you’ll be cool as a cucumber in no time!
1-Get a check-up
It’s amazing how we often waste time worrying about some illness we might have. Every time we hear about a new disease on the radio, we become afraid we have it. Sometimes, when in a nervous state, we will feel some passing sensation and wonder if we have something that is about to destroy us. This is normal. All people worry about their health.
It is very refreshing to have a clean bill of health. It is also comforting to know that most illnesses can be cured with early detection. Therefore, it’s wise to keep on top of everything medically. Doing so will give you peace of mind. There’s an easy solution to eliminating this worry from your life, and that is to get a check-up.
2-Audit your diet
Do you know certain foods can make you nervous? Yes, this is true! Too many processed sugars will cause your glands to secrete adrenaline unnecessarily. When adrenaline starts pumping through your body, you will feel nervous. This is not the worst part. Adrenaline may cause certain physical sensations, even visual sensations, and of course, this can be quite scary.
Once the rolling snowball of fear has started, it becomes a big problem. The first thing is to never be afraid of fear because being afraid pumps more adrenaline through your body and makes you more nervous. More importantly, don’t give adrenaline a chance to start flowing unnecessarily. Audit your diet and see if you have been eating unhealthy foods. If so, make an adjustment. Try eating healthier and if you’re successful in doing so, it will help calm you down.
3-Exercise
Exercise releases tension. It relaxes your muscles and actually secretes chemicals through your bloodstream that counteract the negative effect of adrenaline. Though this is very unscientific, and not an AMA approved explanation, I hope it makes the point that exercise is beneficial to a person who wants to live a calmer life.
If you already exercise, or have some time previously in your life, you understand exactly what I mean. Try right now to imagine the feeling you had after a vigorous workout. See what I mean? I think I made my case.
Take note however, if you haven’t exercised in a long time and you’re not sure you should exercise, see your doctor first.
4-Relaxation techniques
Daily, or even bi-daily relaxation techniques can go a long way toward helping a person live a calmer life. With relaxation techniques, you lie down on your bed or recline in a comfortable easy chair and, in turn, instruct each individual part of your body to relax. After about 10 minutes of that, instruct your mind to relax. This is usually; best achieved by imagining some peaceful scene you have been in. Or, it is sometimes just as good to imagine a peaceful scene you’ve seen on TV or in a movie.
Then, the next time you are in a stressful situation, call back the relaxed feeling you had when you were practicing relaxation techniques.
5-Deep breathing
In through the nose, hold to the count of 5, exhale through the mouth, very slowly. That’s all there is to it! Do this about five times a day at first. Then work your way up to a couple times an hour. You’ll be amazed at how the tension will be flowing out of your body just by using nature’s wonderful tranquilizer known as oxygen.
6-Take more time
Road rage is an epidemic today. No, I’m not going to tell you to sell your car. However, you would be amazed at how giving yourself five minutes extra for each trip could turn your life from a veritable nervous breakdown, into a day of relaxing in front of a babbling brook.
When you’re in a hurry, adrenaline starts pumping and your whole life becomes scattered. People who are in a hurry say things they don’t mean to people they don’t know and they have no idea how horrible they look!
Don’t believe me, the next time you’re in traffic and you see someone who is experiencing road rage, take a look at him or her. Do you want to look like this? Remember, that’s just the outside you’re looking at. Imagine what road rage is doing to their insides! You can avoid all the stress just by leaving earlier.
7-Goals
Goals are great! Life without a goal is a road map to nowhere. The problem is, people make lofty goals for the long-term. While doing so, they ignore their short-term goals. There’s nothing quite as exhilarating as a goal achieved. So, why not cheat! Make a goal for yourself today that is totally achievable. In fact, make a goal it would be very difficult not to achieve. Make this goal viable and make sure you have to make some effort to achieve it, but make it easy. Then go do it.
The funny thing about reaching this easy goal is, if you were to accomplish this much every day, you would probably accomplish more than you would ever imagine by the time a year has passed!
Living a calmer life takes a little forethought and yes, a little effort, but it is well worth this effort. Your life will be more fun. You’ll be an easier person to be around, and though I don’t really have any proof, I’ll bet you’ll live a lot longer, too!
The author of this article is Ed Lathrop. Having lived through an anxiety disorder and now being free of all its symptoms, he has built a free website that deals with anxiety and gives help in a way only a former anxiety sufferer could. This website can be found at: http://dealingwithanxiety.net