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100 Ways to Reduce Stress
Don't let stress wear you down. Next time you are feeling stressed, step back from the situation and try one of the following tips to take control of the situation and de-stress: 1. Pray 2. Meditate 3. Take an aromatherapy bath 4. Get a massage 5. Give a massage 6. Write in your journal 7. Stretch 8. Practice yoga 9. Help someone in need 10. Read a book 11. Plant a garden 12. Watch a good movie 13. Get a facial 14. Cook a healthy meal 15. Eat a healthy balanced diet 16. Cut back on sugars and caffeine 17. Give a hug 18. Get a hug 19. Create a scrapbook 20. Exercise 21. Take a vacation 22. Get a manicure 23. Get a pedicure 24. Call a loved one 25. Call an old friend you haven't spoken to in a while 26. Do a puzzle 27. Make love to your spouse 28. Buy yourself something special 29. Take a walk 30. Listen to music 31. Read to your children 32. Play a game 33. Play a sport 34. Spend time with your family 35. Visit a spa 36. Get your hair done 37. Get organized 38. Laugh 39. Make someone else laugh 40. Visit friends 41. Have a good cry 42. Take a nap 43. Draw 44. Paint 45. Color with your child 46. Volunteer 47. Sing 48. Take a long drive 49. Go hiking 50. Tell someone you love them 51. Love yourself 52. Encourage others 53. Be patient 54. Be quiet 55. Have a intimate dinner party with family and friends 56. Say Hello, Good Morning, Good Afternoon or Good Evening to someone 57. Go to an aquarium or zoo 58. Imagine 59. Listen 60. Don't worry 61. Let go of the past 62. Think positive 63. Be thankful 64. Be humble 65. Enjoy a candlelight dinner 66. Bake some brownies 67. Live your dreams 68. Take your pet for a walk 69. Play a game your pet 70. Enjoy a sundae 71. De-Clutter your life 72. Arrive to work 15 minutes early 73. Have a picnic 74. Get 8 hours of sleep per night 75. Slow down 76. Don't try to do everything in one day 77. Be assertive 78. Stop procrastinating 79. Turn your hobby into a business 80. Have faith 81. Share your faith with others 82. Give yourself a bouquet of flowers 83. Squeeze a de-stress ball 84. Turn off negative mind chatter 85. Play an instrument 86. Learn a new language 87. Dance 88. Start your day with a daily devotional 89. Don't spend money you don't have 90. Send An Online Greeting to a loved one..Just Because 91. Don't participate in gossip or other negative conversations 92. Look on the bright side 93. Practice Tai Chi 94. Take a Stress Management Course 95. Finish something you started 96. Have a "Girls Night Out" 97. Go to a museum 98. Go to a poetry reading or Read A Poem 99. Go Stargazing 100. Be adventurous It doesn't matter which one of the tips above you choose to follow. The point is to not stay caught up in the stressful situation. Being stressed is part mindset and part environment. Once you decide that you are not going to allow yourself to be stressed and change your environment you will quickly calm down and start to feel better. About the Author Erica Brooks is Owner of Stress Away Family Shop which includes Stress Away Bath Shop and Stress Away Bridal Shop. She specializes in offering products, tips and resources to help you to combat the everyday stresses of life. You can reach her at http://www.stressawayfamilyshop.com and http://www.stressawaybathshop.com or via e-mail at service@stressawaybathshop.com
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Destressing Your Life! Do you have stress in your life?...... Fighting For Your Life Recently the well known American news anchor Peter Jennings died of lung cancer, just a few months after he publicly announced that he had the disease and that he was going to fight it with everything he had. Are You Worried? 4 Steps to Peace of Mind A friend has this quotation on his office wall: "I know worry works because nothing I worry about ever happens." Getting Rid of Your Frustrations Punch a pillow Stress Management: KYFM - Keep Your Feet Moving One of my favorite stories about change is the story called ``The Room of 10,000 Monsters.'' Training Your Mind For Better Business and Leisure Training Your Mind For Better Business and Leisure Conquering Stress and Depression with Exercise One of the best ways to combat stress and depression is to make physical fitness a part of your daily routine. 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In "Super Size Me", a tongue-in-cheek look at the legal, financial and physical costs of our hunger for fast food, filmmaker Morgan Spurlock explores the horrors of school lunch programs, declining health education and physical education classes, food addictions and the extreme measures people take to lose weight. As a centerpiece of the film, Spurlock puts his own body on the line, living on nothing but McDonald's for 30 days following three rules:1) Eat only what is available over the counter2) No supersizing unless offered3) Consume every item on the menu at least onceIn the end, Spurlock has a weight gain of 24 pounds and experiences harrowing visits to the doctor. The issues that are explored in "Super Size Me" beg the question, what has changed in our environment to cause this obesity problem to reach epidemic proportions? Furthermore, what is causing people to overeat as we do? A groundbreaking study, reported in 2003 by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, found that between 1977 and 1996, portion sizes for key food groups grew markedly in the United States, not only at fast-food restaurants but also in homes and at conventional restaurants. In particular, portion sizes for salty and sugary foods, essentially, "comfort foods" experienced the most dramatic portion size increases. For example, the USDA's recommended serving size for a cookie is half an ounce, while the average cookie sold in restaurants was found to be 700% larger. The by-products of our affluent American society, envied by many around the world, have a definite dark side, our obesity rate, for starters. In a culture where more is better and disposable income is abundant, when it comes to eating we have developed a "more food, more conveniently and more often" attitude. Stress: A Pre-Cursor to Obesity Certainly, no one forces us to eat more than our body needs, so what is driving this "hunger" for more? Over the last two decades, almost proportionally to the dramatic increase of food consumed and chronic disease diagnoses, the amount of stress in our society and on each of us individually has increased significantly. Stress is the term medical researcher Hans Selye, M.D., PhD, gave to the experience our bodies go through when we have to adjust or adapt to the various changes our bodies experience during the course of the day. While many of us think of stress in relationship to emotional states, many other factors can exert an equally detrimental effect on our bodies as well. 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Often, if we do not stop the stress cycle or do not appropriately supplement these nutrients, we can turn to overeating to satisfy the body's demands for the fuel it needs to keep dealing with the stress we are experiencing. For a period of time, foods that comfort, sooth or supplement can make us feel calmer until our level of Serotonin drops again or until we become more exhausted and need to feed ourselves, yet again. Then, we start the cycle all over and consume more carbohydrate and fatty rich foods until we feel better. This is the cycle of self-medication or self-soothing practiced in homes, offices, restaurants, automobiles and yes, even bathrooms across America. The long-term effect of such behaviors, apart from obesity and escalating chronic diseases, is that our nervous systems are being hyper-stimulated. Anxiety, exhaustion, depression, overeating and insomnia are just a few of the symptoms we experience when our nervous systems are working on overload. 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Self-Esteem and Health We have an innate understanding of how we need to choose to live to be healthy.Yet, adages about health i.e., "early to be, early to rise, makes a man healthy wealthy and wise", are often ignored in place of our instant gratification or immediate comfort.Physical labor has taken a back seat to "mind work", and today we work harder than ever before to have the money to buy a membership to a gym or spa so we can do the physical exercise we need to be healthy and attractive. However, rarely do we actually have the time to go to the gym we pay membership fees to. Statistically, the average gym membership is used for the first 4 ? 6 weeks after signing up and then falls off dramatically. Workout facilities count on this phenomenon when planning their recruitment and enrollment numbers. Likewise, diet plans and weight loss centers know that 90% or more of their customers will continue to have body weight issues, in spite of their best efforts to re-direct to a different way of eating. Why? The Oprah Syndrome One of the most powerful, successful people in the world, Oprah Winfrey is a brilliant example of the "super size" syndrome in our culture. With every possible service, care and expert available to her, Oprah has continued to struggle with significant weight gain and loss for many years. In 2001, a chart published in a popular magazine, documents her weight gain and loss over the previous 20 years. Even during the height of her popularity and professional success, her body weight rose to dangerously elevated levels. 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Rather, an examination of our personal worldview, our ego state, our treatment and regard for nature and for others, what we value, what we believe in, how much we consume and how much we accumulate. When these aspects of self are aligned with choices that lead to moderation rather than ambition, that produce balance rather than extremes, that debunk the thinking that "more is better", we then select the foods we innately know are healthy, even when we must choose from the fast food menu. In a culture comprised of 5% of the world population, using 75% of the world's resources, we have come to accept excess as a way of life and a standard to subscribe to. In the 1980's, Robin Leach's television show, "Life Styles of the Rich and Famous", tainted our appetites for a standard of over consumption that has brought us to where we are today ? obese and chronically diseased. Take a Tip from the Gurus Eastern philosophies offer us an opportunity to re-think our approach to the way we live. Quite opposite from our "in your face" attitude of self-manifestation, Eastern wisdom invites us to ponder, "how much do I really need; to do; to have; to eat; to own; to control; to be content with my life; and what is the role of gratitude in my life?" Shouldn't having a calm, well functioning nervous system, the source of all life in the body, be a main objective for all of us instead of trying to trick the body into doing what we want with the latest diet craze or vitamin pills available? Change the Question It may be time to change the questions we not only ask ourselves, but the questions we are asked as consumers. Maybe, if when making his fast food purchases, Morgan Spurlock was asked the question "super size or down size, sir?" the choices he might have made could have resulted in significant weight loss rather than weight gain, but then Spurlock would not have a movie to make, or the millions that will be realized from it. Control Stress with High Morale When Army leaders fail to control battlefield stress, they lose as many soldiers to combat stress as they do to enemy bullets. Even when they are well trained, these soldiers are more likely to collapse in the face of great stress. Adventures in Relieving Stress Whether we are at work, traveling, or at home, we've all had bad days. Those stressful times can be difficult, but important, to shake. Your mental, emotional, and physical health depends on you to find ways to relax and regain equilibrium. I'm going to be sharing some practices that you can do to help throw off that stress and reclaim your Happy Self in no time! 10 Tips To Reduce Stress 1. Determine your "unique ability" and capitalize on it Stress Management: Are You a Worrier or a Warrior? Do you attack problems and solve them or do you whine and moan about how it's just not fair? Stress Management: Workaholism is a Thief Let's take a look at some of the more serious signs and effects of workaholism. The Scoop on Stress and Exercise Stress is defined as a response by your body to any demand made upon it and a 'demand' means a change. How Breathing Differently Can Make You Happier "When you breathe, you inspire. When you do not breathe, you expire." ? Quote from an 11-year-old's science exam Stress Management: Problem Land or Solution Land In my experience, most of us spend a lot more time living in problem land, griping and complaining, than we do in solution land, working hard and enjoying solving problems. Stress Managment and Mastery: Break the Rules! Of all the sources of stress in our lives, faulty emotional rules are one of the most debilitating. These faulty emotional rules are typically ingrained during childhood and become a part of how we live. Because they are largely unquestioned, we rarely stop and consider how they might be influencing our lives. If unchecked, these rules can even run our lives. Job Stress Management Tips Today's workplace produces plenty of stress. Life's little hassles mount up until you say to yourself, "If one more thing goes wrong today, I'll explode." Don't reach for the aspirin bottle, try these stress management tips. Occupational Stress Statistics tell us that more people have migraine headaches on Sunday night and that the rate of heart attacks and heart attack-like symptoms are very high in the early hours of Mondays.. What does this tell us? Perhaps that people are dreading going to their job on Monday? Maybe. But there are other reasons for this as well. Two decades ago we saw changes happen in the workplace that we didn't anticipate. The trendy term used was downsizing. Less people to do the same amount of work. Executives lost their jobs daily. New types of employment finding agencies sprung up that specialized in higher level management job finding. There was confusion in the workplace and people began to feel uncertain about their jobs. Articles started to appear that indicated we will all have more than one job in our lifetime ? there would be no more job security ? even for those who were University educated. Stress Buster Tip: Relax From The Weekday Stack! Everyday can be full of stress but we all deserve a break from life's daily deadlines. Whether you're at home or work we all need to take the time to unwind. Dealing with stress through simple relaxation exercises is a very effective and rewarding approach. I've put together a brief outline of some "Stress Busters" that can help you relax from the stressors we encounter everyday of every week.
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