What is stress?
Stress is an inability to adapt to your ever-changing environment and to react to the stimuli or events around you. Distress is extreme stress, great pain, anxiety, or sorrow; acute suffering; affliction. “Dis” meaning negative or reverse force.
Some stress is good because:
- It gives you the opportunity to see that your perceptions and emotional reaction is unbalanced and expectations are unrealistic.
- It gets you moving toward what you want and away from what you don’t want.
Why is it important to manage stress?
It is apart of life and affects every aspect of life and can accelerate the aging process. When you learn to balance your expectations, perceptions and emotions you will live longer.
When emotions move erratically up and down, the tendency toward bipolar sets in and physiology, and hormones and adrenals are affected.
Your emotions electrically change your body and mind and this can be either for our benefit or not.
Signs of stress include tense muscles, unbalanced thoughts, erratic speech, shallow breathing and tight chest. Prolonged stress can result in constipation, stomach issues and high blood pressure.
How to manage stress:
- Set balanced expectations and goals whilst allowing for flexibility.
- Focus on the big picture, prioritize your actions and what is important for you, and ask “why” you are doing something, not “how”. That way you will maintain momentum.
- Delegate low-level priorities to others.
- Chunk down large projects doing something everyday to keep up momentum, reduce procrastination, lack of clarity and frustration.
- Plan the night before for the following day and write goals down to unclutter your head.
- Congratulate yourself on what you have achieved and reflect on what you have learned and the opportunities that have opened up for you.
- Take time daily to relax with meditation, inspiring texts, peaceful music or walks in nature.
- Work on reducing limiting beliefs as they affect our thoughts and actions, that create negative emotions.
- Be passionate about what you do and establish a purpose that is larger than your immediate life.
- Simplify routines about such things as the food eaten and clothes worn to give more time to higher priority decision-making.
- Seek self-care such as getting adequate sleep and exercise and eating well.
- Switch from a negative emotion, for example, fear to a positive one such as faith, by remembering a time when you felt that positive emotion.
What if you learn to manage stress?
When you practice mastering stress your hormonal cortisol levels will go down and your endorphin levels with go up. You will feel fulfilled, poised, centred and more resilient. This will add years to your life by slowing down the aging process.
You will then have the opportunity to develop your gifts and passions and share them with others to create a better world for all!
Action step
What are you currently doing to manage the stress in your life and what improvement can you make to use stress for success?
About Gaye O’Brien
Gaye O’Brien is a Certified Coach, Trainer and International Best-Selling Author of “NLP Essentials for Teachers”. As a catalyst for transformational change Gaye shares her insights in an inspirational, educational and entertaining way, with businesses and individuals who desire to make their greatest contribution to the planet and co-create a more enlightened world.
www.gayeobrien.com
