SAY NO TO DI-STRESS

SAY NO TO  DI-STRESS!

When you work under pressure, your performance and your mood can be affected. Have your friends or family mentioned that your cadence of speech and tone has changed? Do you find yourself speaking faster because you are in the habit of cramming your thoughts and actions in a smaller space due to the rapid pace of your life?
If you want to avoid that from happening you need to regain possession of yourself and of your business commitments. “Stress” is one of the most used words in our daily lexicon. Our words have been used and abused by our children when they want to ape the adult’s language.
Let us define what stress exactly is. To define stress means to be able to identify and recognize it when it appears. To single it out is the first step to face stress using our skills and with more appropriate strategies. Hans Selye, the Hungarian physician considered the father of stress research, defines stress as the non specific answer of our body to all the questions addressed. The stress factors are ascribable to all the circumstances that we face and which rouse our body reaction; could be a forced change in our job, the traffic in the city or a problem of our computer.

Different Typologies
The studies on stress have identified different stress categories as follows.

Eustress: From the Greek language, good and nice, is a psycho physical status which gives us energy to focus our concentration and which can if controlled, enhance our productivity and creativity.

Distress: It is a negative psycho physical answer when we think we are not able to control the situation and consequently our body produces chemical reactions which originate an increase of the heartbeats and trouble our equilibrium.

Hyper stress: It is a chronic stress status totally out of our control which can affect our relationships, our performance and our health.

The magic word which all three typologies have in common is “control”, being our capacity to manage our self and our reactions. A good approach could be what an antique invocation suggests: “Give me the serenity to accept what I can’t change, the courage to change what I can and the wisdom to distinguish the difference between one and the other” how to manage it. The job environment is often one of the main reasons of stress. Without perceiving it, stress can simply belong from the difficulty to define our daily business or life’s priorities. Often people have difficulty in solving problems once and forever. People pleasing personality types often have the inability to say no to a new duty or project when they are already over committed. Spreading your self and your time resources too thin can be worse than not taking the new responsibilities all together. These and other bad habitudes can create our reasons for stress. Nevertheless, we are talking about habitudes that we can learn to recognize and correct. To do it we can start from little actions….tomorrow clean your desk from all the papers that do not fit with the problem which is at the top of your priorities… you’ll start with the right foot!

Strategies to fight stress:
• Define priorities and focus on one thing at a time. Use the “block” time method if necessary.
• Evaluate where and how you spend your time.
• Live the present moment. Don’t let your mind be influenced by the past, what happened yesterday or 5 minutes ago.
• Learn to say no.
• Delegate.
• Attend to problems one by one and only once.
• Meditate for 5 minutes. Treat yourself to “mental holidays” to refresh your mind and attitude.
• Find recreational activities or hobbies. Many times people find solutions to their challenges through sport workouts.
• Build a supporting team, friends and networks. Regain perspective as to what’s really important in life and work backwards.
• Meditate. When feeling overwhelmed TAKE A DEEP BREATH and breath deeply for 3 minutes. Shallow breathing patterns can add to a feeling of panic.
• Relax and lighten up. Taking yourself too seriously can take all the fun out of life.
• Stop second guessing yourself. Trust and believe that you can handle anything that comes your way.
• Fill your mind with positive affirmations for 30 days and see changes to your frame of mind.

Keep in your mind the mantra that “almost everything you stress about rarely if ever occurs”.  Realize that most of your time is spent in a future you have no control over. Isn’t that a huge waist of time? Remember that stress begins in your mind first. Perhaps your mind is asphyxiated from lack of oxygen and your body is functioning on a diet of junk food and worry.

Lastly: Don’t believe everything your mind is telling to you, it can be a liar. Be the observer/examiner of your thoughts, start asking yourself questions when disturbing thoughts arise. Are they 100% true?

While advice is good, practice in controlling stress is what will make a permanent positive change in your life. Contact us for information on how you can join in a session and gain emotional control, the behavior modification that turns your life around. We welcome your inquiries and comments.

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