Walk in The Park or How to Prevent Stress
Posted on | September 18, 2008 | No Comments
 photo by programwitch |
Out of myriad crazes that we inject our lives with, stress is the worst.
Emotional stress penetrates, weakens and devours our physical bodies (boo!)
My wife had an interesting run-in with stress yesterday. Her emotional stress warped, manifesting that instant as back pain.
Tamara is enrolled in Accelerated Registered Nursing program (two years of work compressed into one = more tests and clinicals that I care to recall).
We were examining her test scores for a specific class (instructor is evil!) and calculating what she needed on the final to get a good grade.
The second we had numbers up on calculator (got to show off my math skills) – back pain presented itself. Even she was shocked as to how her body channeled emotional stress through back pain onto her physical body.
Intense physical pain was caused by emotion.
Does that happen to you? I bet it does! Where do you carry stress (lower back. upper back, get dizzy, upset stomach)?
As a result, I went onto a little journey, finding out how to handle stress.
Stress will always be there. We can minimize it, but it will never go away. No amount of money or fortune or luck will fix it.
Where does the stress come from?
- Urgency equal stress. Have you ever been in a position where you had to do something quickly and it was very important? Was that stressful? I bet it was
- Change. How we deal with change (some see it as an opportunity, others wonder if they can cope) effects amount of stress in our lives
- Worrying/reacting to what we cannot control (weather, rude drivers/people, parents, spouses, stock market and on it goes)
To unstress and handle stressful situations we must learn to manage urgent situations by preventing issues from becoming, well, urgent!
There are also situations where stress comes from our response. Have a different response and stress is gone!
- Be responsible. Response-able. Whatever the stimuli is (pissed off boss, idiot driver, or your mother pushing your buttons) you can chose your response. There is that distance, between event and your reaction that allows you do choose the reaction.
Exercise: visualize yourself in a situation that would normally set your off into a stress-a-thon. Pick a different response. How does that feel?
- Put first things first. Focus your attention on important and non-urgent. Health is a perfect example. Exercise is important and non-urgent (and therefore not stressful). If, however, we do not take care of our body and let it go too far. Chronic pain and the following doctor visit will make life very stressful. Issue of your health will be important and urgent. Stress through the roof!
By focusing on what is important and non-urgent, great number of stress will disappear.
- Put focus and effort into what you can control (directly and indirectly). All to often, we worry about people, events that we have no control over (weather, parents, other drivers.. list goes on).
- Give yourself a gift of time and do something that you love. Exercise, walk, paint, learn a new language, sing… whatever that is choose to give yourself that time and nourish yourself
What stresses you out? How do you handle it?
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