Stop stressing!

I have chosen a photo from my journey to Peru, because this show people, who have chosen a life without any serious stress.
Many people claim that they have stress. But what does it mean to have stress? How do you know that it is time gear down and change your focus to yourself?

We have all tried to be busy – but buing busy doesn’t necessarily mean that you have stress. This depends entirely on how you are handling being busy. You have to be observant, if the stress is starting overwhelm you.

When is stress ok?
It is  ok and natural to be stressed from time to time. In fact, some people are working most efficiently under stress – eg. before a deadline. If you are stressed in a certain situation, your adrenaline contents will increase. This can be helpful if you need to act in an emergency situation. Unless of course the stress is so overwhelming that you are paralized, whereby the stress has the opposite consequence.

Signs of stress
You may be experencing several signs of stress. Some of these are, however, individual from person to person. Here is a few (I am certain you will be able to find a lot of other examples elsewhere)

  • You are not sleeping well
  • You are constantly being tired
  • You forget, what you were just thinking about/talking about
  • Your head is humming from thoughts of stuff you need to do
  • You are making errors
  • You have physical symptoms (such as heavy heartbeat, headache, dizziness, etc)
  • You are forgetting agreements – unless your phone is reminding you in time
  • You do not have spare time to do cozy stuff with friends and family
  • You discover that you can only spare time to a chat on the phone, whilst driving in your car
  • You are so busy, that you believe that you do not have the time to meditate

Etc, etc……

What are the causes of stress?
Well – it is so easy to just say: Don’t stress. Relax… but this is not how our society works today. We are stressing around in order to earn as much money as possible, which we don’t even have the time to enjoy. We are stressing to live up to other people’s expectations to us – or rather our expectations to their expectations to us. I know some wonderful persons, who are sure that their employer expects them to go to work, even though they have flue. “Hmm”, I say… “Are they putting out the red carpet for you then?”

Many employers are so “generous” that they give their employees a free phone, PC, and Internet. The gift being given on account of the employees continue working from their homes – preventing them to have much family time. This is contributing to increase and support the stress, which is already luring around the corner – because of workrelated challenges as well as private issues. If you have challenges at both areas, the stress bomb is ticking even faster. Some are struck faster or harder than others – but we can all be targets.

Disturbances caused by stress
If you have allowed yourself to have stress for too long, you might risk being taken to hospital by an ambulance. Stress can lead to severe illnesses. The more stress you are experincing – and the longer time you have experienced it – the more riscs. This can be both physical as well as psychological deceases – such as depression and anxiety. Besides from this – you life qualitity will be at risc of detoriating considerably. And in this case, it doesn’t matter if you have earned a lot of money because of the stress.

Prevention is important
As mentioned, we can all be stressed – more or less. Some years ago, I experienced severe stress myself. This required a lot of therapy as well as change of lifestyle (and work area). What is very important to know is that if you have experienced severe stress once – you are at risk of experience it again. Therefore, you need to be observant of all the above warning signals. Your body is intelligent, and it will tell you, if something is about to go wrong (you “just” need to listen). You need to prevent the stress from returning:

1. Meditate 1 or rather 2 times daily for 20 minutes (read about Meditation and Mindfulness here)
2. Stay mindful in everything you are doing – both large and small – i.e. be present in the NOW.)
3. Plan you days in blocks (see Esther’s Friday Blog: “What a waste of time”)
4. Write down all your tasks on a prioritized to-do-list and and make a tac each time 1 is done
5. Get reminders of appointments in due time
6. Exercise – but not to much – this might have the opposite effect
7. Eat healthy and regularly
8. Avoid reading or responding to emails after 6 pm and before 7 am
9. Listen to your body and say reject to do something, if you feel that you are about to stress
10. Be caring towards yourself – you are the most important person of your life
11. Remember that it is always ok to say no; the only person you need to be at disposal of 24/7 is you!

What if  I am already stressed?
Follow the same advise – and start examining, which areas of your life need to be re-evalued. Where do you give too much? Where do you give too little? How much time to you have to be good to yourself? If I myself were offered I free phone, PC, and Internet – I would consider saying no thanks. My best advise is to meditate daily. I remember a sentence of a wise man (maybe Dalai Lama), that if you don’t have time to meditate, you need to meditate twice as much.

It is your own responsibility to take the responsibility of your own life
Please remember: It is no good placing the responsibility on others. You are the one saying yes to the stress. If your employer is stressing you – have a dialogue with him/her – or get a new job. If your private life is stressing you – find out, what needs to be different – and act on it. Are you saying yes to too much, make some cuts – and say no.

And remember to get professional help from a doctor and a therapist/coach; by this you are also taking the responsibility of your own life.

Remember that there is only one YOU – so please take good care of yourself.

Have a fantastic weekend – Life is waiting for you!

The contents of this blog have not been sponsored

 

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