Stress Management Help -Three Types of Stress and The Real Truth About It

You've told me that you need stress management help by your responses to the  this statement: "I feel no worry,stress or dread." on the Wake Up Eager Free Quiz. 9 out of 10 professionals, like you who visit this Site and take the Quiz, tell me that they DO feel worry, stress and dread every day. 

According to a more official survey compiled by the American Psychological Association: 

• 61% of workers list heavy workloads as a significant impact on stress levels
  
• 25% of workers have taken a mental health day to cope with stress
•  54% of workers are concerned about health problems due to stress
  

Is this just "the way things are when you work?" Or can you still have a very busy work and home life and live with less stress, and more joy?  Is that possible in today's world?

Less Stress - First Identify Where the Stress is Coming From...

I believe you can create less stress and more joy, and that you have more control over the stress you are living then you might currently realize.  One of the steps for finding stress management help is to first breakdown where stress comes from, in general terms.  This will help you focus on the mental, emotional and physical actions that will help you reduce stress. 

Stress can be broken down into three categories:

• 1) Stress from Things You Can’t Control: This would include things like war, the economy, this week's heavy work load and your spouse's snoring.
• 2) Good Stress: This is when you take on a challenge like a promotion, running a marathon or even resolving to get along with your mother-in-law!  It's hard, but you feel good about it.
  
• 3) Self-Inflicted Stress:  This is when you voluntarily take on projects and people that overwhelm or drain you. It's also when you let worry, frustration or aggravation, about things you can't control, dominate your thoughts and discussions ad nauseam.
  

The last category - Self-Inflicted Stress is the area where have you the greatest opportunityto take control.

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Mind, Body & Spirit Insights for Professionals
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A Honest, Maybe Hard to Hear, Truth About Stress...

Learning how to handle how much stress, worry & dread you allow yourself to live with, is within your control, and will determine whether you wake up feeling eager or dread.

Professionals who've mastered their ability to manage stress have learned:

• How to balance and diffuse inner tensions and thoughts
  
• How to appropriately separate themselves from stressful situations
• How to maintain their own sense of inner peace, even when 'things' are chaotic

Handling stress effectively, or ineffectively, is a learned skill and habit.  And we ALL have more control than we sometimes acknowledge.

Stress Management Help - The 'Real Truth'  - You may not like this - I didn't when I first ran across it - but here it is:
Whatever level of stress we are feeling on an ongoing basis is
OUR OWN CREATION. It isn't the pressure and situations in our life that
causes the stress, it's our OWN LEARNED and HABITUAL REACTION
to the pressure that creates the worry, stress and dread we're feeling.

This 'truth' made me kind of mad when I first heard it.  And, initially, I didn't like the quote (above) from Writer Natalie Goldberg, either - where she's basically telling us to not make such a big deal out of things. 

My inner dialogue, when I first saw her quote, went something like this,
"How could this stress I am feeling be my my creation?!?!  And, how can I just 'lie down'  - this is SERIOUS!!  Let me tell you how bad it is...They did this...And then that happened...and this happened...and... "

This idea of stress being our own creation and that we can control (and/or manage) our reaction to what is happening around us, may cause you to feel a little defensive at first, like I did.

But maybe you'll be like me and, over time, start to LIKE this truth. 

You might find that you like the idea that how much stress you feel relates to how well you learn how to take care of yourself and your reactions.  Here's some of my own thinking about all of this that helped turn my initial defensiveness  around, "If the level of stress I'm feeling is my creation, then I can create something different.  Knowing that my stress is only about my reaction to what's happening, and that I can learn to react and create differently, then perhaps this is the greatest discovery and stress management help that I could ever learn and know about!"

It IS empowering to know that I can be in charge of my stress-level.

To know that if I cause my own stress by my own creations, reactions and focus, that there's something I CAN do about that - is WONDERFUL!  This means that I'm not ever helpless, and I'm not a victim to anyone or anything! 

Making the jump from anger and resistance toward acceptance and excitement about this truth is the early and first steps for improving how you more steadily manage the self-inflicted stress in your life.  Next, is the ongoing development and strengthening of your understanding of this truth.  

Motivation Techniques & Resources for Using This Self Management Help Truth to Reduce Stress...

Use this stress management help article and my 120 Stress Management Strategies book as tools for to building your own resilience, ability and empowerment around how much stress you feel.  With these resources, and your own smart intuition, you can one day soon joyously say, "I feel NO worry, stress or dread!"

• A Favorite Book:  Man's Search for Meaning, by Victor Frankl. Among the ten most influential books in America.  The writer survived four different concentration camps and shares how he coped with suffering and found meaning  in extreme circumstances.
  
• Resource Article: Self Motivation Technique:  The Emotional Guidance Scale Is It a 'Hell No' or 'Hell Yes?'  An article about how I created my own stress by saying yes, when I really felt no.  A reminder that we receive Guidance through our emotions. I share a  powerful tool - The Scale of Emotions to help you better notice and use your Guidance to make better, less-stress-inducing decisions.
  

• My Book:  120 Stress Management Strategies and Daily Tips for Professionals Get 120 Mind, Body and Spirit coaching and training tips - over 30 hours of stress management help and support - to help you energize and gain control of how you feel and focus every day.
  

Leave Stress Management Help and Review 120 Stress Management Strategies and Daily Tips