Stress seems to be surrounding us from every angle these days and even thinking about and being aware of our stress, seems to stress us out. What is the answer? Well, there are all kinds of tools that we can learn to do to diminish the stress in our life. It is also nice to know that a certain amount of stress is good, it helps us to get and stay motivated and stimulated and it also helps us to face challenges and solve problems and it can help keep us alert.
The trick is not to get over stressed and to have stress work for us, not against us; to do this we need to be in touch with how we feel and if there seems to be tension with the stress. Stress is a natural and important part of our life; however, we need to pay attention to when it becomes a liability instead of an asset.
Usually if you create a daily ritual of stress reduction practices that you start and end your day with, that will take care of moderating how you are feeling and give you control over your overall balance of inner peace. A great tool for this is to watch a motivational video every morning prior to starting your activities of the day and then again right before going to bed. This will set the tone for your day and also for a restful sleep.
While we are talking about going to bed and sleep patterns, this is a perfect time to go over your procedures you do prior to going to sleep, I always suggest that you start monitoring the time just prior to going to bed and create a slow down and calming ritual for bedtime, this will give your body a signal that it is time for bed. Watch and or listen to programs that create a calming effect, so that means no news or action programs; eliminate caffeine about 4 hours prior to bedtime; laugh and avoid challenging conversations prior to bedtime; the main idea is to take actions to make your bedtime one of peace and tranquility. Remember to watch your stress reduction video right before going to bed.
As we know stress is everywhere around us and it is what we do with it that either makes us feel in a better balanced state or makes us feel worse. Another great stress balancer is gratitude and this is something you can practice anywhere, anytime and the results are almost immediate and especially when practiced on a regular basis. We can find almost anything to be grateful for as long as we don’t dwell on what we don’t want, but to pay attention to what we do like.
Shifting into gratitude, your mind, body and spirit move into the state of joy and you feel better. If your situation is very intense, try just laughing, a big belly laugh, you don’t even have to think of anything funny, you just start laughing and you feel the shift right away. Once you feel better, the things that were stressing you out will seem to diminish and then you will be able to deal with them better.
If you find it difficult to remember things you are grateful for, start a gratitude journal and make a list of all the things you are grateful for and then carry it with you so that you will have it handy, you can also put your stress reduction video on your computer and/or handheld devises to watch at a moment’s notice; also get a gratitude stone and keep it in your purse and/or pocket to rub and remind yourself to be grateful.
So when those big stress issues like lose of a job, being laid off from a job, divorce, physical and mental challenges of a family member, floods, tornadoes, wildfires…the list can go on. This is when we need all the tools that we can get to smooth over these rough patches in our life; getting the stress under control so it doesn’t run our life is very important during these times. Stress reduction tools like vision mapping and your gratitude list are very useful and important, so keep them handy and readily available.
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