How To Manage Stress

Stress can affect everything we do: our well-being, our work, our families, our entire lives. Here are some simple techniques on how to manage stress that are easy to integrate into busy schedules and might make a big difference for you.

You Can Learn To Cope With Stress

If you type “stress” into Google, you will find 600 million results.   A bit of a large number, don’t you think?  Everyone wants to ease their stress because stress, together with too much exposure to sunlight and a lack of sleep, is one of the top reasons why many of us age really fast.  When we are stressed on a regular basis we can develop eating and sleep disorders and have a very negative influence on people around us.

Now imagine if you could always manage your stress in a way that it doesn’t affect you. You can do that and it’s a learning process: the more we learn how to manage our selves when we are under pressure, the healthier our lives and the lives of our loved ones will be.

This is why I would like to share some of my personal techniques that help me deal with stress.  In the least stressful situations I only apply one of these methods, but if I am having a crazy day then I use all of these techniques as a combat, but it works like magic every time!

Positive Attitude

You might have heard this before, but there is no way escaping the truth when it comes to positive attitude.  When we release positive energy, we get positive energy in return.  When you are stressed about a certain situation, the best way to deal with it is to stay positive – your attitude to the situation can make the entire outcome different. Of course, it also goes the other way: if you complain and stress over a situation, then you may be blocking the solution.

In every situation look for lessons – not problems – and what that situation in retrospect may have taught you about solving future problems.  This is what positive thinking is. It’s tough tthe first times you try, but the more you keep trying, the easier it gets.  But trust me, I know this from personal experience: positive attitude is number one when it comes to dealing with stress.  You can’t always control the situation, but you can control your attitude toward it!

Running

You saw that coming didn’t you :)?  Running is another great way to manage stress.  When we exercise our bodies release endorphins and endorphins make us happy – happy people stress a lot less.  Sometimes when I find my self in a difficult situation I just go for a run outside (outside is best, because nature balances us out).  In the beginning of my run I always find my self analyzing maybe a bit too much, but by the time I am done, I always seem to have a solution.  Running is truly a miracle!

Meditation

This is the next best thing after you finished your run with a positive attitude. Meditation will not only relieve your stress, it also helps you open your eyes and notice many different solutions to your problem.  Meditation expands our consciousness and with our consciousness expanded we look at everything with a much deeper understanding – stress becomes something that you used to have.

There are many different ways to meditate and anyone can do it. You can start with something really simple like 5-10 minutes of deep breathing.  You can also find a positive mantra,  a soothing sound, which can be anything you like and you  chant it while breathing.  When we are focusing on a mantra, it helps us to take our mind off thoughts.

Morning Pages

If you are spiritually inclined, you can try this method, which I started doing a few years ago. I found it in a great book called The Artist’s Way: every morning when you wake up, the first thing you do is write out all of the thoughts (good and bad) that you are having, two pages per day, every day.

Like me, you might soon begin to notice that you write out all of the negative thoughts and filter them, which leaves more room for positive thoughts to enter.  This is a method many artists use to get inspired and you don’t have to be an artist to use this method. But even if you aren’t, you may get inspired to create things and that in itself is also a great way to deal with stress.

Less Stress, Less Wrinkles, More Life

Remember, if we can reduce our stress from day to day basis then we’re going to stay healthy for a really long time and have less wrinkles while we’re at it :).

Picture courtesy of “Flavio@Flickr“.