All About Stress . . .

It is my firm belief that the vast majority of individuals and families suffer some form of chronic stress, to some degree. Today, we'll explore this condition a bit more deeply.


How Stress Begins
Stress, especially when it becomes chronic, can suppress your immune system and lead to physical diseases, and it can contribute to development of mental disorders. The circumstances during the time stress occurs and your attitude toward the stress is critical to how you will handle it. The duration, frequency, time of day, and cause of the stress are all conditions to how you react to it.

Stress usually begins as a reaction to relationships, or to you environment. Every individual have expectations that are established on their upbringing, education, and so on. Each person to these expectations are according to how the person perceives the situations. If the events or relationships do not stand up to the person’s expectations, he or she might begin to question what is wrong. If he or she cannot answer this question, or change the situation, stress begins to build.

In reaction to this stress, your brain sends messages throughout the rest of your body. The body responds with signals, such as headaches, muscle and immunity tension, and anxiety, but your mind is so preoccupied with the problem that it is more or less oblivious to the adverse effects of the building tension. The cause of the stress most likely will be resolve in a short time. But if the situation caused prolonged stress, it is clear just how damaging it could be to the mind and body.

Your Body’s Response to Stress: Fight or Flight
When chronic stress is left untreated, it triggers biological changes in the body. These changes consist of three phases—alarm, resistance, and fatigue—representing the body’s mechanism for coping with stress.

This illustrates the influence that your mind and body have on each other. When stress occurs, your adrenal glands and general adaption mechanism kick into action. If this activity continues over a long period of time due to persistent stress, it could cause chronic anxiety, and even depression.

The alarm stage is often referred to as the fight-or-flight response. As the stress begins to build, the brain and endocrine system are stimulated to secrete adrenaline and other stress-related hormones. These help prepare the body to take action, when necessary—either to fight the stress or flee from it.

During the fight-or-flight response, several physiological changes occur. Heart rate increases, pumping blood to all body parts in preparation for their reaction to the perceived stress. The body begins to perspire in order to lower its temperature, digestive activities slow down, and the liver dumps glucose into the blood. All these changes help the body to mobilize energy in preparation for its reaction to stress.

Everyone has experienced the fight-or-flight response at one time or another. The fight-or-flight response is a short phase and is often sufficient to cope with a given stressor. Afterward, the body will rest in order to restore balance. However, if the stress continues, the body enters the phase of resistance, which allows it to continue its struggle with the stressor at hand.

Getting Rid of Stress
Technically, "fight or flight" refers to your physiological reactions to stress, but it also can describe how you handle stressful situations. If you confront your problems and work them through, you probably have developed strong mechanisms or ways of coping with stress. If you avoid or ignore your problems, you are likely to be a candidate to develop stress-related illnesses. Do you often feel overwhelmed by a problem, unable to see your way out? Your ineffective coping mechanisms were formed long ago, but you do have the power to change them. Since stress is an unavoidable part of life, you cannot do away with it completely, however, you can learn to live with stress without suffering the consequences.

Everyone’s tolerance of stress is different, but when you pass your individual threshold and stay there for a significant amount of time, more severe mental and physical illnesses can develop.

In some circumstances stress can be positive if you can use it to face challenges productively. Excess stress needs an outlet, such as exercise, social activities, a hobby, and relaxation techniques. You should try to eliminate the cause of your stress, but if this is impossible, you need to learn to manage your reactions to it.

Some tips for reducing your daily level of stress
* Set limits on your day and stick to them
* Take breaks during the day(at least one for lunch) and try to go outside if possible—fresh air, quiet, and a walk can work wonders to soothe your nerves.
* Make exercise a regular part of your daily routine.
* Listen to soothing music whenever you feel tension begin to build.
* Eat whole (natural, unprocessed) foods and avoid sugar and caffeine.
* Practice relaxation techniques and meditation.
* Try to pinpoint the problem(s) that is causing your stress and find a resolution.

Remember, this is your mind and body. Do whatever it takes to help them to be strong and healthy. They both rely on each other. They need the proper care to obtain the proper balance that is needed in handling stressful situations. Think positive; you can handle it.

Get your free CD on Conquering Stress Today! http://www.ConquerStressToday.info

The Security in Risk . . .

Sometimes the wrong question keeps us from taking the first step. How often have you considered a new activity and then dismissed it after asking yourself, "What if I fail?" What would have happened if you’d asked yourself, "What if I succeed?" Would you have done it? Think back to how the scales tip when you weigh all your life’s successes against your failures. Looks to me like it is a better bet to take the risk that you will succeed.

Make risk your partner in business and in life, but do not make it a silent one. You must get acquainted with your goals and keep them in the forefront of your thinking and actions. This advice, when taken seriously and applied appropriately, will enhance every aspect of your life; it will allow your spirit to soar. General Patton said, "The whole joy of life is taking chances, to build enough faith to destroy all our fears."

The reality is that risk taking is becoming mandatory. As the Internet and other technological advances weave that the world together more tightly, fresh ideas and approaches travel around the world at the speed of light, influencing those it leaves in its wake. If you are hemmed in to your old routine, if you continue to stick with what has worked for you in the past, you will become stagnant and fall behind. You must continue to seek out new and different approaches to your daily life. In short, you must venture in order to gain.

Risk is not for the faith of heart. It requires a tremendous amount of courage, tenacity, and faith to move outside your comfort zone. Once you take the first step, you do not know where the next one will lead. All you know is that you have set in motion an entirely new chain of events, and it will take all your know-how to handle the unexpected opportunities and challenges that await you. Take heart: the rewards are bountiful. Remember, each time you do something that feels scary, different, and risky, you gain experience that emboldens you to do it for a second time, a third time, and perhaps more.

One clue that you are not taking enough risks is that you feel as if your life is in a rut. If you are feeling that way, now is a great time to break the self-imposed lock on rigid thinking and the preconceived ideas that there is no other way to approach problems, situations, or people. Do not allow your fear to continue to corral your natural avant-garde impulses, to clip your creativity, to keep you in a lock-step adherence to everyday sameness. One word describes the result: boring. In real life, the word is even harsher: defeat. Break free from your rut now!

When you get right down to it, it is pretty simple: You have to play the game to win. If you play with the cards so close to your chest, never looking beyond the past and your comfort in the present, you will miss out on bigger rewards in the future. Plus, since life is a game of chance, let us look at the odds. If the past performance is a good indicator, the odds are that every try that you make is not going to be a failure, especially if you keep trying.

Your success depends on thinking quickly and thinking smart and thinking ahead. All are totally in your control and up to you. To get ahead, you must dare to bring your heart, mind, body, and soul to the task of venturing beyond the status quo. You will have to dare to dig deep, and even deeper, to call forth all your assets. You will have to dare to join the party of success and bring something to the table. You will have to crush your fear of failure and realize that nothing overcomes failure except giving it an honest try.

Life is a risk, and we live it. Every day is a leap of faith. So Jump High!


Get your free CD on Conquering Stress Today! http://www.ConquerStressToday.info

Understanding the Blocks That Bind You . . .

Many of us feel so flawed that we believe that we are not good enough and never will be. And, if we find something wrong with us, then we are going to find something wrong with others as well. If we are still continuing to say that we can’t do something because our mother said this or our father did that, then we have not yet grown up.

So now you want to let your barriers go, and perhaps learn something different that you didn’t know before now. Maybe one sentence here can trigger a new thought.

Can you imagine how wonderful it would be if every day you learned a new idea that would help you to let go of the past and create harmony in your life? When you become aware and understand the individual process of life, you will know what direction to take. If you put your energies into learning about yourself, you will eventually see those problems and issues that you need to dissolve.

Facing Challenges

We all have challenges in life. Everyone does. Nobody goes through life without them; otherwise, what would be the purpose of coming to this particular school called Earth? For some, there are health challenges, and for others there are relationship challenges, or career and financial challenges. Some have a little or a lot of everything.

One of our biggest problems is that most of us haven’t the faintest idea of what it is we want to let go. We know what is not working, and we may think we know what we want in life, yet we do not know what is holding us back.

If your own patterns and problems are what hold you back, into what categories do they fall: criticism, fear, guilt, or resentment? These categories are often called The Big Four. Which is the prominent one, or ones, in your life?

Your Inner Beliefs

Your experiences always reflect your inner beliefs. You can literally look at your experiences and determine what your beliefs are. Maybe it is disturbing to consider, but if you look at the people in your life, they also mirror what you believe about yourself. Everything we embrace in our lives is a mirror of who we are. When something is happening that is not comfortable, we have an opportunity to look inside and ask, "How am I contributing to this experience? What is within me that believes I deserve this?"

We all also have family patterns, and it is very easy for us to blame our parents, or our childhood, or our present environment, but such thoughts only keep us motionless. We are not allowing ourselves to become free. Instead, we remain victims, and we perpetuate the same problems over and over again.

It does not matter what anyone else did to you or what they taught you—or thought of you—in the past. Today is a new day. You are now in charge, and the choice is yours. Now is the time to create your future and your world. Only you can change the way you think, feel, and act. Yet you definitely can do it because you have the power within you that can break you free from these patterns if you will just allow it.

Self-Talk

Think of what you want bring into reality for yourself. Form them into positive (not negative!) affirmations. Now, go to the mirror and repeat your affirmations. See what obstacles that might be standing in your way. When you begin to state an affirmation like, "Each day, in every way, I am getting better and better," pay close attention to the negative messages that may come up. Usually, these negative messages are one of the four I mentioned earlier: criticism, fear, guilt, or resentment.

(In front of the mirror is not the best place to practice affirmations. Here, you are just running a little experiment to see how you react to yourself, what your self-image really is. The best way to practice your affirmations is in an advanced relaxed state where you can communicate with your subconscious to make them part of you.  In my sessions, I teach you how to do this.)

As you recognize them, they will actually become treasures that will help to unlock the door to your freedom. How? They will actually present opportunities to take command and banish them for life! This is a new start for you to begin to take responsibility and think for yourself.

Many of us may face resistance when we begin our affirmations. However, resistance is the first step toward change. We need a safe space where we can work through these feelings. By letting go of the anger, rage, and shame we can move to the space where we are able to love ourselves.

The Healing Process

No matter what we are working on, it is important to remember that the feelings that come up are just feelings. Feelings are no longer experiences. We need to work on making the inner child feel safe. We have to be thankful for being able to survive the experiences and move on.

Sometimes when we are dealing with an issue of a wrong that has been done to us it is difficult to accept that the other person may have been doing the best he or she could at the time with the understanding, awareness, and knowledge that they had.

We all need healing. When we learn to truly love and be honest to ourselves, we no longer harm anyone, including ourselves.


Get your free CD on Conquering Stress Today! http://www.ConquerStressToday.info

Eliminate Negativity From Your Life . . .

When you view your life, do you get positive or negative feelings? Do you awake each morning grateful for your blessings, ready and eager to meet the day, or is it just another day?

Let’s face it: We all suffer negative thoughts and feelings. But that means only that we all have some "kinks" to work out in our lives. That includes the negativity.

Negativity causes intense stress. Events in your own life and in the lives of others, if you get sucked into them, affect you for as long as your mind dwells on them. This produces both emotional and physical stress reactions. Not only can reactions to events affect your life, but they can even control it. Stress is the strongest associate with every type of condition and illness that exist. Stress is the number one killer. This is why you must become aware of and begin to eliminate the negative events, thoughts, emotions, and even the negative people from your life.


Continuously affirm to yourself, "It is just an event"

It was Shakespeare who said, "This, too, shall pass." Life each day can be viewed as a stream of connected events—some positive and some negative. The negative events can cause great stress, but they have the stress-producing power that only you assign to them. Separate your perception, opinion, and value judgment of a negative event from the event. Affirm to yourself, "It is just an event," and you will avoid triggering stress reactions.

Because time proceeds in one direction only, you have neither the power nor the option to change the outcome of a past event. But you have total power to choose how or whether you will respond or react to it, thereby influencing succeeding events and outcomes.

It is likely that, because of different beliefs, values, and opinions, four people who see the same event will relate and react to it in four different ways. But beliefs, values, and opinions are always in the mind, not in the event. Use this knowledge to separate your emotions from the events that occur in your life.

Probably 80 percent of the stress you experience during your life is created solely by how you use your mind. If you use your mind as you always have and as those around you use theirs, your stress level will continue to build until your body breaks down.

If, however, you learn to use your mind correctly, your stress level will be automatically reduced. Therefore, your goal is to stop reacting mentally and emotionally to what is going on around you, to perceive each new situation as just a neutral event. Then you can choose unemotionally what response to make. Your life stays under your control.

Daily life is full of potentially stress-triggering events. As you become more active, accept more challenges, and set more goals, your potential for stress becomes greater. Yet your stress level is something over which you can exercise almost total control, should you choose to.


To reduce stress, don’t make value judgments about people or events

A value judgment occurs when you inject strong opinions, beliefs, or feelings into or about an event. Value judgments include good or bad, just or unjust, right or wrong. None of these value judgments exists in the event itself, but only in how your mind views it. The moment you begin to inject negative opinions, feelings, or beliefs into events, you automatically stir up negative stress-producing emotions. If you make a negative value judgment about the outcome of an event, an experience, or even another person, you will end up upset and full of stress.

Make a positive value judgment, and you will end up happy and full of energy. The choice is totally up to you, and only you.


Making the most of each day

There is much that can be said for the philosophy, "Live one day at a time." Wallowing in past regret, or worrying about the future, is wasted energy. Concentrate on the present. Making plans for tomorrow, the next day, and the one after is wise, but you must not forget that unless you start today with your self-improvements, your future will not improve.

What you will be tomorrow depends on what you do today. Discipline yourself to enjoy each moment of living. No one knows what tomorrow will bring. So enjoy and make most of today.

Living can be simplified. You need merely to accept certain basic truths, certain fundamental common sense rules, and utilize your positive beliefs as a means of putting these rules of healthier living into daily practice.

If you begin today—now—the future will take care of itself. You can formulate your own rules for better living. Let them become part of a morning prayer that you recite to yourself at the beginning of each day.

Your own experience will be your best proof of how positive thinking can accomplish wonders for you.

I know I just said this, but I will say it again: Stress is the strongest associate with every type of condition and illness. Stress is the number one killer. It can be the difference between a short, miserable life, or a happy, long one. Choose the latter.

P.S. Get your free CD on Stress today: http://www.ConquerStressToday.info

Chronic Fatigue and Your Sleep Patterns . . .

That a person should have a minimum of six to eight hours of sleep is well known. But how are you caring for your biological clock?

The human body prefers the use of patterns. For instance, one should take an antidepressive medication at certain predetermined times. To break this pattern is to take chances on reducing the drug’s effectiveness and aggravating side effects. Perhaps we have not often thought of our sleeping habits in quite the same way, but we should. The body expects to rest in much the same way. It wants a regular time to sleep and to awake. While this is true whether or not a medication is involved, the use of a medication increases its importance.

Let’s use some common sense, some logic for a moment (even though these terms are often anathema in the worlds of medicine and psychology). Your metabolism works at different levels when awake as opposed to when asleep. You breathe and your heart beats at different rates. This is why, for example, heartburn can set in after eating just before bedtime; the digestive system, like the rest of the anatomy, virtually shuts down while sleeping.

What, then, does an irregular sleeping pattern do to a drug regimen? Two issues factor in here: what time you go to bed and how long you sleep.

Let’s say the doctor tells you to take one pill in the morning, one in the afternoon, and two at bedtime. So you go to bed at 9:00 p.m. Tomorrow, however, you retire at 11:00 p.m. This adds two hours of active time, as opposed to the previous day, for the afternoon pill to work, and takes away those two hours of inactive time for twice the amount of medication at bedtime. How can you expect your body to regulate that, when it doesn’t know how much time will be allotted for either situation? The result may be a more inefficient and improper use of medication by your anatomy, though you think you are following the doctor’s orders. Could this be a factor in an increase of depression and/or side effects?

Now combine this situation with the fatigue created by this lifestyle. Fatigue and drowsiness are common side effects to antiseizure medication. If you are experiencing them, first take a look at your sleeping habits before placing the entire blame on the drug.

(As a suggestion, a short 20 minute nap during the day, if possible, will often work wonders.)

Nonetheless, many people suffer fatigue despite proper sleep patterns, even without medication. Obviously, this calls for looking at the rest of your life to see what is going on, especially in terms of stress.

A huge reason for fatigue is chronic stress. This condition ravages our society in epidemic proportions. Admitting one is suffering from stress, however, does little to overcome it because all the aggravating factors are still there.

But conquering stress, tension, and depression is more simple than one may think, once one knows how. I am giving away a free CD on this for a while longer. If you want one, just go to my website: http://ConquerStressToday.info. I'll be happy to send you one. :)

Stress Got You Down?

Everything about our economy has gone up. Taxes, foreclosures, bankruptcy, just to name a few are at their all time high. The necessities are difficult to handle much less adding more payments. Many people are getting laid off, and those who are  lucky enough to be employed are feeling the stress. No more will 20, or 40 hours of work a week pay the bills. It's now a 60, or 80 hour work week, and we're talking about both parents to make ends meet.

Very few have the time they once did to send time with family and friends. We have become a go to work, and go to bed nation. What little time most have is spent just getting their thoughts together for the next work day.

What is this doing to our health, and to the children involved? Once the body has taken the go way it's difficult for one to slow down. This effecting both the mind and body. Heart is beating faster and the thoughts are getting out of control, leaving only stress to take control. We hear of both men and women falling over with heart attacks. Heart disease is at its all time high.

Many have gotten so deeply into this way of life that it is actually hard for them to retire. The stressful life at work is taken home, leaving the family in desparate for attention. The children are left taking care of themselves with no examples to follow. Mostly the topic discussed by parents is how to make the next payment.

It has become so personally and emotionally draining that most needs are not met, and by the time things need to be addressed it is too late. Before the parties involved things have gotten so out of control divorce papers are served.

Are you caught into this mode of life or anything similar? Honestly, there is no reason you should be going through all this stress. I'll tell you what: go to my website and let me know where, and I will send you a free CD to help you launch yourself into a new life of peace and relaxation, while actually increasing your productiveness. You will see it after you get to the second page.

Go there now. You will find it at http://www.ConquerStressToday.info