Make Stress Your Goal This Year
By Paige Dest
a good reason to embrace stress. Stress can make us think and behave in various ways, but you can control stress by the thoughts you allow yourself to think, and by the way you allow your body to respond.
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We often increase our own stress by losing sense of our personal power. We don’t set appropriate boundaries and then we become frustrated by the way people treat us. We say “yes” when we want to say “no”, and then we resent it later. We aren’t forthright in our word and may end up regretting it. We allow our thoughts to exaggerate our fears and we allow our fears to exaggerate our thoughts. When does it end? If you choose, it can end right now.
You can make stress work for you,
rather than against you. It’s all a matter of understanding your emotions, what drives them, and knowing you have power over them. You have power over your thoughts; it’s a matter of perspective and making better choices. Once you have better control of your body’s response and of your thoughts, stress will feel different. You can understand it as a way of keeping you motivated and aware, rather than frantic and disoriented.
Here are six ways to change how you respond to stress:
1. Look at the complete facts in the situation. Set realistic goals based on what you know to be true and what you know you can achieve, even if you
ost people want to alleviate stress in their life; so much so, that they stress over it, but there’s actually
have to stretch yourself a bit. This will help you grow into who or what you can be, while maintaining a healthy level of stress. It will keep you motivated to move forward. By achieving little steps along the way and being realistic about what can be done, you will have successes to break the stress.
2. Put the situation in perspective. How will this look in 3 months? 6 months? 1 year? Think about the situation and ask yourself a few questions: What is the worst thing that can happen? How probable is this? What is one thing I can do to stop the worst from happening? What is the best thing that could happen? How would this feel?
3. Take things one step at a time, practice mindfulness. Mindfulness is the state of being in the present moment. This can be diffi cult as our brains are made to constantly search for dangers in our path. You have the capacity and power
to bring your thoughts and focus back to the present. Breathing and body scan meditation exercises can help bring your attention and awareness to your present self, in the present moment. Even if your mind wanders, accept it as normal for your brain, then bring your focus back to your breathing or how your body is feeling in the specifi c moment.
4. Avoid “should” statements. Once you think or say “should”, your brain begins to emote guilt for not having completed what it “should." Instead, think of what “could” be done or what “can” be done. You have the power to choose what ac- tion to take or what thought to believe – there is no “should” in life except what we pretend there to be.
5. Acknowledge that time is ever evolving – it will pass. Often, we put unhealthy time restrictions on our- selves or on events. Remember that everything has its time and place. If
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