Stress Relief!

Stress relief isn’t rocket science.  For some reason, people make getting stress relief much harder than it needs to be. 

Do you think you have to go to a spa or get weekly massages or take a vacation to get stress relief?  Do you think you have to get your life in perfect order before stress becomes a thing of the past?

Think again.

You don’t need to line up all your ducks in order to get your ducks to calm down.  In other words, your life doesn’t need to be perfect in order for you to feel calm and happy.

Here’s the truth about stress relief.  It’s totally and entirely in your control.  More specifically, it’s in your mind’s control.

You can decide to be stress free right now!  How?  By changing your thinking.

Do you know what perpetuates the misery monster you call stress?  Paying attention to it.

Like any other misery monster, the more you coddle it and talk about it and think about it, the bigger stress gets.  The more attention you put on the situations that you believe are causing you stress, the bigger your stress will get.

Stress Management

Stress management is very simple.  It’s thought management.  Stress management is simply being in control of your own mind.

And that’s possible, isn’t it?  I mean, you ARE the one who runs your mind, aren’t you?

If you’re not, you need to learn to become the person who runs your own mind.

Here’s a good way to start.  Follow these three steps for successful stress management:

1.  Begin with monitoring your thoughts.  Notice how often you dwell on problems that are causing you stress.  Just see how often your thoughts linger on what’s wrong in your life.

2.  Ask yourself this question—if you could choose between staring at a beautiful ocean beach or a open sewer pit, which would you choose?  Unless you’re quite unique, you probably would choose the ocean scene.  So why do you choose to stare at your problems.  Your problems are the open sewer pit.  Remind yourself of that every time your thoughts go to your problems.

3.  Ask yourself what you’d like to have in your life instead of the stressful situation you currently have.  Get an image in your mind of the way you’d like your life to be.  Now, every time you start dwelling on problems, switch your thoughts to that image.

These steps may seem simplistic, but they really do work.  Start turning your mind into an ally instead of an enemy.  You are the best source of your own stress relief.