Yo[u]Value | Online Self Help and Improvement

Stress can be a killer.  No, literally, stress can not only increase your chances of getting sick and have negative mental and physical side-effects, but it can actually bring you to your end before your due time.  There are a number of ways to relieve stress and there are many good resources both online and offline.  However, you don’t need to go and buy a bunch of books and you don’t need to consult a therapist.  That stuff costs money and money tends to be a root cause to stress both directly and indirectly.

One great way to relieve stress is to find something to do that brings you peace, joy, happiness, or any combination of those.  This may seem like an easy task, but it is much harder than some might think.  For many people, enjoyment of anything can lead to feelings of guilt or anxiety.  The best thing to keep in mind, if you are one of the unlucky who feel guilt or anxiety over doing something fun or enjoyable for yourself, is that there is nothing wrong with taking some time for you to do something that you like to do.  Yes, there are people who take this a bit too far and go to the other extreme where they spend too much time on pleasing themselves which can lead to actual neglect for other important things in life.  It is important to have a little discipline and moderation with anything. 

There are other types of people who are so busy that it seems hard for them to justify the personal time out for a small piece of personal enjoyment.  It is important to remember again that stress is unhealthy.  Less stress means better health.  Better health means better life.  Taking a little time for yourself is highly important in the pursuit of a better life.

There are ways to think your way out of stress.  Many times, people suffer from what I like to call “spilled milk syndrome”.  It is easy to get caught up in the stress that comes from thinkgs you cannot control or events that have already occurred.  It is often best to work your way through a stressful situation by realizing what can and cannot be done.  For the things that are outside of your control, you must bring yourself to a point of acceptance so you can get to the next step.  The perfect example is spilled milk.  You cannot un-spill the milk.  It happened, it sucks, but unless you can go back in time to prevent it, there is nothing you can do.  You can move forward though.  The spill can be cleaned up.  You can get more milk. 

The spilled milk scenario may seem a bit childish or silly, but you can put this mentality to use for just about any stressful situation.  Identify what can and cannot be dealt with and keep on moving forward.   The reason this mentality works is because, if you let your mind become wrapped up in what could have or should have happened, you freeze.  Your mind stays focused on something that cannot be changed and this makes it difficult or sometimes impossible to recover.  many times, spending too much time focused on things that cannot be controlled or changed that it makes the situation worse and more stressful.  In the spilled milk example,  you are crying over the fact that the milk spilled and thinking about how it happened and why it happened and so on, meanwhile, the mlik is soaking into the floor deeper and wider and getting into cracks that cannot be reached.  If the part that can be dealt with is handled right away, then the significance of the problem is reduced and thus the stress of it all is reduced.  OK, enough of the spilled milk.

In short, do what can be done and accept that which cannot be done.  Stress dissolves easier when you think this way.  I hope this helps.   If you have some tips on stress relief, we would sure like you to share. 

Take care!