What will help you deal with stress?

One way I know how to deal with stress is reading a good book by my fireplace on a cold evening after work. Nothing could be better, but reading in front of the fireplace might not be what you need to relax.

There are two overarching principles to dealing with stress: you know what your stress is or you don’t know what your stress is. Is your stress gargantuan? Are you completely overwhelmed? Take time to find out what is going on.

What is causing your stress? This is going to take some hard work or you may know right now what your major life stress is. You may have several overwhelming stresses.

Are you suffocating? Address the issue before it creates additional symptoms like illness. Here are steps to change your known negative stress:

1. Determine when the episode of stress first began. Do some linear time regression if you don’t know, or remember, when the trauma first showed up. Go back in time to when your stress first began growing. Take a few days to work on this.

2. Go back through your history to when you think this episode began. You will be surprised by what you find. Make a mental note of this time. Now go back even further. Somewhere you will get a visceral feeling that resonates with you. Now visualize a different, more positive outcome. How do you do this? You can not change the memory of it but you can change the feeling, the emotion.

3. Change your perceptions of the event. You can change your perceptions by visualizing a positive state of well-being. Anchor and transfer something about you that is positive. Mentally transfer this same intention to the episode you are working on.

4. Now watch how your timeline rearranges itself because of what you just did.

5. You are not finished yet. You will need to change your perception of the meaning of your stress. That, my friend, is a valuable find. You will still have remnants of this major stress, but its resonance will be different.

Here are ideas to change your negative stress when you don’t want to know what it is all about. You are looking to change your mental state of being. It could be the bad weather, if your clothes fit too tight, someone cuts you off in traffic or you kicked your toe against your bedpost this morning. In other words, you are mildly to moderately upset.

To start, you need a place where you can go right now to get away. You don’t have to leave home to find this place. You just need your mind and body. Try some of these activities to de-stress you the best. If one doesn’t work then move on.

Here are 20 ideas here for you. 

1. Call a happy friend

2. Read a happy book

3. Take a scented bubble bath

4. Go to the gym

5. Write your feelings in a journal

6. Play with your kids

7. Have a massage

8. Take a 30-minute walk and go on a mini adventure

9. Buy or pick some flowers

10. Take a cat nap

11. Work on your hobby

12. Watch a funny video and have a good belly laugh

13. Do volunteer work

14. Drop in on a neighbor

15. Take a yoga class

16. Meditate or pray for 15 minutes (this is releasing!)

17. Watch one of your favorite TV shows

18. Sit silently for 10 minutes

19. Have a heart to heart talk with spouse or friend

20. Buy yourself a small present

Here is an arsenal if ways to help you deal with stress. They will work. Go deep into your mind to change your emotional perception.

What will you do for yourself tomorrow or next week or next month? Don’t think you can do this just once and get away with it. Find time for yourself throughout your life. Make a new habit for yourself.

Stress relief is an overlooked area of healing that is unfortunately put on the back burner until the right time appears. There will never be the right time to do this. You have to make the time, and make it soon, so you can heal your body, mind, and spirit. What good are you to others, family, spouse, work, if you cannot help yourself first?

If you found this article valuable, here is a Free 7 Day Stress Management Course where you will find lots more help with stress.

Dr. Peter Lind practices metabolic and neurologic chiropractic in his wellness clinic in Salem, Oregon. USA. He is the author of 3 books on health, one novel, and hundreds of wellness articles. His clinical specialty is in physical, nutritional and emotional stress. Click here to go to his website.

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Editor: Carrie Stiles