Life, Money & Development » Stress

10 easy tips to cope with stress

Herrera — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 15:10:31 +0000

Know yourself: Learn to recognize your reactions to stress and think of them as a warning: some stressors are bothering you.
Research about such stressors: A cornerstone to cope with stress. Take a few minutes to elaborate a list of people, activities, events, things that bring in stress to your life. Specify the more immediate stressors: work, family, money? Is it possible to diminish the effect of the stressors?
Put things in right context: Maybe you are stressing about relatively small things which will be soon forgotten. No matter your stress, worries, results, your failure or your success, the world will keep going around. Think carefully about your stressors: they might seem catastrophic monsters, but they’re just problems which will be forgotten as time goes by. Therefore, don’t rush through life, learn to take things slow. Enjoy your family, your meals, your nature, your life. What have you done today to reward the great person you are?
Don’t anticipate scenaries: Ignore every thought of the type “what if …”. Our mind formulates plenty of images and catastrophic or pessimistic scenaries: we are wasting our energy because of futile thoughts about situations that never occur.
Learn to breathe properly: Take a deep breath. Practicing some breathing exercises can be highly effective.
Avoid multitasking: Give and accept social support. Share the load. Attending a lot of activities at the same time is counterproductive, because it slows us down from focusing on an activity and fulfilling it.
Identify your limitations: Be realistic. You’re not a robot built for fighting ghosts. Accept the things you can’t change: it’s impossible to control the uncontrollable. Also, learn to forgive.
Exercise: Physical exercise helps to release the energy contained by stress. Go for a walk and spend time in nature. Get a massage.
Just Relax: Talk to a good friend, write in your journal, take a bath, play with your pet, work in your garden, listen to music, watch a comedy, take photos of nature, enjoy a nice book.
Avoid fake balsams: Drinking too much, smoking, overeating or undereating, wasting your time in front of the TV or computer, taking out your stress on others… those are really unhealthy behaviors which will fortify your stress in the long run and are also a highway to addictions.

The Fear of Failure: A rationalization

Herrera — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 11:51:22 +0000

What’s a failure? According to Wikipedia, failure refers to the state or condition of not meeting a desirable or intended objective, and may be viewed as the opposite of success. Therefore, failure is the opposite of success, and that’s why fear of failure can reach really high levels. A process leading to failure or success involves a lot of decision-making. Many people are tormented by some decisions: they may even have a great idea, but do nothing to get it going, just for the fear of not succeeding. The most practical way to banish this fear is changing the attitude and the way we perceive failures. If we learn proper ways for decision-making, we could stop giving so much power and energy to the thoughts related to the possible consequences of our decisions, and thereby we could save ourselves from unnecessary suffering.

When we are walking the paths of life, we always learn something new, and in the learning process have to pour a few drops of sweat. There is no reward without effort. So, every time you try to learn something new you will have to invest some energy. That is the investment you have to do to achieve mastery in something. Do you want financial freedom? Well, you have to start learning how to make decisions and avoiding the fear stemming from mental scenaries of failure. Because financial freedom is not achieved only with the money. Wealth does not just mean to have a lot of money. If you’re hoping to win the lottery to get your financial freedom, you are standing on quicksand. Now, if you want to go on a safer, smarter road (and of course a little slower), it all depends on your learning process. You have to keep a positive attitude all the time, you have to be resilient, ready to overcome any failure. When you accept failure, when you learn to ignore failure scenearies because you’ll be ready to overcome them and keep going on, then the word failure will be erased from your mind. The trick is not to avoid thinking on failure; the trick is forming the mental disposition to, no matter the result of our decisions, keep going on. In fact, failure might become a powerful ally, an instructor, you will learn to stand up after falling. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder: remember that seemingly negative circumstances can turn into blessings.

Considering an error or a failure as a disastrous event, is to give it the power to defeat you. On the contrary, think that for every possibility of failure there is also a hidden victory. Just took a look at the other side of the coin. If you fail for some reason, don’t worry: try again. What is the problem? What do you fear? To lose it all? And what is it? You came into the world with nothing and you will leave with nothing. Never miss the opportunity to cultivate and improve yourself. In fact the only thing that remains is that the body and material wealth only serve as instruments to accomplish something: hapiness. What is that thing? Discover who you are, build a happy reality, and live in it. Focus on self-mastery and on our universal and individual purpose. Therefore, failure is just the result of a decision, and no matter the decision, the result, goal or the process… all of it is relatively insignificant compared to the magnitude of the universe and our inner selves. This is the importance of internal growth: wealth of soul and mind last forever. What I mean is: do not be afraid of making mistakes. We all make mistakes You can always try again, try, try and try until you succeed. Because every time you’re trying, you learn new things, you are growing and getting one step closer to your personal and spiritual progress. Remember the power of a disciplined mind: when you have to make a difficult decision, start thinking about it only after all the data are available; then give the problem your best thought and make your decision: just after making the decision, do not revise it unless some new fact arrives to your knowledge. Let the decision consequences to develop, and consider that nothing is so exhausting as indecision, and nothing is so futile.

How to relax: overcoming anxiety

Herrera — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 17:13:52 +0000

Relaxation lowers down anxiety and helps your body and your mind recover from everyday stress. A long soak in the bath, your favorite relaxing music, or just a walk in the park do the trick for some people, but for others, sometimes, it’s not so easy. If you feel you need help with learning to relax, try consulting a professional, and following a relaxation or meditation program. Nevertheless, here we have a little program for you:

Choose a quiet, calmed place where you won’t be interrupted.
Before starting, do a few gentle stretching exercises to relieve muscular tension. Stretch your arms and try to smile.
Sit or lie down, make yourself comfortable.
Start to breathe slowly and deeply, in a calm and effortless way. If possible, try that the expiratory phase takes about two seconds longer than usual.
Relax, little by little, each part of your body, starting with your feet and working your way up to your face and head.
Push any distracting thoughts to the back of your mind; imagine them floating away.
Don’t force relaxation. Simply let go of the tension in your muscles and allow them to become relaxed.
Let your mind go empty. Some people find it helpful to visualise a calm, beautiful place such as a beach or a garden.
Stay like this for several minutes, then take some deep breaths and open your eyes, but stay sitting or lying for a few moments before you get up.

Remember, relaxation is returning to equilibrium. Equilibrium is the base for a good health.

Breathing for Stress Relieving

Herrera — Sun, 22 May 2011 15:08:13 +0000

As promised in our previous post about the roles of breathing, we present here a simple routine for stress relief through breathing. Remember that breathing is especially important for those who suffer from stress, high blood pressure, anxiety or digestive problems. These symptoms and problems are typically the result of the body staying in conflict due to an disequilibrium of the parasympathetic and sympathetic nervous systems. As our body is burdened with stress, our sympathetic nervous system is stimulated so often that it begins to dominate the parasympathetic nervous system resulting in chronic elevated blood pressure and heart rate, nervousness, anxiety and muscle tension, bowel problems. In this sense, the goal of this breathing exercise cleanses the body of diseases, steadies the mind, helps in concentration, improves digestion and increases appetite. The exercise can also be done anywhere and at virtually any time:

First locate a quiet and comfortable place. Make sure the room is not too bright. If you prefer to play music, choose relaxing themes and set them to a reasonable volume level.
Sit or stand in a relaxed position.
Slowly inhale through your nose, counting to five in your head. As you breathe, let your abdomen expand outward, rather than raising your shoulders. This is a more relaxed and natural way to breathe, and helps your lungs fill themselves more fully with fresh air, releasing more old air.
Let the air out from your mouth, counting to nine in your head as it leaves your lungs. If you like, you can make your throat a little tighter as you exhale so the air comes out like a whisper. This type of breathing is used in some forms of yoga and can add additional tension relief. Try for several breaths to make your breathing as quiet, slow, regular and deep as possible. Repeat the exercise several times (at least 10 times).

This simple exercise can be used for meditation and visualization.

On Breathing

Herrera — Fri, 20 May 2011 20:27:51 +0000

As stress in our lives keeps growing, breathing in our activities is becomes increasingly shorter and faster, that is, we tend to inhale less oxygen as we exhale more. This causes our body to become quickly tired because of low blood flow due to the small amount of oxygen and the high levels of carbon dioxide. In turn, the physical fatigue stresses the muscles that support the spine and the weight of our body, generating unnatural pressure on the lungs and other internal organs. For its part, the brain, not receiving adequate amounts of oxygen, begins to reduce performance, and this causes drowsiness among other problems. Further, the diaphragm, when not working properly, makes little effort and loses tone, thus contributing to the reduction of lung capacity.

That is why it’s very important to learn to breathe properly, with simple exercises and frequent practice. In an upcoming post, we’ll be reviewing one useful exercise for proper breathing.

Quote on Anxiety

Herrera — Thu, 03 Mar 2011 15:31:54 +0000

People become attached to their burdens sometimes more than the burdens are attached to them.

George Bernard Shaw

A nice companion to our post On Anxiety.

On Anxiety

Herrera — Thu, 03 Mar 2011 15:07:09 +0000

Anxiety is a state of restlessness, and most of the time such state cannot be justified. It is not fear of something concrete at the outside but expresses our inner emotional conflicts. The person feels threatened by something of unreal nature, and is unable to handle such emotions. The anxious person may have been conditioned very early and may continue to be anxious in adulthood. It then becomes a characteristic of his nature that pervades all their actions and which turns the person in a candidate to suffer stress. Anxious people are fast, are always in a hurry, can not afford the time for all the activities they want to develop and are used to work on two or three things at once. When eating, anxious people swallow whole foods -tasteless- and consequently often suffer from dyspepsia, indigestion, bloating, irritable bowel, etc.

Anxious people are often balancing their legs when sitting or drumming their fingers on the table. They respond before you ask a question, and are also ahead of events and “fleeing forward”. When anxious people fear the may lose control they can suffer panic attacks. They need to have control over things and processes, and they cannot cope with contexts in which they are not in full control of the events.

Anxiety, luckily, can be controlled and reversed and we can learn to live a more balanced and relaxed life, and improve our quality of life overall:

Learn to breathe.
Sit down to eat slowly and chew all food. If needed, put a sign in sight to remember to eat slowly.
Yoga may be helpful.
Learn to observe. Anxious people must learn to concentrate on the little things that surround them. Do all your daily routines more slowly, observing everything around. Do what you love to do slowly, enjoying the process and without committing only to results, because if you focus only on the results, you will feel anxiety. An excessive desire to excel, to be the best of the best, triggers anxiety because it relies on the commitment to results. Know how to visualize your goals properly.
Lighten your schedule and learn to say no. There is a difference between being selfish and having self-esteem. Self-confidence is respect for oneself and one’s own needs, and selfishness is to use people for personal benefits. Learn to manage your time.
Take a walk, every day. Watch nature, trees, birds, the color of sky and detect changes from day to day.
Do not dismiss pending issues and take advantage of opportunities to pursue them.

If you suffer from anxiety, do something today, start right now.

Meditation Gems: Managing your Time

Herrera — Thu, 15 May 2008 21:00:36 +0000

We are used to recur to the time parameter to assess all of our activities. Worse yet, time assesses our own reality. We love to classify life in an orthodox fashion: past, present and future, unyielding frames we can’t live without. Indeed, as humans, we love to classify things, especially when classifying makes us feel special or protected. We classify things as living or not living. Above all, though, we love to classify things according to time. Thanks to this parameter, everything becomes an event. And we are continually struggling to link events, to establish logical relations of cause-effect between them. If we think this over, we’d note our predilection for going to the ends of classification. To classify, after all, is a proof of intelligence.

But intelligence has to be applied well. To win or to lose is the result of myriad events, most of which escape our control. And no matter how much importance we concede to time, we cannot control it. Time continues its eternal walk, indifferent to us little humans. However, when we develop and fortify our self-confidence, we understand that time only rules over the external aspect of life. And we get to know the imperishable truth that lies inside us. Our mind awakens. Our interior life does not know about yesterday or tomorrow… about old or young things… Inside us, we only know about the Now. Now that was, is and will be.

Of course we have to know how to manage our external activities well. Time is gold, and we are a duality: external and internal. But the external side cannot conquer the internal one. The wealth of human experience is eternal, free of time effects. Everything good lives inside us… it has not died, it has not vanished, it has not been wasted away. Love is eternal. Live your Time.

“That time is short and it doesn’t return again. It is slipping away while I write this and while you read it, and the monosyllable of the clock is Loss, loss, loss unless you devote your heart to its opposition.” – The Glass Menagerie (Tennessee Williams).

10 Short Tips for Keeping Anxiety at Bay

Herrera — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 23:17:21 +0000

Anxiety is a (sometimes annoying) emotional and cognitive state. Emotionally, we recognize it as sensations of fear, grief, worry or general apprehension. The cognitive component entails expectation of a diffuse and uncertain danger. The threat or perspective of danger triggers the body’s defenses: the flow of blood to the muscles is increased, which in turn implies rising blood pressure and heart rate. Needless to say, such alert activation involves a higher consumption of body’s energy, and also other parts, such as the immune system, are inhibited in order to increase energetic reserves and focus for fighting the hypothetical danger.

At the outset, such reaction is not necessarily a bad thing. It’s a natural mechanism which prepares us for defense. Thus, anxiety is a relatively common emotion, naturally linked to survival. However, it may become a threat to our health if:

The reaction gets out of control, forcing us to adopt a defensive behavior continually. This consumes body and mind’s energy, unproductively.
Anxiety attacks are experienced, including severe physical and emotional disturbances, such as headaches, arrhythmias, irascibility, nausea and general pain. No matter the graveness of those symptoms, the result is the same: zero productivity and zero advance with regards to the feared issue. Plenty of weakening, though.

I always like to recommend an evaluation by a qualified specialist if we are facing health problems, including anxiety. Additionally, I think the following neat tips may prove useful in controlling the anxiety stemming from our daily chores and jobs:

Try to relax, silently, during at least 10 minutes every day. Modern living can make us very unaccustomed to silence, but both mind and soul speak in the silent moments.
Meditate, practice a correct and relaxed breathing, specially in those times in which stress is tougher.
If you ever feel trapped into a stressful situation, take a break and think: what I’m doing right now? Learn to identify anger, fear, sadness, happiness, anguish and envy.
Every morning, after waking up, say: “Thanks God, for the things I have. And with such things I do my best.“
Watch your diet. Include fresh fruit and vegetables as much as possible (without breaking the nutritional balance of your diet, of course.)
Follow some type of exercise program, outdoors. Exercise for at least 3 hours weekly.
Try not to use your watch for a week. You’ll discover the nice time management abilities of the mind.
Expand your social circle, looking for people with a personality similar to yours. I do insist, a good circle of friends is vital for keeping a good mental health.
Fears are defeated by talking about them, by accepting them. We should talk about the things that haunt us with a lovely person who knows how to heal… a wise mother… a dear friend. Such lovely people, whose words heal our soul, are a treasure.
Finally, find your spaces and a take your time for enjoying life… dedicate that time only to yourself. Allow yourself to be happy. Nature is open to us… why don’t we take some time to enjoy it?

Thanks for reading. Be happy.

A Thing that Truly Hurts Self-confidence

Herrera — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 21:37:08 +0000

A look behind the scenes of work’s misdirections

What do we achieve by thinking of ourselves as “supermen” or “wonder women”? Too little, indeed. Trying to act (and even feel) like fiction heroes, in a frantic rush to enjoy something that really is too tiresome to be enjoyed. There is little reward in demanding ourselves the compliment of being perfect, effective, productive, attractive and winsome people who have no real problems at work or at home, and who always ignite the life of the party. Needless to say, there is no reward in working frenetically until our minds and bodies cannot handle it anymore: we would weaken and become sick. But we already know that time is unstoppable: other people would carry on our duties, and someday, we would be simply forgotten. In other words, no matter how much effort and blood we devote to our jobs, we are always dispensable for the furious wheel of businesses.

I’ve worked as a business manager for a long time, and have had the chance to meet a lot of people who burn-out very fast. That’s no surprise as they were but machines for working. Apathy and frustration resulting from prolonged stress and overwork will, sooner or later, lead to health problems. Absolute fatigue is an enemy of health and self-confidence. There are crowds yearning for turning into winners; they pretend series of victories, and are not willing to tolerate any flaws. But the winners’ mindset totally differs of this approach. They are obsessed with a need of self-confidence, wealth, fame and success, beyond any reasonable limit. Albeit they are free to do so, I think that these people are ruining their life: they have not learned to relax, to slow down, and to enjoy the wonderful things life reserves for those with true self-confidence.

What are the questions that motivates our work and related actions? The following are dangerous questions:

How much have we earned?
How much have we progressed in relation to other people?
Are we going to be famous?
Is it possible to win more money?
Are we the best already?
Did we ring up the cash correctly?

The problems is that, when these people reach their mental and physical limits, self-confidence hesitates and weakens because they suddenly discover that they are not absolutely flawless beings… and such reality does not match with their (fake) perfection. Thus, self-confidence is hurt.

Rather, we should be asking ourselves what have we done today? What are we doing right now? Better yet, let’s don’t ask… let’s answer and do the right things that we know should be done. Advance, perhaps slowly, but firmly. None of our steps should reveal fear. Let’s visit and share with our friends. Let’s improve our working, resting and familiar environments. Let’s enjoy our family. Let’s strengthen our ecological practices; by loving all living creatures, we are loving ourselves. Keep your mind young. Follow a healthy lifestyle. Obliterate panic and stress. Listen to your favorite music. Take a walk with the person you like. Breathe. Love.

Finally, we are heroes. Yes, indeed. But heroes in the epic adventure of learning to live well. Brave heroes. But above all, human heroes.

Life, Money & Development » Stress

10 easy tips to cope with stress

You may also like...

The Fear of Failure: A rationalization

You may also like...

How to relax: overcoming anxiety

You may also like...

Breathing for Stress Relieving

You may also like...

On Breathing

You may also like...

Quote on Anxiety

You may also like...

On Anxiety

You may also like...

Meditation Gems: Managing your Time

You may also like...

10 Short Tips for Keeping Anxiety at Bay

You may also like...

A Thing that Truly Hurts Self-confidence

You may also like...