One key to being healthy and having a stress free life is happiness.
Looking at a recent internet survey that identifies the “keys to happiness,” we discovered that attitude ranked the highest at 59%, followed by love at 23%, achievements at 8%, creative activity at 5% and money at 5%. Therefore, if you want to motivate yourself in your daily life, you must manage and be in control of your attitude. So what is attitude and how can we use attitude to change the way we think and talk to ourselves?
Attitudes are basically our established way of responding to people or situations and, of course, these are learned behaviors based in our core beliefs and values. Yes, attitude drives behavior. What is in your mind actually drives your actions. This serves as a reminder from the previous lessons about the power of positive
self talk.
By choosing an attitude, whether positive or negative, it drives your mood and sends messages to everyone around you! That’s correct; we said you choose your attitude. One thing we know for certain is that we cannot control everything that happens to us or everything that we encounter in daily life. But we can always control our response. Let’s look at an example. Can you control if someone cuts you off on the highway? The answer is no. However, you can always control your response. You can get angry and react in a negative or hostile manner, which really does nothing to change the situation or you can choose to wave and move on about your merry way. In other words nobody can choose your emotions; ultimately, you are in control of them. Always remember that no one can make you mad or make you sad or make you happy. You choose to be mad, sad or happy. Attitude is your choice, how you respond is your choice, the action then that you take is your choice and it all starts with the power of the mind. Attitude and self talk guides the mind and establishes the process of behavior we display. In other words, your body language as well as the spoken word is a direct reflection of your learned attitude response.
There is a quote by Ramona Anderson that says, “People spend a lifetime searching for happiness; looking for peace. They chase idle dreams, addictions, religions, and even other people, hoping to fill the emptiness that plagues them. The irony is the only place they ever needed to search was within.” It is up to you to be the difference maker in your life and have a powerful impact on every one you come in contact with.
Science tells you that armed with a positive attitude, you will live a longer and happier life. That is a fact. Researchers followed 1500 people for 7 years. All 1500 were in good health when the study started. Researchers followed how they aged by measuring things like weight loss, walking speed, exhaustion and grip strength. They found that people who maintained a positive attitude were significantly less likely to show signs of aging, were less likely to become frail and were more likely to be stronger and healthier than those that had negative attitudes. They found that if your cup is half empty and you have a doom and gloom attitude than you are in fact slowly killing yourself or at the very least your negative attitude is making you weaker and more aged.
There is a reflective book written by Parker Palmer titled “Let Your Life Speak”. The book title in the Quaker admonition means to “let the highest truths and values guide everything you do.” Listening to your life comes with listening and accepting your “true self” with its limits as well as potential. For example, most of us are aware of Michael Jordan’s career as a basketball player. Most of us would label his career as highly successful. However if you look at the stats it might be a bit confusing. “I have missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I have lost almost 300 games. On 26 occasions I have been entrusted to take the game winning shot…and missed. And I have failed over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.” Do you think his cup is half full? Do you think his belief system made him successful? Would Jordon’s career have been different if he focused on the failure of missed shots as opposed to an attitude of gratitude for the shots made? You betcha!
Consider this quote by Melody Beattie. “Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today and creates vision for tomorrow.”
When you think of problems…you attract problems. When you think of solutions…you attract solutions. Today is the first day of the rest of your life. Start today with an attitude of happiness, solutions and most importantly gratitude.
Thursday, December 9, 2010
Wednesday, December 8, 2010
Stress Management
Stress! That one simple word conjures up an incredible emotional reaction in people. An incredible negative emotional reaction, that is. While stress can occur from a physical threat to life, far more stress occurs normally due to family, friends, job and relationship events or simply from worrisome thoughts. During physical danger, your body uses the "fight or flight" response to its benefit, but during mental triggers when the released hormones and chemistry is not used for a useful purpose, they create tension in the walls of the arteries and begin a number of serious disease processes. Perhaps worse, they accelerate aging.
Managing stress is a personal matter, but fundamentally it involves balance; a balance between friends, work and self. When any one of these areas begin to dwarf the others then mental stress triggers are more likely to happen.
Here are three good ways to manage stress:
1. Exercise. Exercise is a great way to lessen the likelihood of stressful triggers occurring and also eliminate some of the destructive chemical components of stress. When you exercise you put time into yourself and you might even enjoy exercise as part of a larger group or community of people. This helps provide important balance to your life. Further, since exercise is a physical response, you get to “use” the chemicals that occur after the mental trigger event, thereby lessening the physical impact they have on you.
2. Relaxation Techniques. There are a variety of simple relaxation techniques including progressive muscle relaxation, guided imagery, meditation, even prayer. These help create balance in the body also. Research these techniques on the internet and choose one that is best for you. The key is to be consistent as consistency matters in using stress management tools.
3. GABA. Gamma Amino Butyric Acid is a natural amino acid based compound that acts as an important neurotransmitter in the brain. Taken before bed GABA helps promote deep, relaxing sleep and taken during the day acts as an effective calming agent.
Whatever you decide to do to help manage stress, you need to realize that having a positive outlook or mind set is very important. There is a huge body of research demonstrating that people with happy, positive attitudes get ill less often, recover faster, age more slowly and live longer than do people with negative mental attitudes.
As important as choosing the right stress management technique is, it is equally important not to take short cuts and choose stress management routes which add to the destructive component of stress. Here are some of the improper stress management techniques that you should avoid.
Pharmaceutical Drugs. There are millions of people taking drugs such as the Benzodiazepines. While these may be helpful in the very short term for managing seriously acute stress episodes, using them for extended periods to alleviate anxiety is a prescription for biochemical disaster. Pharmaceutical drugs come with a host of negatives and should not be the first line of defense against stress. When evaluating drug options, you might also want to consider the natural alternative GABA which when taken during the day in 500 mg. to 1 gram doses can act as a mild sedative.
Recreational Drugs. Even worse, many people try recreational drugs such as cocaine to limit their stress. While cocaine might make you feel a bit less stressed temporarily since it affects dopamine levels, over time, you need more and more of the drug to get the same reaction. And along with drug use, comes a variety of very negative physiological and psychological effects.
Alcohol. Alcohol is widely used as a stress deterrent. A small amount of alcohol may actually be beneficial to a person’s health but few people can consume alcohol in small amounts. Alcohol use leads to alcohol abuse and an incredible number of physical and mental problems.
Nicotine. Many people enjoy smoking, believing that nicotine helps them to sharpen a bit mentally and help create a calm, relaxed feeling and attitude. Since cigarette smoke contains an uncountable number of harmful chemicals and is directly responsible for 450,000 deaths a year, obviously, the harm here greatly outweighs the benefits.
Avoid all these negative stress coping mechanisms. They can only lead to harm.
Managing stress is a personal matter, but fundamentally it involves balance; a balance between friends, work and self. When any one of these areas begin to dwarf the others then mental stress triggers are more likely to happen.
Here are three good ways to manage stress:
1. Exercise. Exercise is a great way to lessen the likelihood of stressful triggers occurring and also eliminate some of the destructive chemical components of stress. When you exercise you put time into yourself and you might even enjoy exercise as part of a larger group or community of people. This helps provide important balance to your life. Further, since exercise is a physical response, you get to “use” the chemicals that occur after the mental trigger event, thereby lessening the physical impact they have on you.
2. Relaxation Techniques. There are a variety of simple relaxation techniques including progressive muscle relaxation, guided imagery, meditation, even prayer. These help create balance in the body also. Research these techniques on the internet and choose one that is best for you. The key is to be consistent as consistency matters in using stress management tools.
3. GABA. Gamma Amino Butyric Acid is a natural amino acid based compound that acts as an important neurotransmitter in the brain. Taken before bed GABA helps promote deep, relaxing sleep and taken during the day acts as an effective calming agent.
Whatever you decide to do to help manage stress, you need to realize that having a positive outlook or mind set is very important. There is a huge body of research demonstrating that people with happy, positive attitudes get ill less often, recover faster, age more slowly and live longer than do people with negative mental attitudes.
As important as choosing the right stress management technique is, it is equally important not to take short cuts and choose stress management routes which add to the destructive component of stress. Here are some of the improper stress management techniques that you should avoid.
Pharmaceutical Drugs. There are millions of people taking drugs such as the Benzodiazepines. While these may be helpful in the very short term for managing seriously acute stress episodes, using them for extended periods to alleviate anxiety is a prescription for biochemical disaster. Pharmaceutical drugs come with a host of negatives and should not be the first line of defense against stress. When evaluating drug options, you might also want to consider the natural alternative GABA which when taken during the day in 500 mg. to 1 gram doses can act as a mild sedative.
Recreational Drugs. Even worse, many people try recreational drugs such as cocaine to limit their stress. While cocaine might make you feel a bit less stressed temporarily since it affects dopamine levels, over time, you need more and more of the drug to get the same reaction. And along with drug use, comes a variety of very negative physiological and psychological effects.
Alcohol. Alcohol is widely used as a stress deterrent. A small amount of alcohol may actually be beneficial to a person’s health but few people can consume alcohol in small amounts. Alcohol use leads to alcohol abuse and an incredible number of physical and mental problems.
Nicotine. Many people enjoy smoking, believing that nicotine helps them to sharpen a bit mentally and help create a calm, relaxed feeling and attitude. Since cigarette smoke contains an uncountable number of harmful chemicals and is directly responsible for 450,000 deaths a year, obviously, the harm here greatly outweighs the benefits.
Avoid all these negative stress coping mechanisms. They can only lead to harm.
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