Thriving On Stress
Every day, you live with the consequences of how you react to the stress in your life. Whether you realize it or not, your response is costing you (and your family, friends and business) dearly -- physically, emotionally, professionally and monetarily.
The American Heritage Dictionary, 3rd edition defines stress as:
"A stimulus or circumstance causing a disruptive or upsetting condition in response to external influences…capable of affecting physical health…characterized by increased heart rate,…blood pressure, muscular tension, irritability, and depression."
Stress is costing you time and money
The number of workers adversely affected by stress is rapidly increasing and may be costing employers more than $100 billion a year, according to the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. The American Institute of Stress puts the figure at $200-$300 billion a year.
After 24 years in the health and wellness industry, I have found a new definition:
Stress is your physical response to perceptions of life challenges you have.
Stress is not a "thing" by itself -- It is neither good nor bad on its own. Think of it like the instrument panel of an airplane. If a dial reading is too high or low, the airplane gets off balance. Regardless of the weather, the goal of the pilot is to fly the plane safely, to keep the instrument dials optimally balanced. Your job is similar. You must pilot yourself through the challenges of your life while keeping your "stress dials" as balanced as possible.
Stress, Self-Control and Self-Mastery
We need stress in order to live. Stress is a wake-up call, letting you know what area of your life needs work, development and attention. In the game of Self-Control and Self-Mastery, what stresses you out is probably where you personally need to grow.
Life Without Stress
How would life be, if there were no stress? Relationships would never happen. If they did, they would never grow, change or evolve. Work would always be the same--same sales, same customers, same service, same rules. Societies would not change or evolve. Even in the Stone Age, the wheel would have never been invented. Not the clock, not the automobile, not language or paper.
Most of us don’t want life completely without stress. Most of us would choose to be in relationships that grow. We would choose work that changes with market demands. We would want society to evolve and technology to be developed to improve our lives. We want stress to be part of our lives—we just need skills and boundaries to help us make stress an ally to gain self-control and mastery.
Life with Vitality and Self-Mastery
Living with vitality is taking control of our lives in every way. We are responsible for the happiness in our homes, the success in our careers, the peace in our minds, the enjoyment in our lifestyles, the health in our bodies, and the joy on our planet. We make good decisions that lead to quality in our lives. Living with vitality is having self control and life mastery. Almost everyone can achieve that.
Revive to Thrive
Thriving on stress to achieve vitality is like flexing a muscle. Building & developing muscle tone requires that you spend time and attention to pushing your muscles to their maximum ability and to resting, relaxing and nourishing them. Then it makes sense to revive your ability to thrive on stress by having a system of nurturing which restores your ability to handle a maximum amount of stress.
To thrive, you must recreate
Studies have shown that 62 percent of health club members go for the purpose of minimizing stress, and that number is growing daily. What my personal investigation has shown is that certain people seem to gravitate toward specific recreational activities consistently.
Many sales people tend to gravitate toward competitive activities (fast paced, high adrenaline) such as racquetball, tennis, basketball, kick boxing and drag racing. I have found that CEOs and general managers gravitated to strategy-dependent recreation, such as golf, billiards, tennis, marksmanship and chess.
Recreation is the KeyWhen we recreate or play, our "healthy" hormone levels return to normal. Furthermore, the part of us that we hold back in a stressful situation has a chance to "come out," express itself mentally, emotionally, psychologically and physically.
The Main Five Reasons why you want to use recreation to thrive on stress:
1) It’s usually easy to do
2) It’s fun to "play"
3) It provides balance -- Helps you "get a life!"
4) It gives you activities that help you spend quality time with friends & loved ones
5) It may add years to your life -- with quality
The Top Five Things you can do to neutralize the effects of stress--Almost Anytime
1- Deep breathe & Do Nothing
How: Sit quietly, eyes closed. Breathe deeply--in through your nose, then out through your mouth. Breathe deeply 3-5 times then normally for one minute or more, without responding to your surroundings. Repeat.
Benefits: Sends oxygen to brain, nutrients to cells and helps clear your thoughts.
2- Drink ample amounts of water daily
How: Take your weight in pounds and cut in half and drink that many ounces of water per day (e.g., 150 lbs. =75 oz water). Key point: Don’t drink when eating, as the water dilutes your digestive juices. If you feel the need for water while eating, you may be eating too quickly for your digestive juices to flow. If it is because of consumption of salty foods, drink the water anyway if your body craves it. Add two cups of water to every one cup of coffee, alcohol or soda.
Benefits: Makes body fluids flow better, gives more energy and increases flow; helps you sleep; organs work better; helps body release toxins and waste better; improves body’s cooling system; lowers blood pressure.
3- Napping
How: As little as 5 minutes --- no maximum (whatever your body says it needs, if time allows); Some people sleep in sets of two 4-hour naps every day. Go to a place you can rest, cover eyes or turn off lights (no light) and give yourself permission to go to sleep, set alarm clock (put across room if necessary so you get up when you need to).
Benefits: Allows body to get deep sleep which has double or triple benefit of just closing or resting your eyes. Accelerates body’s restorative process. Adds an extra half hour of productive mental energy per 5 minutes of nap time. Lowers blood pressure.
4- Stretching
How: Nice upper body stretch --- lock your thumbs and put arms
above head way up high, don’t bend back; reach arms down and back behind and reach up again (shoulder circles) --- backwards swimming stretch.
Benefits: Helps pump lymphatic system; improves immune system function; helps pump body fluids; stimulates circulation of blood; helps lift rib cage so you take more air in per breath.
5- Play / have fun
How: Always have 2 or 3 things you can do with no warm-up and no prep (putting darts, Frisbee in parking lot--fly across, chase, repeat, Nerf basketball, reading "fun" stuff -- anything you don’t have to calculate or think about).
Benefits: Gives mind a break from routine and time to refresh mental sharpness.
Thriving on Stress: The ongoing game of Achieving VitalityAchieving optimum vitality and peace of mind is the ultimate goal in the ongoing game of thriving on stress. However, by understanding what your personal challenges are, you can start to react differently to situations you perceive as stressful, then you can be at peace with yourself. But achieving vitality is not easy. It is personally challenging. It requires perseverance. The benefits far outweigh the costs. I believe the game can be enjoyable as well as personally rewarding.
Excerpted from "Thriving On Stress"—A report on how you can use Recreation to neutralize the effects of stress. To order the full report, click here:
[INSERT LINK]
