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Self-Inflicted Stress?

Do you wake up feeling as though you haven’t slept at all, or maybe you’ve just dozed here and there? Do you live life in the fast lane, running everywhere, always late it seems? Do you have trouble completing a sentence before racing on to your next thought? Are you always thinking ahead to tomorrow, next week, next year, projecting ahead into an endless abyss of worry? Are you sick fairly often? Are you stressed out about your spouse, your kids, your job, your family, your aging parents, your health, your money problems, your future? Are you easily irritated?

If you answered yes to any of these questions…you are not alone. You suffer from stress along with the better part of the human race and what’s more - you are largely responsible for the stress in your life, not the things or people outside of you.

The thing you have to realize about stress is this - if external events caused it, then everyone would get stressed about the same things! Let’s take traffic for example. You hate sitting in traffic. It makes you jittery and upset. You think about all the productive things you could be doing if you weren’t sitting in traffic. Now someone else might use traffic time to jot down a “to-do” list for the day. They may make some client calls from a cell phone. They may have a staff meeting via conference call or call a doctor to make an appointment for an overdue office visit. It’s all a matter of perspective, and much of the stress in our lives is self-inflicted.

So what can you do to temper your stress level? Try to determine why a particular situation is causing you stress. Work through what is the worst thing that could happen as a result of a certain set of circumstances. Decide whether or not you have control over the outcome of a situation (i.e., Can you stop it from raining on your wedding day?).

Change your thinking and you change your reaction to stress. This results in a change in your behavior. Ever notice how some people are always thinking negative thoughts and then they wonder why they lead such miserable lives?

Try a fresh perspective. Talk over the situation with a trusted friend or professional. Think thoughts of gratitude for the good in your life. Do something nice for yourself. Exercise or read a good book. Learn to shut out the disquieting voices in your head that cause stress in your life and replace them with positive thinking. Soon, you’ll notice that your life is not as stressful anymore because you’re doing something to change it!