Managing Stress: Breathe and Start Living

Stress wreaks havoc on our mental, emotional, and physical health. Stress narrows our capability to think clearly, enjoy life, and function effectively. It hampers us in our journey toward our goals.

Time flies so fast!

We are now in the second half of the year. I bet many of us need to reboot or refresh…

In the busy and fast-paced world we are living, stress, burn out, tension, strain are just some of the popular words we hear [and experience] almost everyday, may we be at work, in school, or even at home.

If we are living with high levels of stress, our entire well-being is being put at risk.

Stress wreaks havoc on our mental, emotional, and physical health. Stress narrows our capability to think clearly, enjoy life, and function effectively. It hampers us in our journey toward our goals.

Difficulty is part of life, and this difficulty is the one that makes us feel stressed out. We cannot just shut “difficulty” down or be blind about its presence. The good news is, we can manage it!

Take charge of your stress! Do your best to prevent, reduce, and cope with stress.

The key to enjoy your life in the midst of hustle and bustle? EQUILIBRIUM. A balanced life.

Below are some of the easy-breezy strategies that can help you combat daily stress.

I. Avoid Unnecessary Stress

Managing stress is all about taking charge—of your thoughts, emotions, environment, and your manner of dealing with everyday difficulties.

a. Learn how to say “No”

Identify your limits and work around them. Accepting too much responsibility eats up most of your time and energy. Don’t spread yourself thinly; otherwise, your assets (skills, talents, and good attitude) will become your liabilities because your deliverables would become of less quality, or eventually you feel tired and abused, or your health could suffer.

b. Avoid people who stress you out

Limit the amount of time you spend with your emotional vampires, or those who consistently cause or bring you worry, anxiety, irritation, or complications. If you still cannot prevent them, handle them lightly and don’t allow them get into your nerves by just letting them be and just deal with them diplomatically (like if at work), and do your best to stay focused at what you need to accomplish at that very moment.

c. Take control of your environment

Think ahead. Figure out ways on how to deal with the situations that may arise when scenario A, B, C, or D happens. Don’t push yourself against the stress wall and be stuck, instead, find ways on how to climb it and get to the enjoyable side of life. “Preparation” reduces, if not totally eliminates, stress in every situation.

d. Avoid hot-button topics

If you get easily upset over a certain topic and you often find yourself arguing with people over it, just stop bringing that issue up or simply excuse yourself from the conversation to prevent conflicts that might burn you out.

e. Trim down your to-do list

Know your priorities and schedule your daily tasks accordingly. Distinguish between the “should” and the “musts”; and the “urgent” and the “important. Eliminate the unnecessary tasks. Don’t manage time for it will always be 24 hours a day; instead, manage your tasks efficiently and effectively.

II. Alter the Situation

If you cannot avoid a stressful situation, alter it! Figure out what changes you can do to reduce or prevent stress.

a. Express your feelings

If something or someone is bothering you, communicate your feelings honestly but courteously. Repressing your feelings tends to build up stress and might just complicate the situation. Conversely, opening up reduces your stress.

b. Be willing to compromise

If you want someone to change his attitude or behavior, be willing to meet half-way and change or adjust yours too. That person may also be experiencing something about you that he doesn’t like or agree with. Whether he is the only problem or not, doing your part will help you improve your social skills when learn the art of coping with people having a personality different from yours.

c. Be determined

Delay gratification. If you have something to do, stick to it. Be prepared and focused. If interruptions or distractions come your way, stand your ground by tactfully informing others what you need to finish or by abiding by first-things-first principle.

d. Take quick breaks

Don’t soak yourself in your work. It will not make you the Best Employee in town. Take quick breaks to stretch so blood will circulate well in your body or take a quick snack so your mind can refresh and be able to digest ideas or to release creative juices. During a “toxic” season, avoid overwhelming yourself. Break deliverables into manageable tasks, and do them systematically rather than one-time big time. Committing yourself to tasks that you cannot handle within the day will just affect the quality of your work and your mood.

III. Accept the Stressor and Adapt

Accept the things you cannot change and control. If you cannot control external factors, it’s okay! You can always manage the internal factor—you can choose to do better, feel better, and think better. You can better adapt to stressful situations and regain your sense of control by changing your expectations and your attitude.

a. Don’t force yourself to control the uncontrollable

Forcing yourself to control the uncontrollable (like the weather, the traffic, the mood of your boss, etc) will only create your burn out, and even fan the fire. Focus on the things that you can control and change.

b. Look at the bright side and from the upside

When faced with a problem, don’t focus on its inherent difficulty. Look at it as a good break to shine. Trials are opportunities in work clothes. Once you solve or overcome the problem, it will not only take you closer to your goal but will also reward you with good self-confidence and self-image.

c. Adjust your standard and attitude

Perfectionism is a major source of stress. Don’t be cruel to yourself and to others by expecting perfect results or the best quality of work all the time. Set reasonable and attainable standard for yourself and for others.

IV. Back to Basic

Refresh your outlook and reboot your system by going back to the heart of it all—yourself!

a. Nurture yourself

Dedicate one day a week for a really good rest day. Sleep like a baby. Relax! Do the things you enjoy and love. Have a good time with friends or simply have a “Me-time”. The important thing is you afford yourself a window time to recharge and appreciate your life.

b. Laugh

Keep a good sense of humor. Read funny articles, watch funny movies, or crack jokes with your friends. Loosen up and learn to laugh, even at yourself!

c. Maintain a healthy lifestyle

Exercise regularly to allow your blood to circulate well and to stimulate your brain. Have a healthy diet so you feel  healthy and feel good about yourself. Get a good sleep.

Remember, life is a gift to be enjoyed and shared with your loved ones.

Take care of yourself and live a balanced life!

Thinking Out Loud in My Boudoir: Escaping Reality

This will always be the reality and you can never escape it: you are in charge of your choices (mind) and your happiness (heart). Freedom is a gift. Reality is a guide. Do not escape freedom and reality.

When we were kids we wanted to grow old and assume responsibility, we were curious about a lot of things and wanted to try them.

Now that we are adults, we want to be like children—consciously or unconsciously. We want to be stress-free, problem-free. We want to be free from responsibility.

I remember just a little over the death of my father, my perspective of a lot of things changed and I started to become aware of many things, perhaps necessity dictated and demanded. I believe that was the first turning point of my life, and my “official growing up” was way too early, or so I believe.

Part of my new perspective then was that I should be grateful and excited when I recognize I have a trial. When I feel uncomfortable—pain, difficulty, negative emotion—I thought I had new things to be thankful for and to look forward to. I have new things to learn.

When I was a kid, trials or challenges or problems meant new experiences, new lessons, and wisdom.

As I (we) grow older, we think we have had learned more than enough about life, that we are better equipped after all the various experiences we have gone through in life. So we stop being interested about life and we start avoiding pains and stress brought by problems thinking we've had more than enough.

Little do we know that our knowledge of things, our mind map of our lives and our future, needs constant revision, and sometimes major revisions.

We all know that growth—in any area or aspect of our lives—requires pains and taking responsibility as we face our problems. Yet, most of us we ignore this obvious fact. As a result, we avoid responsibility and suffering.

What we don't realize is by avoiding responsibility and suffering, we either let our problems grow as we hide them and deny them, thinking they naturally go away; or we let others handle them for us.

By doing so, we either unconsciously pet our problem like growing a monster we're too scared of or we give away our liberty and control to decide for ourselves. Consequently, either way, we keep our problem and we hamper our own growth.

As adults faced with problems, we tell ourselves now:
1. It's all my fault, but I'm tired of this. I will let it be, anyway all this shall come to pass. (Blaming oneself)
2. It's his/her/their/this world's fault. I have no control over them. Why should I bother myself with his/her/its mess. The heck I care. (Blaming the world)

If we will not take the time to look at things or situations, we will not be able to identify the source of the problem and the significant problem we need to solve.

With our era, where everything is fast paced and new information is available everyday, we must be willing and deliberate in equipping ourselves with skills and knowledge to be able to keep up with time and grow with it.

Let us engage ourselves with our peers. Observe and learn from others.

Most importantly, nurture our relationship with our very own selves. Let us take the time to know ourselves better—skills, weaknesses, strengths, potentials.

Let's live in the now. Face reality. Take accountability. Embrace and accept ourselves. Know, feel, and believe that we are valuable whether people around us perceive us as such or not.

One day we will be surprised, solving life's trials and managing our time for pain and pleasure becomes natural and easy for us. What will be more surprising is, we will naturally become more grateful, blessing expert, and happy persons.

When we know in our deepest fiber that we are valuable, then we start realizing our need for constant growth and the importance of taking hold of our freedom to choose and decide for ourselves are both indispensable parts of having a good life.

And the result?

We become more willing to experience pain and we become more open to new things because we know that through them we become capable of understanding and helping ourselves, and it's ripple effect is we become resilient, understanding of others, generous, and happier than ever... All because we grow and refresh our perspective.

There will always be people and situations that will make our lives difficult, and that's the reality. Our pains or discomfort will always be part of our lives as long as we breathe. Hence, we need to constantly recognize those which are necessary problems and unnecessary ones.

To do that, we must take time to spot the source of the problem; make ourselves comfortable with it; take reasonable time to study the necessary problem; focus; solve it; and learn from it.

Know you are no longer a child totally dependent, helpless, and problem-free.

Live and act your age. Enjoy your independence in deciding for yourself and utilize your control over whatever consequence your decision may breed—painful or joyful. Take responsibility.

Nonetheless, balance your life by acting your age yet enjoying that childlike gratitude, zeal about life, and courage.

This will always be the reality and you can never escape it: you are in charge of your choices (mind) and your happiness (heart).

Freedom is a gift. Reality is a guide. Do not escape reality and freedom.

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Thinking Out Loud in my Boudoir is a column for some of my random thoughts that, perhaps, other ladies my age are also experiencing or thinking of—whether from same vantage point or another. Or maybe, just maybe, it’s just my own voice reverberating in my own world. I will do my best to discriminate my reason in this column, and just write spontaneously the first things and thoughts that a normal lady could think of. Just writing as I think...

Standard and Choices

If you expect improvement in the quality of your life, deliberately transform your decisions and actions. Cast a vision for yourself and press on it.

If you are a “100%” person, 90% is hard to accept. If you are an “80%” person, 90% calls for a celebration.

 

Setting standards is not bad. It is neither harsh nor limiting. Rather, it allows us to freely choose on the array of better set of actions we have pre-determined before the cloud sets on top of our heads.

Standards lead us to get or land on what we want out of this good life. Standards enable us to sail with stability in the midst of storm of trials and to maneuver with direction on the fork of confusion.

What would be harsh is if you drown yourself on sadness or disappointment if you don’t get what you set yourself to achieve. But life isn’t as cruel as many of us think it is.

Shortcomings, loss, disappointments, and others sorts of pain are there to make us feel uncomfortable and prod us to desire to feel better and determinedly strive to become better.

If you lose an important thing in your life, grieve, feel the pain… but not too long, that you drown yourself in tears.

We always have a decision. Everyday we are given the opportunity and privilege to make our own choices that we deem best for ourselves—sometimes for self-preservation, other times simply as a response to our desire to become better in terms of health, relationships, career, finances, skill, etc.

Standards are there to guide us; to provide us with a concrete handle to grip on as we push towards our goals, our desires. Choices are there to allow us to freely act upon our set standards; to permit us to have a little tightening here and loosening there in times we feel or think it best to adjust the sails toward our goals.

Cast vision for yourself! Press on it.

Set standard on how you must live your life so you can optimize your gifts and resources and live a full life.

Live a balanced life by making the right choices.

Be brave! Worry not. You always have a choice on how to act upon your goals and respond to the accompanying challenges.

Direct your actions toward a certain goal. Focus your energies to your priorities. Systematize your actions. Breakdown overwhelming tasks.

Not only for our goal-setting and lifestyle that we can set standards, but also on whom to follow and be with.

We can choose either to be with someone who gives us tears or bring us joy; who stagnates us or who empowers us. We can choose a leader who acts upon the common good or who acts upon the stale principles of his party. We can choose whom to obey, the one who intoxicates us with sin or the one who died on the cross for us to be saved.

Set a standard so you can discern and choose the right things when faced with life-changing circumstances.

 

But whatever standard we put up, I encourage you to consider five things:

1       -To make what honors and glorifies God your core

2       -To regard only the things which bring good to most people

3       -To be constant in your journey on the path of uprightness, no matter how uncomfortable the trip may be

4       -To remain grateful and hopeful, knowing God is at work in your life everyday

5       -To act responsibly, no matter what you choose to get or act upon on

If you expect improvement in the quality of your life, deliberately transform your decisions and actions.

Change only happens through series of actions, not through words. Go make a choice and act upon it! If you are determined, you can do it!

Set a standard, and make a choice that is rooted in it.