EB Family Day Blog

Stress is the spice of life not a disease that everybody must live with. While it is true that chronic and excessive stress can destroy your joy and peace, well managed stress can challenge and toughen you for major accomplishment. Like fire, stress can be very beneficial and a key part of a healthy productive life but it can also devastate us.

In reality, managing stress is not all that complicated but it does need our attention and we need to learn the basics of using it to our benefit and not be destroyed by it. Here are three simple yet powerful skills that I call the ABC’s of stress management: Awareness, Balance and Control.” These simple guidelines are the cornerstone of developing the stress hardiness needed to enjoy life and be productive in our busy world. You can use these anytime and anywhere and maximize the thrill of living. The good news is that most people simply need to take a moment and back off for a few minutes, take a deep breath and become aware of what is stressing them.

Awareness of our primary stressors and how they are affecting us is one of the first and most important factors in managing and enjoying the stresses of your life. Think through what are your primary stressors and find a good stress assessment tool that will objectively tell you how stress is affecting you.

Balance is learning how to keep our busy lives in perspective. Once you figure out what balance is for you and can maintain it, you are well on the road to enjoying the stress of your life. Are you taking time for rest, physical activity and personal and family time? Are you working realistic hours and balancing work and play? Only you can answer these questions for you.

Control is taking charge of all of your stressors. That is those of which you have control. We all have some stressors for which we do not have control, (i.e. a sudden life threatening illness, divorce, a friend or family member seriously injured or killed in an accident) but you will be surprised that you can take control of most of your significant stressors. Yes, you do have more control than you might think. Suppose for instance that this year has been a particularly stressful year for you. Then this may not be the time to volunteer to lead Boy Scouts or Girl Guides or even take on added personal projects. The body does not readily distinguish between positive and negative stressors both can be equally beneficial or harmful. They are beneficial if we have the stress hardiness needed to manage them or harmful, even if it is a positive stressor, if the event or activity puts you over into excessive or unmanageable stress for an extended period.

Yes, even in our fast-paced busy world, you can be on the run and have your stress under control. Managing stress is not that difficult. Is it doable? I know it is. I live a very active, demanding life and enjoy it to the full. You can achieve a stress hardiness that will enable you to see the plus side of stress and grow and prosper from it rather than be trapped by it.

Many people think that to manage their stress more effectively they need to reduce there stress levels, change their job or escape from real life. While it is true that some people need to reduce their stress levels and for some their job is killing them, yet who can or would want to abandon family and friends for the sake of stress management? The good news is that you can thrive even in our fast-paced busy world. Practice these ABC,s and learn the stress skills that help you develop the stress hardiness you need. I have a FREE e-course entitled, 7 Days to Enjoying the Stress of Your Life, for more info click on the link below.

Cameron Johnston is an author, speaker and stress fitness coach. He is a burnout survivor who has inspired tens of thousands of individuals to live it up without being washed-up. Through his articles, books and speaking, employees in hundreds of organizations have mastered the stress hardiness tools needed to thrive and succeed in our fast-paced, 24/7 world. He has a Masters of Science Degree in Public Health and has developed the Cooling DownThe Stress Soup Stress Management System. Cameron is the author of three books on stress management including, Don’t Eat The Soup As Hot As They Cook It! Here he has distilled all the stress management essentials into eight powerful and very doable ways to cool off the stress soup. He is President of WellChoices

Life is moving faster today than even a couple of years ago! It is not a figment of your imagination! There are so many potential stressors today and most have been with us since humans have been on the planet. For instance, a new baby in the family was just as stressful three thousand years ago as it is today. Let’s take a quick look at a number of relatively new stressors that even our grandparents had little knowledge of or experience with:

INFORMATION OVERLOAD – the ever increasing knowledge base is growing so rapidly that no one can keep up, not even those who look like they are! Information overload is a serious stress reality today and each of us has to find a way to manage all the information to our own advantage or it will overwhelm us.

CONSTANT RAPID CHANGE – coming out of the information explosion is constant rapid change. Change is not new to life on this planet but never has it been so constant and rapid. We humans are creatures of habit and changes tend to always be stressful, even changes we perceive to be positive. Learning the skills needed to manage the rapid pace of change today in the family, at work and in society is essential to managing our stress.

DECISIONAL OVERLOAD – information overload and constant change leads to decisional overload. Consider all the choices and options we all have every day. Whether it is our work, social opportunities or variety of food products, you cannot but be faced with literally hundreds of choices and decisions every day. Someone said a few years ago that we are bombarded with over 2000 advertising messages every day, probably more now. We can easily become overwhelmed and while we block out most of these messages we must develop effective strategies so we can thrive in this new, every changing and multi-opportunity world.

THEN THERE IS TECHNO-STRESS – one lady said the power when out in her house for five minutes and she had to set twenty-three clocks. Ever present worldwide news, cell phones, pagers and the list goes on and on, invade our world with relentless negativity and urgency. Add to all of this: global terrorism, global epidemics and major natural disasters. We can easily worry ourselves into a frenzy day and night. How can we manage these new stressors? Here are a couple of stress management tips.

1. LEARN HOW TO MANAGE THE INFORMATION EXPLOSION, daily flowing in and out of your life. Find ways to sort out the essential from the interesting and the urgent from the important. The internet is a wonderful tool but we must learn how to use it effectively otherwise it can waste a lot of valuable time and frustrate you at the same time.

2. LIMIT THE AMOUNT OF CHANGE IN YOUR LIFE WHERE YOU CAN. Do you really need to move into that new house this yeareven though you can afford it?

3. FIND WAYS TO LIMIT THE AMOUNT OF DECISIONS IN ANY GIVEN DAY. Delegate or eliminate as much as possible. I remember years ago reading about a habit of Ann Landers when if she found a particular dress she liked. She would buy two or three in different colors to limit her shopping decisions. Not a bad idea or example.

4. MAXIMIZE THE POSITIVE USE OF TECHNOLOGY. Must you have every new gadget that is produced? Remember also that technology can run 24/7 but you can’t.

5. TAKE A MEDIA FAST OCCASIONALLY. Maybe weekly, for a few hours, a whole day, and sometimes longer, possibly for a week or two. World problems will all continue without you knowing about them. The stress break can do wonders to help you relax.

6. REFUSE TO ALLOW ALL THE NEGATIVE LOCAL AND WORLD NEWS TO MAKE YOU PESSIMISTIC, CYNICAL OR PARANOID. Choose to be positive and optimistic even when life is difficult. For more help on managing these new stressors consider signing up for my FREE e-course entitled, 7 Days to Enjoying the Stress of Your Life, to receive click on link below.

Cameron Johnston is an author, speaker and stress fitness coach. He is a burnout survivor who has inspired tens of thousands of individuals to live it up without being washed-up. Through his articles, books and speaking, employees in hundreds of organizations have mastered the stress hardiness tools needed to thrive and succeed in our fast-paced, 24/7 world. He has a Masters of Science Degree in Public Health and has developed the Cooling DownThe Stress Soup Stress Management System. Cameron is the author of three books on stress management including, Don’t Eat The Soup As Hot As They Cook It! Here he has distilled all the stress management essentials into eight powerful and very doable ways to cool off the stress soup. He is President of WellChoices

WOW! If you learn nothing else about managing the stress of your life, you must become skilled in recognizing these five common stress management myths and take steps not to be caught in their deadly trap.

In today’s 24/7 pressure filled world, it is crucial to develop the stress hardiness needed to enjoy the stress of your life, be at peace and productive. The speed of life today is not going to slow down! If anything it may speed up, if that is possible. In order to survive and thrive you must not only strengthen your stress coping reserves, you must maximize them! You must also be aware of some very dangerous misinformation circulating about stress.

MYTH #1I’M NOT STRESSED BECAUSE I DO NOT FEEL STRESSED! The question is: how do you know? Stress is very deceptive and many people who feel very stressed are actually handling their stress quite well while others who do not feel stressed are on the edge of disaster. The truth is that some individuals can handle huge amounts of stress and thrive while others collapse under less than normal stress.

MYTH #2ALL STRESS IS BAD, AND I CAN ELIMINATE ALL STRESS FROM MY LIFE, RIGHT? Wrong, stress is not all bad. In reality, stress is the spice of life. Life would not be much without it. The only people experiencing no stress are in the cemetery. Eliminating stress is not the goal. The goal is to manage both positive and negative stress for the optimum enjoyment of life.

MYTH #3EXECUTIVES AND AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLERS ARE THE MOST STRESSED PEOPLE, RIGHT? Wrong! Executives and air traffic controllers deal with huge amounts of stress and most thrive on it because they have learned the basic stress coping skills needed for their high intensity work. Actually, the reverse of this myth is true. The average worker and those in middle management are often the most stressed in an organization because of the lack of control they feel in their every day lives combined with limited stress hardiness skills.

MYTH #4I ALWAYS KNOW WHEN I AM STRESSED! Unfortunately most people don’t and a serious miscalculation here could cost you your family, your job or even your life. Your feelings are not the best indicators of how well you are managing your stress. You need some objective assessment tools which will tell you how effectively you are handling your stress and more importantly how stress is actually affecting you. With a good assessment, some people find out that they are handling their stress very wella pleasant surprise! Others, sometimes in the same family or work group, get an unpleasant surprise when they find out that while they do not feel stressed that in reality they are heading for a crisis and don’t even know it. If you had asked me if I felt stressed a few days before I experienced serious job burnout, a few years ago, I would have said no. An effective and objective assessment tool is worth it’s weight in gold.

MYTH #5IF I IGNORE MY STRESS AT HOME OR WORK IT WILL ALL GO AWAY. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Plus this is a very dangerous attitude. We never automatically resolve work or personal stress. You must be aware of your stress and know and use daily the stress resolving tools that work best for you.

Here are three ways to make sure that these myths do not unnecessarly harm you:

1. Discover all you can about stress, how it both positively and negatively affects the body and most importantly how it is affecting your body mentally, physically and emotionally.

2. Become tuned in to your body’s reactions to stress. Know what are the key stress warning signals for you.

3. Take the necessary proactive actions needed to thrive and grow with the stress of your life. I have FREE E-course entitled, 7 Days to Enjoying the Stress of Your Life, to sign up click on the link below.

Cameron Johnston is an author, speaker and stress fitness coach. He is a burnout survivor who has inspired tens of thousands of individuals to live it up without being washed-up. Through his articles, books and speaking, employees in hundreds of organizations have mastered the stress hardiness tools needed to thrive and succeed in our fast-paced, 24/7 world. He has a Masters of Science Degree in Public Health and has developed the Cooling DownThe Stress Soup Stress Management System. Cameron is the author of three books on stress management including, Don’t Eat The Soup As Hot As They Cook It! Here he has distilled all the stress management essentials into eight powerful and very doable ways to cool off the stress soup. He is President of WellChoices