Stress Leveraging Tips

Use stress to your advantage:

Stress is the natural biological response to a dangerous or threatening situation whether real, or perceived. As such it is your friend and not your foe if you take the necessary actions that your stress signals prompt. Stress is an indicator, an educator and a navigator for people who notice the symptoms. Read the signals and heed the warnings.

Recognize the difference between positive and negative stress:

Positive stress occurs when you are under pressure to meet a demand that you believe you can meet. Negative stress occurs when you are under pressure to meet a demand that you believe you cannot meet. The difference then is in your belief about whether you can or cannot meet the demands being placed upon you. If you believe you can, then the pressure will pull the best out of you. But if you believe that you cannot, then the pressure will pull the worst out of you. This is why changing your belief about yourself, and the situation at hand, can be the key to turning negative stress into positive energy.

Get familiar with your own stress symptoms:

People react to stress in different ways. Typically they get irritable, short tempered, anxious, restless, nervous and anti-social. Their sleep is shallow and short. They may experience palpitations, panic attacks, paranoia and even depression. Their dependency on alcohol, tobacco, binge eating, and caffeine increases whilst their energy decreases, making small tasks seem difficult if not impossible. Also, their immune system begins to break down and they become susceptible to colds and other infections. Their outlook becomes pessimistic and they are usually unable to think about anything other than the problems at hand. There are many other stress symptoms and signals that affect different people in different ways. However, your job is to familiarize yourself with your own symptoms so that you can deal with negative stress at the earliest stage.

Restore your natural rhythm:

We are not made to work all the time. Periods of resistance should be balanced out by periods of recovery. The human heart beats to this rhythm, so does night and day. When your stress signals turn red, it is usually an indication that you are living an unnatural and unbalanced life style. Your job is to restore the natural rhythm of your life by scheduling periods and places of recovery and recuperation.