More About How to Reduce Distress (Negative Stress)

Do we take on unnecessary negative stress in our lives?  From a physical standpoint, techniques to lower stress are helpful; these go hand in hand with how to have healthy boundaries so stress can be limited.  

Deep breathing assists in calming the body down; in addition, change your thoughts to allow your mind and your body to work together to have positive results.  Outer techniques and inner techniques work together to create success.

As we have to purposefully calm ourselves mentally in stressful situations, we revisit the topic of training our thought processes.  People who constantly worry about things outside of their control do a disservice to their health.  Take action and release, over and over, release the fear.  If you worry about the future, begin with doing your best, then state, "I am willing to release the need to be afraid, because I understand this is out of my control". (Adopted from Louise Hay.)  Releasing fear is not difficult when it becomes routine.  

In an excerpt of one of his final works, "The Nature of Stress"; Hans Selye, (1907-1982), considered the father of how stress affects the body, states: 

"After four decades of clinical and laboratory research, I would summarize the most important principles briefly as follows:

1. Find you own stress level-the speed at which you can run toward your own goal. Make sure that both the stress level and the goal are really your own, and not imposed upon you by society, for only you yourself can know what you want and how fast you can accomplish it. There is no point in forcing a turtle to run like a racehorse or in preventing a racehorse from running faster than a turtle because of some 'moral obligation.' The same is true of people.

2. Be an altruistic egoist.  Do not try to suppress the natural instinct of all living beings to look after themselves first. Yet the wish to be of some use, to do some good to others, is also natural. We are social beings, and everybody wants somehow to earn respect and gratitude. You must be useful to others. This gives you the greatest degree of safety, because no one wishes to destroy a person who is useful.

3. Earn thy neighbor's love.  This is a contemporary modification of the maxim 'Love thy neighbor as thyself.'  It recognizes that not all neighbors are lovable and that it is impossible to love on command.

Perhaps two short lines can encapsulate what I have discovered from all my thought and research:

Fight for your highest attainable aim,

But do not put up resistance in vain."

(The article and subject matter are extremely thorough, differentiating between distress and stress from positive situations, and the differences in  the body's reactions; my thoughts are based on negative stress.)

His advice:  to set your own limits and let go of the things not in your control to reduce negative stress.  We need to make sure we are living by our personal value systems, helping others with our excess of time or money.  It becomes a purposeful intention with awareness, clarity and repetition.

Have a wonderful day!!

Xo

Conni

Today's Mantra:  I intent to be aware of what triggers negative stress in my life.

Mantra for Every Day: I choose to send love to all; receiving love back multiplied in infinite proportions, creating and nurturing pathways of love.