Category Archives: Articles

One more reason to avoid being a couch potato

Do you sit about as much as you sleep most days? An Institute for Medicine and Public Health poll of almost 6,300 people found you probably spend about 56 hours a week commuting, at your computer, or watching TV. And many women are more sedentary than men since they hold less active jobs and play fewer sports.
Whether or not you think you’re sedentary, you probably spend much time at work sitting. And, excessive sitting is killing us through obesity, heart disease, and diabetes.

It’s even spawning a new medical study: inactive physiology, which explores our tech-driven lives and its resulting lethal new epidemic, “sitting disease.”

American Cancer Society epidemiologist Alpa V. Patel, PhD and colleagues found through research after adjusting for smoking, height/weight, and other factors, sitting six or more hours daily – versus less than three hours – increased the death rate by about:
· 40% in women;
· 20% in men;
· 94% in the least active women;
· 48% in the least active men;

The health problem wasn’t due to insufficient exercise; it was the sitting itself. As one person wrote, “It’s the modern-day desk sentence.”

Mayo Clinic’s James Levine, M.D., Ph.D., author of “Move a Little, Lose a Lot,” says, “Our bodies have evolved over millions of years to … move. For thousands of generations, our environment demanded nearly constant physical activity.”

Contrast that with modern life: increasingly longer work weeks, electronic living that extinguishes what little activity we might otherwise choose by allowing us to:
· Interact with friends through social networking without taking a step;
· Shop and pay bills by lifting only a finger;
· Entertain ourselves through on-line distractions;

Levine says, “The consequences of all that easy living are profound.”

Marc Hamilton, Ph.D., associate professor of biomedical sciences at the University of Missouri warns when you sit too much, your body shuts down at the metabolic level. When your large muscles, meant for movement, are immobile, your circulation slows so burns fewer calories. Fat-burning enzymes responsible for breaking down triglycerides start to switch off. Sitting for a full day decreases those enzymes by 50%, according to Levine.
Additionally, the less you move the less blood sugar you use increasing your chance of contracting diabetes. Depression is also more likely due to less blood flow circulating fewer feel-good hormones to your brain.Let Your Body Win

Exercise doesn’t even give you a pass. (Now the researchers have my attention.) We’ve become so sedentary that 30 minutes daily at the gym may not be enough to counteract the detrimental effects of eight – ten hours of sitting, according to Genevieve Healy, Ph.D of the Cancer Prevention Research Centre of the University of Queensland, Australia, explaining why many women struggle with weight despite regularly working out.
Healy discovered regardless of how much exercise participants got, those who took more breaks from sitting had slimmer waists, lower BMIs, and healthier blood fat and blood sugar levels than those who sat the most. Next week I’ll present tips to counteract sitting disease.

Jacquelyn Ferguson, M. S., is an international speaker and a Stress and Wellness Coach. Order her book, Let Your Body Win: Stress Management Plain & Simple.

Reach goals and make decisions using “if … then” technique

When considering options, do you suffer from analysis paralysis? Or, do you impulsively react? To counter both of these approaches use the “if … then technique:”
· If I do ­____ then ____ will happen.

For example, you have two job offers and must decide which to accept. One seems more interesting but pays significantly less; the other pays more but requires working more hours:

If I take the job that seems more interesting but pays less, then:
• I could only pay small amounts off my debt monthly.
• I’d enjoy my work more and be less stressed.
• Commuting would be less expensive and time-consuming since the job is closer to home.
• I’d spend more time with my family because I’d work fewer hours.

If I take the higher paying job, then:
• More commute time and over-time would keep me away from home more.
• With less time at home doing household chores and spending time with the family would become more challenging.
• My family might step up and help with chores. Maybe they’d even appreciate what I do around the house more.
• I could hire a housekeeper.

At first glance this technique seems like just the pros and cons of your choices. It’s different, however, in that it encourages you to think in terms of the consequences of your options. It helps you think before you act.
· If you rescue your child from her irresponsible behavior again then you’ll teach her you’ll rescue her and she won’t have to responsibility for herself.
· If you buy that expensive outfit then you’ll have less money and you’ll look great for the party. This forces you to choose what you value more: looking great or saving money.

To avoid the ready-aim-aim-aim-and-never-fire or the ready-fire-aim approaches, use if … then and join the ready-aim-fire group.

A second and different use of “if … then” is in planning and helping you accomplish goals.

For instance, for a weight loss goal, use if … then:
1. If ____ happens, then I’ll do ____.
o E.g., If dessert is offered I’ll decline and request water.
2. Then, add your specific goal: I’ll walk 30 minutes weekdays at 6:30 a.m.

NYU psychologist, Peter Gollwitzer reviewed 94 studies that researched people who used this 2-step planning technique and found significantly higher success rates for just about any goal. He explains it works because it speaks the language of your brain: the language of contingencies.

Deciding exactly how you’ll react to circumstances regarding your goal creates a link in your brain between the situation or cue (if) and the behavior that should follow (then.)
• When dessert is offered (cue) it links to your desired behavior – turn it down and request water.
Gollwitzer says this link keeps you from having to consciously monitor your goal. Your plans get carried out without apparent effort.

I’ve used this approach recently and have been very successful in achieving my stated goal. I encourage you to try it, too.

Jacquelyn Ferguson, M. S., is an international speaker and a Stress and Wellness Coach. Order her book, Let Your Body Win: Stress Management Plain & Simple, at https://wholeperson.com/x-selfhelp/selfhelp.html#Anchor-Let-11481.

Relationship Stress

Relationships can be the best and worst things that happen to people. They produce a lot of joy but also a lot of stress. Your relationship to your own environment can also cause stress. There are ways you can help lessen this unavoidable tension. These skills come in handy if you

  • aren’t getting enough support from the people around you,
  • are confused and need someone to listen and care for you,
  • find yourself saying ‘yes’ too many times when you want to say ‘no’, and
  • your environment makes you uncomfortable.

Relationship skills can make a huge difference in your overall health. Think about all the stress caused by relationships and your environment. How often do your relationships with other people create stress for you? Maybe you have particular relationships that seem to involve more stress than others, or one that you constantly feel as though you have to tread lightly upon. Have you avoided a part of your home because you don’t want to deal with a mess? Have you become stressed from environments you can’t control, like traffic jams or hospitals? Using relationship skills to help cope with this stress will make things a lot easier on you and the other people in your life, and if you have a physical surround that soothes you rather than tenses you, you’ll be even more balanced.

Getting Organized & Getting it Done

Getting Organized

The first part of Valuing Skills is understanding what you value. To do this, you’ll need to do one thing first; relax for a bit! Sit down for five minutes at the office, find a quiet place in your home, or even lock yourself in the bathroom for a minute. Just take deep breaths and let go of some tension. Let your mind stop spinning for a bit so you can think clearly. Once you’ve done this, organize your thoughts. Lists are helpful; you can try making a list of all the things in your life right now that you enjoy. Family? Job? Book club? Pet? What are some things in your life you could do without? Mowing the lawn? Feeling panicked? Not spending enough time with someone special? Think about a typical week. How much time do you spend working or traveling? Sleeping? Playing? Relaxing? What kind of things do you do most? Does it match with your values? If not, that probably causes you stress.

Next, pick a value to set attainable goals around. Where do you want to be in a year? One month? How are you going to make this happen? Use some planning skills strategies; try to make a specific goal for this week, and connect it with others that work towards your long-term goal. Then get started! Break down big tasks into smaller ones, and don’t be afraid to ask for help.

  • Do you usually meet your goals? Why or why not?

 

Getting it Done

Now that you’ve calmed down and thought about what you want, it’s time to make a plan. If you don’t commit to taking your plans into action, you’ll find yourself stressing again soon. It’s tempting to try to keep all your options open, but juggling multiple tasks results in dropping all of them. Pick one! Commit to making a good change.

Next, think about Time-Use Skills. What sort of things do you do that waste time? We all have tasks we can streamline. One common time-wasting habit is jumping from task to task without finishing them first. It’s more efficient to finish one then move to another. A second time waster is accepting nothing but perfection. This isn’t to say you should accept bad work, but recognize good work when you see it. Nothing is ever perfect. Another common time waster is putting off starting because you don’t know where to begin. Easy solution for that; start with the biggest and work your way down.

Last, don’t forget Pacing! Here’s an analogy: you’re on a timed run. You have 30 minutes to run as far as you can. If you sprint at the start, you will be exhausted in 5 minutes and trudge the next 25. You won’t get very far. If you go at a good pace, you will save yourself a lot of pain, and get much farther. You can tell when a pace is right for you; you feel challenged, not overwhelmed.

Personal Management: Stress Less!

Everyone has moments where we feel as though life is throwing too much at us. We can’t control what happens to you, but we can control how we each respond to it. By understanding how to spend your time and energy, you can help yourself when you feel overloaded. Understanding how to prioritize yourself is a great stress-reducing tool. These are called Personal Management Skills. They are useful when you:

  • feel as though you spend too much time on things that aren’t important,
  • feel out-of-step with yourself,
  • feel you have too much to do and no time to get it done, and
  • you don‘t really understand what you want from the future.

There are five facets to Personal Management Skills. The first are Valuing Skills, which help determine what’s important. Second are Planning Skills, which turns your values into a road map. Commitment Skills help put those plans into actions. Fourth are Time-Use Skills, which help you trim out your time wasters, and last are Pacing Skills, which help you to keep on course and not fizzle out halfway through.

  • Do you feel as though you need management skills, or do you feel like you’re already organized?
  • Does it seem as though you need help on one facet in particular?

Eat healthy, stay active and stop making excuses

Let Your Body WinFeeling refreshed after a wonderful two-week Colorado vacation with friends and family it’s time to get my body’s insides feeling as energized as my mind and spirit.

Here’s why my body needs help.

We spent a week with close family – three couples and four kids – in Durango, CO. Wonderful cooks in each family showcased their skills creating mouthwatering breakfasts, lunches and dinners. This continued with our Boulder friends, too. I ate heartily at every single meal (boof!) and consumed generous amounts of alcohol over evening card games, laughter sessions and football games.

Now that we’ve returned, we’ll do our annual post-holiday, two-day cleansing apple diet to rid ourselves of our excesses.

I have two additional healthy intentions:
· To switch to one or two meals weekly of beans and legumes, with little or no meat: since my husband is the cook, I must convince him this is a good idea. So, while in Boulder I purchased a bean cookbook. To make this happen I may have to cook these meals – I haven’t cooked for over 27 years.
· To return to my exercise regimen: weekly bicycling, kayaking and Nordic Track plus yoga multiple times a week. I slacked off last quarter due to a variety of reasons, one of which was the cold weather.

If I fail to accomplish these goals, I’ll stay attuned to my reasons – aka excuses, like it’s too cold to kayak today.

Best-selling author Bob Greene, Oprah’s former personal trainer said, “I’ve heard every excuse on the planet – except a good one. Having an excuse is an obstacle that you choose to place in front of yourself. … in general, we do it to justify not changing. When you are out of excuses is when you are ready to change.”

Which excuses justify you not changing? Do your knees hurt? Maybe your job exhausts you so much that you can do nothing when you get home but veg out. Whatever your excuses, bring them to your conscious mind and admit that you just don’t want to do whatever it is you’re considering. Keeping excuses conscious versus automatic (unconscious) gives you more power to change someday.

Also, strengthen your motivation for healthy change by using intrinsic reasons that benefit you rather than someone else. The day of each week I target for my Nordic Track session isn’t a day I say, “Yippee! I get to do the Nordic Track today.” I just do it because I’m committed to strength, energy, health, flexibility, etc., all intrinsic reasons to work out.

Greene encourages you to look for some form of activity that fits you. Distract yourself while doing it if that would help, like watch TV as you march in place. Make a t-shirt for yourself with “No excuses” printed on it. Eat modestly and healthfully five days a week leaving two days to eat whatever you like. Do whatever works for you.

As one reformed couch potato said, “There is no excuse good enough for poor health.”

Jacquelyn Ferguson, M. S., is an international speaker and a Stress and Wellness Coach. Check out her book, Let Your Body Win: Stress Management Plain & Simple.

Coping 101

Coping skills for distress are different for all of us. They seem to come naturally, but at one point and time, each coping skill was new and different. You found it effective, so you kept doing it until it became second nature to you. Stress reducers are healthy, but some of our coping skills come at a price that makes them unhealthy. The economics of coping are simple. Some skills work, but come at a price, such as drinking. It may help you forget your troubles, but can cost headaches, embarrassment, loss of productivity, irritation, or even organ damage. Screaming, taking a bath, or yelling are also solutions people use, but these are instant-gratification fixes; they work fast but don’t last long. Low-cost, high-yielding coping skills are things such as talking with a friend or exercising.

You may find not all coping skills work for you, or that they don’t work after time. If you’re reading this, sucking your thumb won’t make you feel better anymore. Also, not all coping habits are helpful in all situations. If you cope by sleeping, then it won’t help when you shut down in the middle of a crisis. It’s hard to let go of old, comforting skills; but you can change them if you want to. First, decide to do it! Then take it one step at a time and make your new skills as natural as cuddling a blankie was when you were a child.

  • What kind of skills would you like to try?
  • Do you have unhealthy coping skills?
  • What skills would you like to phase out?

Children can overcome abuse, deal with trauma

Victims of sexual assault struggle

In recent articles (http://stressforsuccess.blogspot.com) I’ve covered how vulnerable children are lured into sex-trafficking due to their desperation. S/he’s:
· Likely running away from an abusive home, therefore homeless;
· Alone and frightened;
· Just a kid.
A seemingly protective man, and sometimes a woman, offers to protect them. What would you do?

Beyond predatory traffickers/pimps who are preying on vulnerable kids, there’s a sad reality that makes them more vulnerable to this nightmare: early and repetitive childhood sexual trauma.

Sexual abuse harms victims’ mental, emotional, spiritual and physical development. The following description is adapted from “Childhood and Adult Sexual Victimization” by Parson, Brett and Brett.

A victim of repetitive childhood sexual abuse undergoes damage to her still-developing personality. The abuse shatters her very spirit, which is much more difficult to heal than mental and physical damage.

“Mind, body, and spirit” implies that spirit is part of the total self. Rather, spirit permeates all. It represents her essence. It holds the fabric of the self together. Spirit:
· Provides her with a healthy self-centeredness: a sense of her unique self;
· Is the natural belief that her self is her priceless, personal possession, worthy of protection and respect;

Sexual assaults devastate his spirit and self-respect. His natural social tendencies are haunted by constant vulnerability, resulting in blameless availability for adult abuse. The child goes from being spirit-filled and alive to essence-defused and empty. The degraded self may be drained of most traces of feeling human.

Contributing immeasurably to the child’s helplessness is the blaming the child for the incest while the adult denies responsibility. The abuse is committed on someone who is least able to protect himself from immoral adult power.

After repetitive abuse the child’s changed view of self is the essence of his stress. He’s robbed of his free will, spontaneity, and autonomy. His patterns of perceiving, trusting, and acting are drastically altered based on many secrets too terrible to face. He’s forced into secrecy with threats of exposure, abandonment, fear of repeated sexual injuries, and further humiliation. He’s constantly wary around adults.

He’s forced to grow up fast, learning how to survive. To survive he navigates his dangerous terrain through hyper-vigilance to adult mood and behavioral cues of impending abuse. He maneuvers around them. He de-activates the mines before they explode through good behavior and an appeasing manner to avert adult depravity. Running away becomes a viable option.

His spirit dims; her laughter is extinguished. Their environment is a place where no joy, hope, and love are allowed to flourish. There’s only emotional and spiritual darkness, helplessness, and buried rage to be resurrected at a later time, and unleashed suddenly on unsuspecting targets, including the self.

They live in a persistent state of stress-induced burnout due to near-constant paranoid expectations of attacks. Being chronically revved-up is akin to living in an internal police state.

What’s profoundly remarkable is that these children find a way to survive. Their strength and ingenuity are integral parts of trauma therapy, which can help. To find trauma therapists in our area go to http://www.mhaswfl.org/.

Jacquelyn Ferguson, M. S., is an international speaker and a Stress and Wellness Coach. Order her book, Let Your Body Win: Stress Management Plain & Simple, at https://wholeperson.com/x-selfhelp/selfhelp.html#Anchor-Let-11481.

Stress and Rhythm

We all have rhythms in our lives; yearly, monthly, weekly, daily, even hourly patterns we all experience on a regular basis. Have you noticed you wake up around the same time even when you don’t have to? This is your body’s natural rhythm at work. Things such as scheduled lunch breaks, alarm clocks, and weekly planners hamper your body’s natural rhythm, but we need these things in our society. Even so, you can stay in tune with your body’s rhythm. Some of us feel as though we’re lagging behind our lives and others feel as though they’re getting ahead of themselves. Think of a frantic CEO, who needs to be in ten places at once, or the procrastinating student who can’t seem to catch up before the exam. There are also instances where due to other circumstances, your rhythm is thrown completely away, like the new parents who suddenly find themselves low on sleep.      Speeding up, slowing down or tossing out our natural rhythms can cause tension, so we sometimes need to slow ourselves down, or kick it up a bit to match where our bodies want to be. In a situation like the new parents, we just have to learn to live with a strange rhythm for awhile.

Kairos is a Greek word that means “the right moment” – that special time when you are in harmony with your natural rhythm, in tune with the universe. Listen when your body is telling you now is kairos. It’s up to you to decide what for.

  • Is it time to slow down? Speed up?
  • Do you keep in step with your body?

Simplify your life by throwing out the clutter

Spend more time doing things you like

Simplicity is gaining in popularity as a response to our economic times. Even though it goes against our contemporary American brain to be satisfied with greater simplicity and less stuff it came very naturally to our grandparents. Maybe it’s time to return to our practical past by challenging stereotypical American assumptions like:
* Baby boomers’ belief that human worth is tied to how much we work;
* Some parents equating being a good parent with giving your children everything they want;
In other words, simplifying will be different for everyone. What would make your life easier?

Leo Babauta writing for Zenhabits suggests that simplifying means getting rid of much of what you do to spend more time with those you love, doing the things you enjoy. It means “getting rid of the clutter so you are left with only that which gives you value.”

Babauta suggests many ideas. The following is adapted from http://zenhabits.net/simple-living-manifesto-72-ideas-to-simplify-your-life:
* First, write out a clear description of what your simpler life looks like.
* Identify your well-considered priorities or simplifying won’t work for you. Make a list of the four to five most important things to you, what you most value, and what you most want to do in your life.
* Identify which commitments – from family, hobbies, work and volunteering – truly give you value and you deeply enjoy. Which are in the top four to five most important things you listed? Drop those that aren’t.
* Log your time investments from upon awakening until you go to bed. Do they support your top priorities? Eliminate those that don’t. Then redesign how you spend your waking hours.
* Simplify your work and home tasks. Instead of hacking your way through your to-do lists, identify what’s most important and do those first. Eliminate the rest, delegate them or pay someone to do them.
* Set appropriate limits! If you don’t know how, take an assertiveness class. If you set no limits you teach others that you’ll always say “yes” to their requests. And guess what. They’ll keep asking!
* Take control over your emails, cell phone, IM, Twitter, etc. They’ll take over your life if you’re not careful. Set limits like checking emails once in the morning and once in the afternoon. Or admit that these electronic connections are a top priority and more important than whatever else you’re falling behind on.
* Get rid of stuff. It feels good. Use the idea of a workshop participant: once a year she hangs all of her clothes backwards. When she wears something she hangs it back up frontwards. At the end of the year anything that remains hanging backwards gets donated. I love this simple idea!

Happiness and satisfaction are never from what you own. They come from your relationships, being satisfied with what you have, being what you want to be and living your values. Recommit to your simplicity annually to avoid slipping back onto the American hyper-treadmill once the economy recovers.

Jacquelyn Ferguson, M. S., is an international speaker and a Stress and Wellness Coach. Order her book, Let Your Body Win: Stress Management Plain & Simple.

Want to simplify your life? Listen to inner wisdom

If it’s true that our new economic reality is here for a while, what can we do to cope?

How about simplifying and living within your means to reduce financial stress now and to enable living more wisely in the future?

It’s fortunate that the best things in life are very simple – and free: love, motivating work, enjoying nature. Yet most of us are chained to making a certain income to support a cluttered lifestyle, the opposite of simplicity. At the other extreme are some younger people who are promoting a lifestyle where you only possess 100 things. If you have three pair of jeans that counts for three! That’s too stark for me but the sentiment is appreciated.

A good place to start figuring out where you could simplify is to listen to your inner wisdom. But do you listen and act on its authentic advice? To hear it you must slow down. You could:
* Begin your morning routine more slowly. Get up a few minutes earlier, brush your teeth more slowly, eat slowly, and drive more slowly.
* Daily connect with nature with a conscious walk; not just a mechanical one, but one where you focus on the birds, the squirrels and the emerging morning light. At minimum before getting into your car deep breathe the fresh air and appreciate our gorgeous, emerging fall weather.
* Surround yourself with beauty. I don’t mean buy stuff that becomes clutter but rather make your surroundings more attractive with flowers, photos, meaningful mementos, candles and fresh air.
* Seek and enjoy silence daily, the opposite of the cacophony of daily noises: the alarming alarm that shocks you awake, the offensive hair dryer, the endless drone of depressing TV news, the ubiquitous office clamor. All day we’re surrounded by so much noise that it becomes part of the backdrop of life — until it totally stops — leaving the sweet sound of silence.

Don’t underestimate the stress of this incessant noise. To hear your inner voice above it you must regularly stop the noise and create silence for yourself through deep relaxation, sitting in silence with no TV or music, sitting comfortably in nature listening to its peaceful and natural sounds.

With practice, you’ll slow down allowing your intuition to surface. Keep a journal nearby to record your thoughts. You don’t need to act on any ideas but at least get them onto paper and into your conscious mind.

To attract your intuition to surface ask and answer questions:
§ What energizes/drains me the most? Why?
§ What part of my life is/isn’t working? Why?
§ What could I do to make life easier?

Be patient. It may take awhile for your answers to surface.

Americans have bought tons of stuff and discovered it doesn’t make us happier. In fact, the more stuff you have the more you want. Simplifying your life clears out the clutter so the clarity of what you really need shines through.

-Jacquelyn Ferguson, M. S., is an international speaker and a Stress and Wellness Coach. Order her book, Let Your Body Win: Stress Management Plain & Simple.

Stages of Grief

You grieve mentally, physically and spiritually. Many of us experience a similar cycle when grieving — they are common steps we use to help heal. Some people skip steps.

1. Denial When the pain is too great, we temporarily shut down. You feel so numb you act as though nothing happened.
2. Eruption Your emotions suddenly break out —it seems to hit at once.
3. Anger You’ll get angry angry: it’s unfair, someone should have changed things, you don’t understand why. You may even be angry at who you’ve lost for deserting you.
4. Illness Illness and stress go hand in hand. Don’t be surprised if you’re sick.
5. Panic You worry you’ll never get over the loss, that you’ve lost yourself.  You wonder if what you’re going through is normal.
6. Guilt We try to find something to blame.  If there is no one to blame, we blame ourselves.  Feeling as though it’s your fault seems more bearable than there being no reason at all.
7. Loneliness You find yourself avoiding others, feeling as though they can’t understand. You withdraw from friends and family.
8. Re-Entry You want to move on, but can’t yet. You feel loyalty to the memory of who you lost, and worry moving on would be abandoning them.
9. Hope You don’t know when, but one day, you notice you’re doing better. You feel like a fog has lifted. You begin to think you’ll be ok again someday.
10. Reality You reconstruct your life, using the new strengths you’ve gained from grieving.

Grief: A Natural Stress

The greatest distress most of us ever have to survive is the death of a loved one. Grief is the process we go through when we are recovering from a loss. It can be a major or minor, and the amount of grief experienced by each person will vary. Some losses are simply more painful than others.

If you are going through the grieving process, allow it to happen. You need time to recover from the injury. If you were suffering from an illness, you would give yourself some time off. Death isn’t any different. Take your time; find other things in life to focus on, to spend your love and energy on. This is not to say you will ever, ever replace the person you lost. You will learn to accept your new normal. There is no replacing a loved one — people aren’t things. You need an outlet for your stress energy. Let yourself lean on friends and family; join a support group if you need to. Don’t be afraid to reach out during this difficult time.

You will never get over your loss. You will always love and miss the person who is gone, but you can and must accept their passing and move on. You are forever changed, but you continue on with a new strength and purpose, becoming a stronger person who experiences life on a deeper level.

*Click here for Grief Resources from Whole Person.

Grief Work

One Stage at a Time

There are many ways to handle the stresses caused by life stages.  An important one is not to take yourself too seriously. Laugh at the little things in life, and remember that all stages in life – the terror of being out on your own for the first time in your twenties, the confusion of processing death at 70 – will pass with time. Be patient; it’s all just a stage! Keep in mind as you age that coping skills won’t always work the same way.

Aging helps you develop a fuller, deeper perception if you let it. Keep in touch with friends both older and younger than you. It’s amazing to see someone go through the same stages you did, and it’s helpful to see someone go through those that are approaching.  Watching others helps you see first hand the benefits of accepting aging as a part of life. Continue forward instead of looking back. Some people live in the past and others can’t seem to stop worrying about the future. What we should all try to do is cultivate today’s joys, because they become the future. Today’s joys also become tomorrow’s cherished memories. Be patient, have a sense of humor, and accept life in all of its stages. Things will be a lot less stressful.

Stages of Life and Stress

Here are some of the stresses and joys of each life stage.

Breaking Loose Leaving home, focusing on/conforming to peers, testing our wings, loneliness, attachment to causes, changing lifestyle, throwing out family morals.
Building the nest Searching for identity, intimate friendships, marriage, intoxication with ones own power, great dreams, making commitments, taking on responsibilities, launching a career, working towards goals, doing shoulds, finding a mentor, thinking about having children.
Looking around Raising questions, recognizing painful limitations, gathering possessions, moving up a career ladder, questioning marriage, settling down, having children, desiring freedom, what do I want to do with my life?
Mid-Life rebirth Awareness of mortality, diminishing physical energy, emotional turmoil, parenting teenagers, finding new friends and developing deeper relationships with current ones, asking deep questions, changing careers, second adolescence, divorce, remarriage, conflicting pressures, learning to play again.
Investing in life Life reordered, settling down again, embracing new values, focusing on relationships rather than on possessions or power, nurturing a few good friendships, grandparenting, having more freedom, enjoying life, adjusting to an empty nest, facing lost dreams.
Deepening wisdom Softening and mellowing, steady commitments, deepening richness, simplifying life, adjusting to limitations, loss of energy, retirement, quiet joys, self-knowledge, and facing death.
Twilight years Loneliness, freedom from shoulds, dependence, mind sharp/body failing and/or body fine/mind failing, death of mate and friends, preparing for death, achieving a sense of peace and perspective.
  • Where are you now?
  • How are you experiencing changes physically?
  • Are you holding on to some things that may be best left behind?
  • Are you stretching yourself too far forward?

*Find out more about our Stress Management and Wellness Promotion Resources and Self-Care Products.

Growing Older is Stressful!

How many times have you heard a child say they can’t wait to grow up? Did you chuckle to yourself? Why is it that as a kid, you want to grow up and as an adult, you want to go back? It is because growing older can be stressful.  The stresses of going through the aging process are numerous. Some people turn a blind eye to getting older, but they’re only fooling themselves. Aging happens whether you’re paying attention to it or not. However, if you are aware of the ways that you’re aging, you can prevent a lot of distress. If you accept that the years are passing, you can view that first grey hair with a laugh, and think of it as a physical sign of your growing wisdom. If you don’t accept that you’re aging, you’ll probably panic and just pull it out. (Be warned, however, that it’ll just grow back!)

  • Do you feel as though you’ve acknowledged that you will age?
  • Are you putting off coming to grips with reality, or are you accepting the passing years gracefully?

Kicking Your Stress Habits

Life Changes and Stress

Internal or external change is unavoidable. If too much happens too fast, you’ll end up feeling stressed. If things change too slowly, you’re bored.  Both positive and negative changes are stressful and your mind and body need time to recover. Increased stress is medically linked to illness, so take it easy. It’s no simple task to do so, since life changes come in clusters. Think about it. When you’re moving, you’re not just changing your house; you’re changing your physical climate, job, friends, church, schools, grocery store, and social activities. Some changes are easier to handle than others, but trying to prevent change altogether is asking for trouble. We all need change in our lives.

If things are too static, try saying yes to something you haven’t done before.  If things are changing too fast, say no, and don’t let yourself feel guilty! We all need time off, and you can’t please everyone.

Sometimes, life will spin out of control. At crisis moments, you need a survival plan.  Remember coping skills that have worked in the past, and apply them to your current disaster. Hold on to what works.  Let go of what doesn’t.

Life Changes Checklist

Mark all of the life changes that you have experienced over the past year.
PERSONAL CHANGES

  • Personal injury, illness or handicap
  • Pregnancy (yours or a partners’)
  • Change in religious views or beliefs
  • Change in financial status
  • Change in self-concept
  • Ending a relationship
  • Change in emotional outlook
  • Change in roles
  • Buying or selling a car
  • Aging
  • Change in habits

-Alcohol

– Drugs

– Tobacco

– Exercise

– Nutrition

FAMILY CHANGES

  • Marriage
  • Family members leaving home
  • New family member(s)
  • Separation/divorce
  • Trouble with in-laws
  • Partner stopping/ starting a job
  • Illness/healing of a family member
  • Death of a close friend or family member
  • Parent/child tensions
  • Change in recreational patterns

WORK CHANGES

  • Changes work load
  • Change in play
  • Starting a new job
  • Promotion/ demotion
  • Retirement
  • Change in hours
  • Change in relationships at work
  • Change in job security
  • Strike
  • Change in financial status

ENVIRONMENT CHANGES

  • Natural disaster
  • Holidays
  • Vacation
  • Remodeling
  • War
  • Major house cleaning
  • Crime against property
  • Moving to a new
  • House or Apartment
  • Neighborhood
  • Climate
  • Culture
  • City
  • State
  • Country

  • How did these changes affect you?
  • What was one change that had a surprising effect on you?

· What was one change that had a surprising effect on you?

Commitment versus Surrender

Commitment is your belief system in action. It is the decision to invest in particular goals, values, beliefs, and concepts. It seems as though there are a million things you want to do with your life, and even more you have to do. These want-to’s and have-to’s in life create stress if you don’t make good decisions about which is which. You’ll feel stressed if you only pay attention to either one.  Maybe you try too hard to do it all. If you find yourself saying there isn’t enough time, then you’ve got too much on your plate. It can make you feel panicked, rushed, and overwhelmed. On the other hand, having too little on your plate leaves you feeling unchallenged, bored, and depressed.

If you’ve taken on too much, you need to surrender something. We don’t like to surrender. We hate feeling  we had to give in or that we lost, but surrendering isn’t failing or losing. It’s the flip side of commitment, not the opposite of winning. It’s adjusting, and it can be as simple as changing your pace or realizing when a commitment is unrealistic.

  • Are you trying too hard to include all the want-to’s and  have-to’s  in your limited time?
  • Is there anything you want to surrender?  Need to surrender?

Understanding Self-Concept

Kicking Your Stress HabitsAnother part of your belief system is your self-concept. These are subjective ideas that are stuck in your head about yourself. Self-concept includes ideas about your limitations, abilities, appearance, emotional resources, your place in the world, potential, and even your worthiness. These alter your everyday choices and model the way you think. As an example, you may think you’re a lousy public speaker, but it turns out you’re really great. You, however, believe you’re no good at addressing a group, so you turn down an opportunity to speak at a conference even though it could do wonders for your career. You doubt your own ability so you opt out, and limit your potential.

Self-concept begins in childhood and is reinforced throughout your life based on your experiences. Perceptions about your own worth are very slow to change, even with a lot of positive reinforcement. When your self-concept isn’t in sync with reality you will feel distress. Others will have expectations and beliefs about you with which you are uncomfortable. You will constantly feel  as though you’re not prepared for situations like the conference. How stressed would you be if you had to give a speech anyway and you had no trust in your abilities?

  • Do you often feel as though you’re out of place?
  • Have you begun to realize some of your perceptions don’t match reality?

Faith, Stress, and You

Kicking Your Holiday Stress HabitsFaith isn’t necessarily religious. Many people have faith in God, but people also have faith in the Golden Rule, in Karma, in our spouses, in our grandma’s favorite phrase, or in the idea that family comes first.  All of these are examples of faith and beliefs. These directly influence how you act. For example, If you genuinely believe that all are forgiven, you will forgive people more easily and sincerely.

Faith can be a great cause of distress for many people, especially when people have outdated or irrational beliefs. An outdated belief might be something such as continuing to believe you must not talk to strangers because you were taught not to do so as a child. An irrational belief is something such as  “If everyone tries hard, they can do everything perfectly”.  That kind of faith in people creates a lot of distress when someone somewhere messes up.  Faith takes many forms, and while it can be a great comfort and a huge factor in our lives, it can also cause extra distress.

  • What do you have faith in?
  • What kind of beliefs do you hold close?
  • Does your faith ever cause problems for you in your everyday life?