How to Live With and Handle Stress

Are you enjoying life or not enjoying life because of the stressful enemy called stress? To begin with, stress is a reactive element of the mind. We must learn how to deal with it in order to acquire peace and happiness. It is like a battery with a negative charge and the positive charge is also attained from it for the mind and body to function. What we are thinking is actually creating the way we feel in our body right now, and it's also creating our experiences of tomorrow and how we made it to be that way. If we are stressing out over every little thing or object and always fighting fire with fire, then we will never find inner peace in ourselves. it can even destroy one's life and even develop or trigger anxiety attacks.

Stress is talked about a lot these days, especially due to difficult times of today where people are suffering from many problems. These problems can be in relationships, unemployment, debt or other difficulties which lead to stress. Everybody seems to be stressed out by something and have their individual problems to deal with. Stress seems to be a buzzword, and we use it to the point where we think it is simpler to blame on something else to make things simpler for us: "I'm so stressed," or "This is so stressful," or "All this stress, stress and stress.", or else you'd be pulling your hair out.

To my knowledge and experience, I think that stress is a fearful reaction to life's constant changes. It's an excuse we often use for not taking responsibility for our feelings. If we can put the blame out there on someone or something, then we can just play the innocent victim and believe that everything is just fine and normal. Being the victim does not make us feel good as a matter of fact, and it does not change the situation at all, trust me it doesn't.

Often we are stressing ourselves out because we have our priorities all muddled up. So many of us feel that money is the most vital and essential commodity in our lives. Some of us think that money is the answer to our problems and will make us happy. This is basically and simply not true at all. There's something far more important and precious to us - without which we couldn't live. What is that you may wonder? It's our breath and the air we breathe in to keep us alive.

Our breath is the most precious substance in our lives, and yet we totally take it for granted that when we exhale, our next breath will be there. If we didn't take another breath, we wouldn't last three minutes or less. Now if the Power that created us has given us enough breath to last as long as we shall live, can't we have faith that everything else we need will also be supplied?

When we trust 'Life' to take care of all our little problems, then stress just dissolves away.

You don't have time to waste on negative thinking or feelings of emotion, because that only creates more of what you say you don't want. If you're doing some positive affirmations and you're not getting the results you want, then check to see how often during the day you allow yourself to feel bad or upset. These emotions are probably just the thing that's frustrating you, delaying the manifestation of your affirmations, and preventing the flow of your good.

The next time you realize how stressed you are, ask yourself what's scaring and bothering you. Stress is just fear, it's that simple. You don't need to be afraid of life or your own emotions and feelings. Find out what you are doing to yourself that's creating this fear within you. Your inner objective is joy, bliss and peace. Harmony is also being at peace with yourself. It's not possible to have stress and inner harmony at the same time. When you're at peace, you do one thing at a time. You don't let things get to you.

So when you feel stressed, do something to release the fear: breathe deeply or go for a brisk and pleasureful walk. When you are inhaling say ' I am breathing in health' and when exhaling say 'I am breathing out disease'.

You want to move through life feeling assured and safe. Don't give a puny word like "stress" a lot of attention, power and advantage. Don't use it as an excuse for creating tension in your mind and body. Nothing - no person, place, or thing - has any power over you. You're the only thinker in your mind, and your thoughts are the ones that create your life. So try practicing yourself to think thoughts that make you feel good and well. That way you will always be creating your life out of joy and in joy. Joy always brings more to be joyous about.

Stress can sometimes become overburdening no matter how hard you try to alleviate it. Look at the world today, it is evident that the strain of living and the speed at which it is necessary to think, work, eat and act becomes almost impossible to live a stress-free lifestyle. However, some type of compensation could be used if the tension and strain is not to become an obstacle to you.

Try the following technique below. It may not work completely and satisfactorily but at least it may have some effect for the individual. It may require some effort and practice to obtain good results and hopefully it may be noticed in a matter of weeks. You never know it may eliminate the present stress.

1. To acquire total relaxation, try setting aside a certain period of time each day. This can be between 15-20 minutes each day on a regular basis. Relaxation is the best natural tonic for the nerves and for the whole body. When an engine of a vehicle overheats, it needs time to cool down or else the engine will get damaged and wreck other parts required to run the engine. It's the same principal with the human nerves and body, it needs time to cool off from the hectic chores and labor of the day.
2. Grab your most comfortable chair and sit down and allow every muscle and sinew to loosen fully. Make sure there's no gripping or trying to hold yourself stiff, you must slacken yourself totally. Feel each muscle loosen and do regular breathing deeply and slowly and feel the peace. The idea of relaxation should be allowed to enter your mind without any other thoughts entering. Once the muscles and sinews are totally loose and at rest, and each artery and vein also, you should feel the peace flowing in like a soothing, cool and soft stream of water. Imagine each aching and stressful muscle is bathing, running in soft, cool small series of waves over each tensed and fiery nerve.
3. Imagine the smooth, soft fluid flowing in at the furthest point of your body, going in at your toes, going back up at your thighs, in at the tips of your fingers as if you were breathing in them, up the palms of your hands, round the wrists, up your forearms, round the elbows and shoulders and then into your lungs. This peaceful thought of imagination should be done in a drowsy, lazy and peaceful manner. You should think that nothing else in the world matters but only peace and calm for you.
4. Referring to step 3, if you wish to have a mental picture in your mind, you may do so. One great example would be to think of a calm sea on a cool summer night. The moon is high and bright and sheds a soft light on the peaceful waters of the sea. Try feeling the calm and quiet breezes blowing your cheek and everything is spread through with the scent of cool earth and the trees. That feeling of peace should feel delicious. Just like in a bath of water, the peaceful thoughts should run through your mind.

This exercise only requires 15-20 minutes so it's best to find that time at some particular point of the day. It truly is a wonderful tonic after a hectic day or when in a stressful situation. Stress can also make you lazy or make you procrastinate in order to dissuade you from trying out this technique. That little devil we all possess in our minds can be the most cunning chap and will try anything to dissuade you by giving you negative reasons to argue over the positive. The little chap inside you may say to you that this exercise is futile and a lot of rubbish, just ignore it and move on because you'll be wasting your time on it. The little devil is probably saying that to you right now as you read this hub. Whatever it is, the choice is yours on how you want to live and deal with stress.