How to Cope With Stress for a Happier Life

It’s important to learn how to cope with the stress in your life. Researchers have linked it to dozens of medical conditions. Learning to handle stress in a positive  way can change your life for the better. Instead of being overwhelmed and unhappy – you can be centered and content.

When it comes to stress, you’re far from powerless—there are a number of positive habits and behaviors you can use to effectively manage your mental state and bring your stress under control.
The first thing to remember is that your mental state is your responsibility.

The simple truth is you can’t control how your boss acts. You can’t control what your partner says. You can’t control the driver who cuts you off in traffic. But you can control yourself.

Others will do what they do, but how you respond to them—whether you take it in stride or freak out—is your decision alone.

Take a moment to consider how you have been responding to the stressors in your life. Almost everyone has some habit they turn to when life gets rough—what’s yours?

Do you reach for a cigarette or alcoholic beverage? Do you take your stress out on others? Do you overeat? Though they might provide short term relief, these behaviors are ultimately self-destructive. They hold you back from what you really want—a peaceful, balanced and abundantly healthy mind and body.

Learning to Relax

So what can you do? Next time you notice yourself feeling like the sky is about to fall, quickly and effectively bring your thoughts into positive alignment with one of the following simple techniques:

* Deep breathing. When you become stressed, take a moment and pay close attention to your breathing. Shallow breathing leads to greater stress and more negative physical responses. So breathe deeply instead. Let your stomach expand and contract as you breathe in and out.

This is called diaphragmatic breathing. Count the seconds as you breathe in—one, two, three, four. Hold for another four seconds. Then exhale slowly, for eight whole seconds. Keep doing this until you relax.

* Mental imagery. If you observe your thoughts during stressful situations, you may be surprised by how negative they are. These thoughts create a kind of feedback loop that only reinforces your negative emotions and causes you to feel even more stressed. One way to break this pattern of negative thinking is with positive mental imagery.

Visualize the calmest, happiest and most comfortable setting you can imagine, and mentally place yourself right into the middle of it. It might be a warm sunny beach with a calm breeze, or a peaceful afternoon in your coziest chair. Whatever it is, picture it as vividly as you can.

Make it real. Involve all your senses—what do you see, smell, taste, hear, feel? Smile inside, and become involved in the scene as it unfolds.

* Muscle relaxation. It might sound counterintuitive, but to relax, sometimes you have to tense up! But only for a moment—tense and relax different parts of your body beginning and the top of your head and continuing down. Include your eyes, neck, jaw, shoulders, legs, feet and any other part of your body that feels tight. Tense up, then let go, and feel the tension flow out of you as you relax.

* Biofeedback. With biofeedback, you learn to control your mood through careful attention to your mental and physical state. The training is simple and inexpensive and can even be done at home using easy-to-use feedback equipment. If you want to, you can also schedule an appointment with a trained biofeedback practitioner who will walk you through techniques used to reduce and eliminate the negative effects of stress on the body.

The great thing about these techniques is that with practice they become almost effortless and so easy that you can use them in anywhere. When things get crazy and your life is most stressful, you might not be able to find a comfortable, quiet place to unwind, but you can still use these relaxation techniques to manage your emotions and reclaim control of your mental state.

Making this kind of real positive change is never easy, but it can save your life. Your health depends directly on how you manage your stress. So take a deep breath, and start helping yourself let it go.

How to Understand Anxiety and Depression

Anxiety and depression are often the result of over exertion. In our busy world, we’ve become accustomed to balancing many activities and projects at once. Long hours, and lack of sleep contribute to our frenzied lifestyles and the natural result is mental overload.

The sheer magnitude of it all makes it difficult to find the time or the mindset to relax. When we do slow down, we find ourselves filling that time with television or the internet rather than a quiet afternoon walk or settling in on the couch with a good book.

This mental confusion that dominates our lives can have a serious negative effect on the mental well-being of some people. We’re all wired differently, and what seems unbearable to one person might seem perfectly acceptable to another.

Those who are particularly sensitive have difficulty sorting out their emotions, and anxiety and depression can result from their inability to process everything that’s happening in their lives.

What we sometimes refer to as a nervous breakdown, is the expression of this inability to cope.

Stress and anxiety can be heightened by diet and lack of exercise. Coffee, energy drinks and sugar can sometimes trigger responses in people that are out of the normal range.

For those who often feel anxious and overwhelmed, simple planning and attention to these triggers can make all the difference in the world. There may be times when nothing seems to calm the mind and outside help is needed.

Thankfully, there are answers and remedies for these feelings of helplessness. Although anxiety and depression cause a variety of responses in people, these responses are well documented. The alarming thoughts and behaviors experienced by some people can often be relieved by these therapies.

Depression can be expressed in a number of clinically documented ways:

Sometimes a change of season can have a debilitating effect on a person’s general wellbeing. Seasonal Affective Disorders occur most often in the fall and winter when there is less sunlight and people tend to stay inside more often. People who suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder also experience mood swings from anger to sadness to elation within a short period of time.

Postpartum depression experienced by women after childbirth causes a new mother to feel fear and apprehension at the great responsibility of caring for a newborn child. Often characterized by sadness, it is difficult for a woman to rise above her feelings of inadequacy to experience the great joy of her new baby.

Manic or Bipolar depression can cause drastic mood swings often teetering between extreme euphoria or feelings of elation and unbearable depression and helplessness.

Disthymia, though less severe than some types of depression is a chronic condition that effects the quality of life for those who suffer from it.

Cyclothemia, a condition similar but less severe than Manic or Bipolar depression can also cause drastic variations in a personÌs mood. Though experienced by both men and women, women tend to report a greater incidence of the disorder.

Certain forms of anxiety can be helpful at times by alerting our minds to action, and preparing us for stressful situations. Anxiety Depression does not fall into this category. General Anxiety Disorder is a form of anxiety depression that causes the sufferer to experience paranoia, inability to concentrate and erratic behavior.

Many disorders caused by or resulting in anxiety and depression can be treated with great success. Biofeedback, counseling and a variety of other therapies can be used to treat these conditions. For those who suffer chronic depression, diagnosis and treatment by a professional can bring relief and healing to those with little hope.

Related articles about Anxiety and Depression

• Build an LED Lamp That Simulates Sunrises and Sunsets [DIY] (lifehacker.com)
• Symptoms of Depression (fitnesstipsforlife.com)
• What is a Nervous Breakdown? (psychcentral.com)

What is Anxiety?

Everyone you know seems to always say the same thing these days: I’m so stressed out. Life today is filled with pressure. Most of us are not prepared to deal with the stress and anxiety that our modern pressures of life generate.

As anyone who’s ever experienced anxiety will tell you it’s a miserable way to live. And not only is it a miserable way to live – but it can literally kill you. Anxiety and stress are the leading contributing factors in a multitude of diseases. Learning to deal with anxiety and stress is critical to your health.

In men, alcohol and drug abuse is the leading disorder and this is clearly related to anxiety and stress. The number one mental illness in America is anxiety disorder. Women are almost twice as likely as men to report suffering from anxiety and extreme stress. The most likely explanation for this is that men suffer in silence more often than women do.

Anxiety disorders are even more prevalent than depression. Anxiety disorders are a major health issue for senior citizens, and this problem will only increase as the American population ages. The cost to the United States for anxiety disorders is nearly 47 billion dollars per year.

Anxiety and stress are always experienced together. Stress in one form or another is the main cause of anxiety. Stress and anxiety account for most visits to primary care physicians. It is an underlying cause or major contributing factor to most diseases and chronic illnesses.

Learning to cope with stress before it becomes an incapacitating anxiety disorder is critical. No one should have to live a life of misery due to anxiety disorders. With the many tools and techniques available to help eliminate stress and to treat anxiety there is much hope in finding lasting relief from anxiety disorders.