(by Susan Smith Johns, PhD)

If you often feel like the demands of your everyday lifestyle exceed your ability to handle them, you’re absolutely not alone, as I pointed out in many places in the pages of my new book The Joy Factor: 10 Sacred Practices for Radiant Health.

The state of feeling “stressed out” and “over-committed” is a developing difficulty among hundreds of thousands of Americans…

Time magazine may have identified stress as the “Epidemic of the Eighties,” but that was far prior to the Net and social media considerably sped up the activity of most people’s lives, and the extended wars and global economic troubles at the turn of the 21st century piled on further woes.

Today, over one million people in America are absentees on any given workday owing to stress and stress-related illnesses and 79%-90% of all visits to primary health-care professionals in The USA are due to stress-related illnesses or complaints.

As I have stated in my new booklet/CD combo, Natural Stress Solutions, a convenient pocket guide to natural stress relief, in mankind’s prehistoric days roaming the plains and living in caves, the stress response was actually a a good thing…

Our built-in “fight or flight” instinct offered our bodies with the energy necessary to avert hazard or procure scarce food and other essentials. However that form of high-intensity, short-term stress was useful for our survival, our bodies were not intended to stand up to the variety of continual, long-term stress which is so common today.

The same release of human hormones launched for the duration of a physically stressful situation (such as fleeing away from a lion) is additionally launched when we undergo a emotional stressor such as conflict in marriage, unreasonable work demands, and financial worries.

The distinction is that we typically don’t react to these sorts of chronic stressors with vigorous physical activity (e.g. fighting or running away), and they do not possess a clear end point. Thus, our bodies may be ceaselessly exposed to stress hormones, particularly cortisol, and over time, this can add up to serious health problems.

How does persistent stress affect our lives? Keep reading…

The Effects of Chronic Stress

Continual stress has an effect on every single aspect of our physical and mental well-being. Research studies have shown that being under extended stress can lead toweight gain, exhaustion, fluctuations in blood sugar, bone loss, a reduced immune response, and anxiety/ depression symptoms.

Possessing steadily raised ranges of the stress hormone cortisol has been connected to the advancement of inflammatory diseases, insulin resistance, diabetes, excessive weight gain, and heart disease.

It’s clear that due to the challenges of lifestyle in the twenty first century, we’re not likely to see a decrease in Americans’ total stress load anytime soon. And of course, there’s no magic “pill” which one can swallow to fully eliminate stress and protect his or her body from its damaging results.

In fact, “self-medicating” with substances like tobacco and alcohol, though supplying short-term feelings of relaxation, can worsen negative health outcomes.

Stress Management

Health professionals generally recommend patients to discover approaches to lessen stressors in their lives and apply stress-management methods.

In my booklet Stress Solutions: Discover Nature’s Secret to Inner Calm, Restful Sleep & Newfound Energy, I assess some of the most effective stress-reducing strategies, such as eating a nutritious diet, receiving enough rest, working out regularly, and incorporating relaxation routines for example, meditation and yoga.

However, the irony of recommending stress-management methods is that quite a few of individuals who endure most from chronic stress don’t have the time or wherewithal to apply them…

If you are stressed to your breaking point, you may ask, how could you ever have time to incorporate yoga or additional hours of rest into your everyday way of life?

Natural Relief from Stress

That’s where herbs appear in. The aim of any stress-reducing plan is to diminish the body’s exposure to constantly high quantities of the stress hormone Cortisol.

Though that can be attained through way of life adjustments, it can also be hastened by music, foods, natural herbs, spices, drinking water and a wide variety of other adjustments that I specify in my new publications The Joy Factor and Walking on Air, in my Natural Remedy booklets, and additionally in my popular-around-the-globe, complete compendium package deal Renew Your Life.

The cornucopia of stress-busting suggestions discussed in all of these titles can assist you to maintain cortisol ranges in an optimal range, even when a individual is experiencing stress. That can appreciably help mitigate the adverse health impacts of stressors in our lives that we simply cannot set aside.

Best of all, when you change to nature’s medication chest and simplify your life, you can find relief naturally and with no dangerous side effects associated with recreational drugs and many prescription drugs.

(by Barrie St John of HypnoShop.com)

We all know that positive thinking and being optimistic about life is better for us than being a bad tempered misery guts; it’s better for our health, and optimists generally have a happier time of it… but saying and doing are very different things, aren’t they?!

It’s not as though just sitting there saying, “Oh, everything will be fine!” is enough to actually change the thoughts in your head which are probably closer to, “What if I fail? What if it all goes wrong? What if he thinks I’m boring? What if she doesn’t like me? What if something awful happens?”

And you’ve probably already come across the idea of positive affirmations…

They may well have their place in an attempt to think positively. But can just telling yourself in the mirror each morning, “I am a confident, positive person” really change anything all by itself? In reality, no.

It’s true that positive affirmations like this can be helpful as part of an overall strategy, and whether or not we really believe them, simply hearing them often enough can begin to shift the focus of how we feel and think, but there are definitely more efficient ways to create a positive and productive outlook on life, and hypnosis is one of the most effective ones.

So how can hypnosis help to create and maintain a positive mental attitude?

By counteracting the things that create and maintain negative, pessimistic attitudes!

The biggest contributor to a negative attitude is negative self-talk. We often spend so much time and energy doing ourselves down, criticising and complaining, that there’s no room left for positive thoughts!

If you imagine the thoughts that busily rampage through your mind most of the time… aren’t many of them to do with how stupid you are, what a mess you always make of things, how awful the world is, how things never work out right, how difficult it is going to be to solve the problems you’re dealing with…

So one of the fundamental things that hypnosis can do is to slow down our thoughts, clear our minds and give them some quiet breathing space. Then hypnosis can proceed to fill that space with calm, relaxing, positive images and thoughts.

One of the core aspects of almost all hypnosis sessions or recordings is the development of calmness, relaxation and confidence…

Think about it – if you feel calm, relaxed and confident, how can you possibly feel negative, anxious or worried at the same time?

Even the simplest of hypnosis sessions will help to engender this feeling of calmness, relaxation and confidence. Programming yourself in this way at the beginning of each day or last thing before sleep will help you maintain a calm, confident and unruffled approach towards whatever life might throw at you…

Somehow things that would normally bother you just don’t bother you as much as they have before. Things that have worried you just don’t worry you as much as before. People don’t annoy or upset you as much as before. And the more this happens, the easier it is to be positive and relaxed about life in general.

If there are particular aspects of life, or specific events which cause you deep anxiety, a hypnosis session can be tailored to also focus on this particular thing, giving you tools and techniques that you can immediately tap into when you need them.

But you might be amazed at how the regular use of a simple calmness, relaxation and confidence session or recording can change how you function on a day to day basis.

At worst, you’ll experience a deep level of relaxation and tranquillity during the session that hasn’t been present in your life before.

At best, your whole attitude to life will improve and you’ll find yourself coping with the problems life throws at you in a calm, confident and positive way.

So what’s to lose? Why not give it a try, and discover the positive mental attitude that therapeutic hypnosis can bring to your life?

So if you’re stuck in negative patterns, if you keep trying to change, but don’t seem to be able to, you might want to let hypnosis be the catalyst for you too.

I’ve just finished reading and commenting on article at the Abundance Tapestry blog, where you’ll find 10 tips on:

How to be Positive All the Time »

If you ask me, the most important skill you should develop (mentioned in the article) in order to stay positive almost all the time is the skill of awareness…

When you’re constantly aware of your thoughts, emotions and actions you can be in control. You can change your perspective on things and you can constantly improve your thought patterns, your habits and what Tony Robbins calls your “Emotional Fitness”.

In my comment on the article I mention a technique I learned from one of Tony Robbin’s seminar recordings (that I’ve listened to several times). He calls it “turning frustration into fascination”. I use it a lot.

At first it feels a bit unnatural, but once you get the hang of it, you can automatically see obstacles, problems and failures in a sense of intense curiosity, like…

“wow, isn’t it interesting how it didn’t work… I wonder why this happened…”

instead of:

“damn, why isn’t it working for me?!”

I suggest that you try it a few times (and tell me how it worked for you…)

(by Tony Mase of The Personal Power Course »)

With kids, work, commuting, email, cell phones, and all of our other responsibilities, it seems like the world keeps getting faster and more complex. Sure, a lot of the new conveniences are great, but they can also leave you wanting to slow down and make things simpler.

If you feel like your life has turned into a rollercoaster you have no control over, there are ways to simplify things.

If you’re looking for a way to calm down and relieve the stress, start by following these 3 tips:

1. Choose quality over quantity.

When’s the last time you looked in your closet, basement, or garage? Chances are, it’s full of stuff! There are plenty of things we accumulate over the years – things we think will make our lives easier, happier, or more exciting.

However, most of that stuff winds up collecting dust. Then, instead of feeling happy from your purchases, you’ve just created another chore for yourself – cleaning out the garage. It’s certainly not a way to relax!

Organize your home and get rid of all the stuff you don’t want or need. You’ll immediately feel better, because a cluttered home can make your entire life feel cluttered. As the space around you starts to get neat and tidy, your attitude will soon follow.

And, if you really want to feel better, donate all of that unwanted stuff to charity – and give it to people who really need it!

2. Learn to say no.

It’s a tiny word, but a tough one to say! If you have a huge project at work and the PTA wants to you to be in charge of the 3rd grade bake sale, politely decline. By trying to fit too much onto your plate, you’ll make yourself feel stressed and anxious.

If you absolutely don’t have time for something, don’t heap it onto your pile of responsibilities. You’ll either wind up draining yourself trying to get everything done or you’ll feel like a failure when you can’t do it all.

3. Devote a little bit of time each day to silence.

Whether it’s actual noise – like the kids playing in the living room – or figurative noise – like all of those nagging thoughts racing through your head – you’ll never be able to simplify your life without spending time in silence.

Take a nice bath, go for a long walk, or read a few chapters of a great book. No matter how you shut off the noise around you, it doesn’t have to take long – and it can work wonders.
Devoting a little bit of your day to silence is a great way to feel relaxed and peaceful.

No matter how you decide to do it, simplifying your life means actively slowing things down! It may take work at first, but soon, it’ll feel like second-nature.

(image source)

That’s the promising title of an article by Arina Nikitina with a great list of 15 tips to help you - Create a New Habit and Make it Stick »

I would like to add just two things:

1. Treat yourself nicely – start the process with a positive attitude and keep it up the whole time. Don’t berate yourself. If you fail, simply start over.

2. Have a mantra – a short, catchy sentence that you repeat in your mind several times throughout the day. It can be something like: “I feel absolutely wonderful now that I’m having a healthy, nutritious breakfast every morning.” (But say it with emotion – close your eyes, take a deep breath and FEEL it.)

Is there anything you’d like to add? Go ahead and post your comment below…