By Bailey Frumen
Being stressed has become a way of life for many people. In fact, at times it seems that being busy is a badge of honor. The busier you are, the more important you must be.
But in a culture where “busy” is the norm, have we stopped to wonder how stress impacts us in the long term?
According to a 2010 study cited by the Mayo Clinic, stress impacts your physical and mental well-being in many ways, including:
When you are constantly stressed out, you don’t think about the long-term impact your stress has on the way you are feeling or even how it affects your body. Instead, you find yourself in a fight-or-flight mode, with increased adrenaline and cortisol surging through your body. The effect of which increases your heart rate and hormones, ultimately disrupting all of your body’s most important processes.
In your mind, you’re simply focused on surviving this single episode of stress. However, truth be told, life can often feel like an unending series of stressful events. How you perceive your life and the goals you hope to achieve often dictates your overall future life satisfaction and success. Through positive thinking, we can learn to be in the driver’s seat of our health, lifestyle and our destiny.
Positive thinking, often associated with optimistic personalities, is a key part of effective stress management. Fortunately, the secrets of the optimistic mind can be learned and mastered to live the kind of lifestyle you have only ever dreamed of.
Here are 3 simple steps to make your future stress-free.
1. Walk Your Self-Talk: Positive thinking starts with regulating your self-talk. Your self-talk is often derived from your experiences, logic and interactions with others. Self-talk impacts your feelings and behaviors.
Fix: Begin to shift your self talk by monitoring the “noise” inside your head. Is it positive? Is it negative? Are there specific triggers that impact your self-talk? Observe the words that you use when speaking to yourself and make sure they are serving your highest self and goals for your life.
2. Decide How You Want To Feel: As we learned before, when stress is not managed, life can feel like an endless series of stressful events.
Fix: When you decide how you want to feel, you take an active role in shaping how stressful occurrences impact your overall functionality. When you feel connected to your desired feelings, you are able to feel as if your stress is manageable.
3. Take Action To Take Charge: When you make a conscious decision to put yourself in the driver’s seat of your life, you feel more empowered to simply ride the wave of stress rather than letting it stop you in your tracks.
Fix: Instead of sitting and waiting for the stressful event to end, take action steps toward actively eliminating your stress. By employing your best problem solving and coping skills, you will be able to come out on the other side of a stressful situation feeling on top.
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