Fighting the pressure of today's stress !
August 29th 2009 21:47
Signature Tune
Is this a problem for you?
Perhaps this advice will help, too much pressure is not good for the brain.
Use your five senses when thinking of or looking at a flower
Personal Matters
Susan Britt
You sit, with rising anxiety, in a traffic jam.
You're already late for work and there is a project waiting on your desk with a 5 p.m. deadline. You have to pick up one of your kids at 5:30 and drop another one off at 6, so you'll have to gobble down dinner so you can be on time for your 7 p.m. computer class.
As you mentally go over your day, you notice that your head is beginning to ache, your neck is stiff, and your legs are weary. It is 8 a.m.
According to a survey of mental health professionals, people are feeling more stressed than they were 10 years ago.
"Not prioritizing time well" and "not spending enough time resting or relaxing" were cited as two significant sources of stress.
Although you probably work fewer hours than your parents did, and have many of the conveniences they lacked, time is your enemy. Why?
Firstly, you have greater expectations of how time should be spent. You may participate in more activities outside the home, spend more time driving on crowded roads, feel compelled to do many things your parents never thought necessary — working out at a gym or taking yoga, for example. We are constantly admonished to be more: more productive, happy, organized, beautiful, thin, smart, etc., etc.
Our modern conveniences, which are supposed to simplify life, actually often complicate it. First, you have to research and then decide which is the "right" convenience/appliance to buy. After you buy it, you have to learn how to use it, maintain it, and keep it current. The time and energy that's used to tame modern technology can be a frequent source of stress.
There is also constant cultural pressure to acquire more things, participate in more activities; there are more demands on your time: family, friends, community organizations, political/social organizations. You respond to the pressure and fill up every second of the day. There is little balance which results in feeling overwhelmed and stressed.
In order to cope with the debilitating weight of these demands, it is important to learn to become emotionally fit — to manage your stress and your time.
Time management means acquiring very specific skills: prioritizing, daily, mid and long-range planning, and creating systems. For example, try to develop backup systems. You will feel less stressed if you have a stand-by babysitter, a portable typewriter when the computer is down, and several different routes to your workplace (GPS systems can be helpful directing you away from congested areas).
Another way to develop your emotional fitness is practicing deep relaxation.
Try this exercise at home to relax and re-charge your immune system: Find a comfortable chair, position yourself sitting upright with hands on top of thighs and then close your eyes. Slowly count down from 10 to 1, picturing the numbers and giving each a color. Then visualize an appealing object that will engage all your senses, a flower perhaps.
Focus on the image of the flower, taking in every detail using all your senses: See all the subtle variations in color, trace with your eye the shape of each petal, smell the sweet fragrance, feel the velvety softness of the petals. Look at the flower from above, below and from all sides. Then count yourself back up to full wakefulness by slowly counting from 1 to 10, again picturing the numbers and then slowly open your eyes. Wiggle fingers and toes, stretch, and gently begin moving. This deep relaxation exercise, encouraged by many fitness teachers and stress reduction experts, can give you a deeper mental and physical rest than eight hours of ordinary sleep.
Time pressures and stress are facts of everyday life for most of us.
Give yourself a gift — learn and practice new techniques so you can handle these realities of modern life in healthful, energizing ways.
Based in Rockport, former psychotherapist Susan Britt, M.Ed., is now relationship coach who helps couples, families, friends and co-workers turn conflict into compassion.
link to the article from Gloucester Times - click here
Incidentally I feel sure there are many to-day who work far many more hours than their parents, it is abuse of the human condition, brought on by the politics of power and of those who use you so that they may become wealthy.
find another way, if you can
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