Hypnotherapy Information Exchange

They say there’s more than one way to skin a cat. The same goes when you start tearing your hair out with all the frus­tration, grief, anxiety, and yes, stress. It’s a state of mental con­di­tioning that is like taking that bitter pill down your throat, causing you to lose your sense of self, and worse your sanity. Just thinking about it can drive anyone off the edge.

And they say that the pro­active ones are already living off the edge.

As one stressed-​​out person to another, I know how it feels, and believe me there are many variants when it comes to stress. Coping with life, and carrying the problems that may or may not belong to you can scratch away the little joy and hap­piness that you can carry once you head out that door. You can’t blame them for being like that; they have their own reasons, so much like we have our reasons to allow stress to weigh us down. They say that stress is all in the mind, well, what’s bugging you anyway?

There are several ways to manage stress, and even­tually remove it out of your life one of these days. So I’ll try to divide it into a seven-​​day course for you and I promise it’s not going to be too taxing on the body, as well as on the mind.

1. Acknowledge stress is good
Make stress your friend! Based on the body’s natural “fight or flight” response, that burst of energy will enhance your per­formance at the right moment. I’ve yet to see a top sportsman totally relaxed before a big com­petition. Use stress wisely to push yourself that little bit harder when it counts most.

2. Avoid stress sneezers
Stressed people sneeze stress germs indis­crim­inately and before you know it, you are infected too!

Protect yourself by recog­nizing stress in others and limiting your contact with them. Or if you’ve got the inclination, play stress doctor and teach them how to better manage themselves.

3. Learn from the best
When people around are losing their head, who keeps calm? What are they doing dif­ferently? What is their attitude? What language do they use? Are they trained and exper­ienced?
Figure it out from afar or sit them down for a chat. Learn from the best stress managers and copy what they do.

4. Practice socially acceptable heavy breathing
This is something I’ve learned from a gym instructor: You can trick your body into relaxing by using heavy breathing. Breathe in slowly for a count of 7 then breathe out for a count of 11. Repeat the 7–11 breathing until your heart rate slows down, your sweaty palms dry off and things start to feel more normal.

5. Give stressy thoughts the red light
It is possible to tangle yourself up in a stress knot all by yourself. “If this happens, then that might happen and then we’re all up the creek!” Most of these things never happen, so why waste all that energy worrying needlessly?

Give stress thought-​​trains the red light and stop them in their tracks. Okay so it might go wrong — how likely is that, and what can you do to prevent it?

6. Know your trigger points and hot spots
Present­ations, interviews, meetings, giving dif­ficult feedback, tight deadlines…. My heart rate is cranking up just writing these down!

Make your own list of stress trigger points or hot spots. Be specific. Is it only present­ations to a certain audience that get you worked up? Does one project cause more stress than another? Did you drink too much coffee?

Knowing what causes you stress is powerful information, as you can take action to make it less stressful. Do you need to learn some new skills? Do you need extra resources? Do you need to switch to decaf?

7. Burn the candle at one end
Lack of sleep, poor diet and no exercise wreaks havoc on our body and mind. Kind of obvious, but worth men­tioning as it’s often ignored as a stress man­agement technique. Listen to your mother and don’t burn the candle at both ends!

So having stress can be a total drag, but that should not hinder us to find the inner peace of mind that we have wanted for a long time. In any case, one could always go to the Bahamas and bask under the summer sun.

This article was ori­ginally pub­lished on www.HypnotherapyClinic.info by Con­sultant Clinical Hyp­no­therapist & Pys­cho­therapist Noel Bradford –

As a pro­fes­sional therapist Noel help people with everything that you would expect including giving up smoking, con­trolling their weight, dealing with fears and phobias. However his services go far beyond this and encompass things that affect everyone at some time in their life, such as depression, anxiety, panic attacks, stress, and low self esteem.

He  also has detailed spe­cialist training in several areas including but not limitted to Irrittable Bowel Syndrome and Pyscho­sexual matters that affect men such as Errectile Dys­function and Pre­mature Ejac­u­lation as well as those affecting women such as Hyper Desire Disorder, Vaginisums, and Dys­pareunia.

Ori­ginally posted 2010-​​01-​​15 16:17:00.