Manage Your Stress

Those of us who are "stress prone" make too big a deal about the inconveniences of the world, like traffic, long lines at the store, and unexpected weather changes. We make too big a deal out of the choices other people make and how they behave. We react as though we have to have the world and other people function a certain way or we're going to lose control of what goes on inside our own minds and bodies.

How can we improve control over our own insides? A beginning is to learn to respond to bumps in the road by giving these events "permission" to occur. Sounds crazy or silly, perhaps, but simplicity is required to change habitual behaviors. For example, let's say you put your socks on every morning, left sock first, right sock second. You could slow that chain of behavior down and consciously choose to put your right sock on first and your left sock on second.

The same way you could change that behavior, you could decide to break your automatic way of responding to stress-inducing situations. We stress prone individuals typically respond to bumps in our plans by saying out loud or to ourselves statements like, "I can't stand this!" "This is ridiculous!" "This isn't fair!" and "I can't believe this is happening!" Once we "decide" to give these problems permission to exist, our statements change to, "Oh, of course, the traffic is taking three rotations to get through the light." "And, yes, I did give that lady permission to get in the 10 item express lane with 14 items." "I gave permission for them to run out of coffee before I got there." "I decided that today, everyone in my office has permission to be themselves." "It's all right with me for the meeting to start late. It can even end late, as far as I'm concerned."

Now these are all events or behaviors...that are going to happen anyway. We are just deciding to react in a new way, a way that blocks our stress response.

By Barbara DeShong, Ph.D.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com