Month: August 2017

1. Why you should know something about stress

While moderate amount of stress is essential for normal growth and maturation, excessive stress combined with poor coping and managing invariably leads to loss of tranquility of mind; emotional disorders such as anxiety and depression; and physical disorders such as obesity, high blood pressure, fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue, irritable bowel syndrome, and many other disorders.

Continue reading Stress Relief: Why Am I Stressed

In order for the reader to process the information in this guide, he must first understand basic definitions of certain terms used in it. This would ensure that both the reader and the author are ?tuned in? with each other. This is important because the reader brings into this learning process his own meaning of certain terms, which might not be consistent with their true meaning. For example, the term ?stress? might mean different things to different people. When asked, ?What is stress?? the often heard incorrect replies are, ?Anxiety?? ?worry?? ?out of control?? ?overwork??

Continue reading Stress Relief: What is Stress and What are Stress Related Symptoms

Stressors are what upset us and cause our balloon to inflate. There are basically two things in life that upset us: Bad events and bad problems. Life is full of them: if it is not one thing, it is another. It should be noted here, however, that regardless how bad a stressor is, some good could come out of it in the long run, if one learns to deal with it. Wise people are able to make compost out of garbage life gives them.

Continue reading Stress Relief: What are stressors?

Human beings are endowed with the ability to experience hundreds of emotions. Most of them are negative or painful emotions. Positive emotions are precious few: joy, happiness, contentment, ecstasy, peacefulness, etc. Of the hundreds of negative or painful emotions, I have listed here thirty five as the most important in our understanding of stress. I made up this list after carefully listening to thousands of stressed-out patients. When upset for whatever reason, we experience one or more of these thirty five painful, potentially toxic emotions in our mind:

Continue reading Stress Relief: What does getting upset mean?

The resurfacing phenomenon can manifest itself in various ways.

Acute post traumatic stress disorder: In this condition, a person suddenly re-experiences various recently or remotely buried traumatic memories, say, rape, and suffers serious recurrent stress symptoms. Invariably there is a clearly identified current triggering event.

Continue reading Stress Relief: The Resurfacing Phenomenon

When upset about something some people say to themselves, ‘This is too upsetting to me, and so I will not think about it. I will not talk about it. I will not let this thing bother me. I will be strong. I will divert my attention to something else. I will do my best to forget it.’ Painful emotions are transferred from the mind (the balloon) to the hidden mind (soda bottle). The balloon shrinks, the brain chemicals go back to their normal state, and stress symptoms disappear. One feels calm once again. Now he believes he has coped with his stress well, when in fact, all he has done is to transfer his emotions from his mind to the hidden mind. Once in the hidden mind, the painful memories are forgotten.

Continue reading Stress Relief: What is inappropriate coping? – Habitual Burying

Inappropriate coping means one is not properly handling his painful emotions (fear, hurt, anger, sadness, etc.) as well as the stressful events (death, divorce, etc.) and problems (family, job, money, etc.) that are causing them. Invariably, people who cope inappropriately believe that they are handling their stress just fine. There are basically two inappropriate coping ways.

Continue reading Stress Relief: What is inappropriate coping?- Denial