Are You Feeling Stressed Out All The Time?
What To Do To Relieve Stress
Unlike situational stress which is brought on by your external environment, habitual stress occurs continually and comes as a direct result of your mental programming.
Most of this programming was done when you were a child, and passed onto your by your parents.
For example, some families may hold the belief that if you are not stressed then you are not working hard enough, or care enough about something.
As a result, stress is almost viewed as a necessity, and something which indicates you are a productive member of society.
In others, there may be a belief that the world is a dangerous, unstable and difficult place to survive in. This can lead to something known as “hyper vigilance”, where you are continually on the look out for some possible disaster that could happen in the future.
Whilst other families may hold a belief that no matter how hard you try, something will always come along to ruin your plans. So it’s best just to keep your head down, and survive the best you can from day to day.
Stress From Family Beliefs
All of the above examples demonstrate how the negative beliefs we received from our parents, can cause us to experience a seemingly constant level of stress throughout our adult lives.
It also shows just how easily negative beliefs can be passed throughout generations within a family. This is significant, because many of the beliefs we form during childhood are stored with an emotional memory in our subconscious mind.
For example, if one of your parents was always stressed because they were constantly worrying about money, this experience will most likely result in the creation of a negative subconscious emotional “money memory”.
Later on when you are an adult, anything that triggers those subconscious memories of money, will also trigger the negative emotion associated with it.
This is why you generally find that poor families stay poor, because from a young age the children are programmed with beliefs such as “money is evil” or “money is hard to get”.
Although I have used money in this example, the negative beliefs which cause you stress can be anything.
So for example, if you have been taught to worry a lot by your mother, then you will probably pick up the habit of worrying and so worry about things more often than you should. As a result of this worry, you may then begin to experience stress.
Stress Summary
Before moving on to how you can relieve your stress, lets just recap the main points so far.
Children have very impressionable minds, and readily accept beliefs from those around them (especially their parents).
Depending on your family, you may have acquired negative beliefs which became stored in your subconscious mind associated with a negative emotion (e.g. money and worry).
As an adult, whenever something triggers that previously stored subconscious memory, you will also experience the emotion that was associated with it.
Since your beliefs influence your thoughts, and your thoughts influence your actions, your subconscious beliefs can cause you to think and act in a way that is not beneficial to you, or the people around you.
How To Relieve Your Stress
Use these following guidelines to help you manage your stress and respond appropriately to it.
1 – Identify Stress
Stress is the uncomfortable feeling you get from being overwhelmed with work or other commitments. Stress can also come from loosing control over a situation.
2 – Remember The Meaning Of Stress
Stress is a form of fear which tells you that something bad might happen if you don’t get a certain thing done. This motivational energy is meant to focus your attention on something until it is completed.
3 – Decide Why You Are Feeling Stressed
Try to determine why you are experiencing your stress, by deciding whether it is situational or habitual stress.
Situational Stress
Situational stress comes as result of things in your external environment, and therefore does not occur all the time.
Situational stress may be caused by poor time management or organisational skills, an incorrect or inappropriate perspective of a situation or an inability to say no to others.
Habitual Stress
Habitual stress comes as a result of your internal mental programming, and is therefore experienced as a continual stress throughout the day.
If you always feel stressed examine what negative beliefs you may have acquired from your parents. Did they always argue over money? Were they always worrying?
Try to think of the negative beliefs you have, and see if they are similar to what your parents believed in, or how your parents acted.
4 – Do Something To Relieve Your Stress
Use the following steps to determine how you should respond to stress.
1 – Check your perception of the situation. Do you really have as much to do as you think?
2 – If the answer is no your stress will be reduced.
3 – If the answer is yes, create a plan for reducing your stress.
When you find that you have a lot of things to do that are causing you stress, ask yourself questions such as:
- Am I doing something because I don’t think someone else can do it as well as me?
- Am I doing something because I don’t think someone else will do it?
- Am I doing something to make myself look good or be liked by others?
- Am I saying yes to everything people ask of me because I don’t want to disappoint or let them down?
Improving Self Esteem
If you answered yes to any of the above questions, then you may find it helpful to work on improving your level of self esteem.
People with low self esteem tend to be dependent on external factors for the way they feel. By constantly doing what people ask of them, they feel that this will result in other people liking and accepting them.
Therefore by building up a healthy level of self esteem, you will no longer be trying to win the approval of others through the actions you take.
In turn, this will allow you to focus on satisfying your own needs, wants and desires, rather than someone else’s.
Learn To Organise & Manage Time
If you are taking on lots of tasks because you don’t think they will get done, or done very well, then you would benefit from learning how to delegate work to other people.
This can be found in many books on management and leadership. These books will also help you to manage your time better and organise yourself, which will allow you to prioritise your most important tasks first.
Address The Cause
Whilst you can use various methods to reduce the level of stress you feel (such as meditation, stress balls, smoking etc…), it is important to remember that these will not remove the cause of your stress.
Unless you directly address the cause, you will continue to feel stress until you do.
