COPING WITH STRESS

It is not enough to recognize the symptoms of stress, it is also important to know how to cope with stress in order to minimize the effects.
Change your attitudes and perceptions – you can’t change the external factors that cause stress but it is possible to change you attitudes and perceptions towards these situations.
Change the way you interact with your environment – Rather than working harder, try the following to help you to become more productive:
· Improve your time management skills
· Listen to feedback from your colleagues to help you improve
· Take assertiveness training
· Slow down and take a step back
Change the way your body reacts to stress- start exercising, reduce your caffeine intake, cut down on nicotine, avoid sugary snacks and make sure you get enough sleep.

Change your environment- organize your work area. Keep it clean.

Be realistic- on how long tasks take in terms of your time and the resources available to you.

Your expectations- Stress can often be as a direct result of our expectations of ourselves and others. A significant amount of stress can be experienced as a result of our relationships with other people.

For more information please visit this site: http://www.mystupidboss.com/msb/ManageStress.aspx

How to stay calm underpressure

Staying calm when you are under pressure from work, health issue, family life or a relationship can be difficult at times. Panic and anxiety can flourish and take over your life, resulting in burn out. Take some steps to stay calm under pressure and to escape the stress before it gets to you and affects your health and daily life.
Breathe in and out. Take 5 minutes to stop and breathe and regain your stability
Take yourself away from the situation.
Stop what you are doing. Go do some form of exercise.
Eat healthy
Keep positive things around you. (Affirmations, family pictures etc.)

See this site for more information: http://www.ehow.com/how_2082945_stay-calm-under-pressure.html

Stress at Work!

Work, work, and work that’s all that you heard when you have a job. Some times is difficult to maintain yourself in calm with so many things to do with your boss pressure and colleagues. When I feel this courage and stress I try to calm down listen to instrumental music, go for fresh air, etc. Then when I’m calm I try to get the job done. But sometimes you don’t have time to calm down and is too difficult to find something to get the stress out. Here are some options that you can do:
1- Maintain you work area organized
2- Always try to have something relaxing around you (fountain, music, candles etc)
3- Establish priorities with the work that you have to get done (Rush work, Important work,

not that important, not important)
4- Take a walk if you needed

It is important to have the sources and the ways to calm down ourselves in a stress situation. So do what you have to do for having them.

What to do and what to eat?!!!

Every person liberate the stress in different ways. In the last post drugs and alcohol, we recognize that this is not the healthy way to deal with your problem but is the most used. We can find something that we like for relax our selves for example: When I'm understress or sad or mad i like to:

• Write (poems, songs, though)
• Go walk
• Sing
• Go outside breath fresh air
• Play some sports (volleyball, baseball, basketball etc)

But some times I like to eat a lot of food and candies and this is not a healthy choice. Many people use the food (junk food) to calm down and this is bad for your health, body and mind. So I look about healthy relaxing foods and these is what I found:

Eat foods high in tryptophan
This amino acid helps the brain produce serotonin - a chemical that calms you down, and melatonin - a hormone that can make you sleepy. This means it's not only great for relaxing, it's also a natural sleep aid and can help with depression and seasonal affective disorder.

Try: Milk, Chiken, Eggs, Nuts, Rice and Cheese in particular Cheddar, Gruyere, and Swiss.

Healthier options: Turkey, Beans, Fish, Cottage and Ricotta cheese.

Eat foods that are high in carbohydrates
Eating a high-carbohydrate meal, about two hours before bedtime, will immediately increase the levels of serotonin in your brain.

Try: Potatoes, Cakes & Desserts, Ice-Cream and Chocolate.

Healthier options: Pasta, Cereal, Figs and Honey.

For more information you can visit: http://www.goodtoknow.co.uk/food/175395/Foods-to-help-you-relax

Drugs and Stress

When we are underpressure and stress we take the alternative of drinking alcohol or using durgs to calm down or just to relax and "having fun". But these is a wrong way to relax or deal with the pressure that collge gave you. Most of the college students smoke because of the pressure or the stress that they got from their classes. Below are the effects of the alcohol and most drugs used:
Alcohol goes directly into the bloodstream, physically affecting the whole body. Some illnesses and health problems casued by alcohol include:

• Hangovers
• Weightgain
• High Blood Pressure
• Depressed immune system
• Cancer (colon, stomach, pancreas and lung)
• Liver disease (hepatitis, cirrhosis and cancer of the liver)
• Alcohol Poisoning
• Heart or respiratory failures

Drugs

Nicotine-cigarretes(most used)
Physical Effects- rapid heartbeat, incrase blood pressure, shortens of breath and a greater likehood of colds and flu. Can increase the risk for lung, heart dissease, stroke and cancer in mouth and neck. The people that have this habit have bad breath and yellow teeth.

Other Drugs

• Methampletamine
• Marijuana
• Ketamine
• LSD
• Inhalants
• Heroin
• GHB
• Exstasy (MDMA)
• Depressants
• DXM
• Cocaine and Crack
• Esteroids
• Amphetamines

If you want to now the effects and dangers of these other drugs you can visit:

http://www.med.unc.edu/alcohol/prevention/abuse-ism.html
http://www.drugfree.org/Portal/drug_guide/Alcohol

http://www4.uwm.edu/safety/otherdrugs.cfm

Stop Stressing....

Just Relax, doing some exercise, joga, swimming, taichi, spa etc. You can explore and figure out what do you like for be relaxed.