A little bit of stress is part of normal life. Here I talk about what happens in your body and mind when you stress too much. After reading this you might even want to do something about it.
Unlimited stress leads to disease. That is the inevitable worst case scenario. You need to run as fast as you can in the other direction, into calm.
- Stress makes you sick! This is one BIG reason for doing changes. And we are talking about serious illness like cardiovascular disease, hypertension, diabetes, stroke and more. We are talking about killers. Best to stay out, right?
- Stress makes you become a different you! As if it is not enough that stress hurts your body – it also affects your mind. You get angry, grumpy for “no reason at all”, you get depressed and you lose your ability for empathy, in the end you just don’t care anymore. In all you may become an unpleasant person to be around. And you don’t want that in your heart, do you?
- Stress makes you unfocused! The more you stress the more unfocused you get. You put things all over the place and then you don’t remember where you put it. You lose structure. Being unfocused also mean you do things wrong and have to do them again and again.
- Stress makes you lose time! Being ineffective means losing time. Because you have to look for things twice, because you have to redo things and because disease often makes you more tired. And losing time is losing money. Read more about stressrelated disease and costs.
- Stress makes you lose friends! This one works both ways. Your friends find you more unpleasant to have around; grumpy, unfocused and depressed. And you start to lose interest in social contacts because you don’t have the time for it, you are tired, you are unfocused and want to be left alone.
As you have seen above all 5 points co-work and overlap either if you stress more or if you stress less. If you do something that will make you stress less you will get wins in all 5 areas. I can’t emphasize this enough – it all connects.
Now you know why and it is time to look at what to do. You do want to get rid of the stress, don´t you?
IT IS POSSIBLE TO DO AND IT IS IMPORTANT TO GET IN EARLY!
Read more about what part in your life generates stress
The dictionary definition of the word stress is: “a state of mental or emotional strain or tension resulting from adverse or very demanding circumstances.”
The definition of the word depression is: “severe despondency and dejection typically felt over a period of time and accompanied by feelings of hopelessness and inadequacy.”
Most professionals would agree that stress is one of the leading causes of depression. Depression can lead to severe mental health issues and worse which is one important reason why stress needs to be identified and “treated” as early as possible.
We are talking about stress prevention!
Stress management is often looked on as about work organization and structure and so on. But I want to add that it maybe even more is about taking basic care of your body and soul by good food, good sleep and physical activity in regular hours and adequate quantities.
Read blog post article about Three ways to get energy to de-stress! to find out more.
Today though I want to get you started with this exercise:
Get yourself a Good Morning Ritual!
That is a routine to do every morning to strengthen you before the workday.
My personal Morning Ritual is a 30 minutes brisk walk before breakfast – gets my brain going.
Then a good healthy breakfast planned and prepared the evening before – to provide nutrients and energy for the whole morning up until lunch. (By the way here is another article about what to eat: Three colors a day keeps the doctor away!) Then a quick shower, get dressed and off to work. You might have to get up a little earlier in the morning to get this going but I am sure it is worth it. After having done this every weekday for a month you will find that it is not a new routine anymore, it is a ritual you can’t live without. And you are all set to do good for others too.
Of course there are many ways to do this. How do you care for yourself? Do you feel you are ahead with energy to get someone a good helping hand? Please share your experience in the comment field below! I would love to learn more ways to do it.
To your success and Keep Smiling!
