“In order that the mind should see light instead of darkness, so the entire soul must be turned away from this changing world, until its eye can learn to contemplate reality and that supreme splendor which we have called the good. Hence there may well be an art whose aim would be to effect this very thing.”
~ Socrates

You truly have carried out a significant goal if you have done meditation via “The Art of Doing Nothing” in this ambition oriented, high stress, and fast paced world. These days, most people are motivated by the idea that if I do enough of the right stuff—read the right paperbacks and have sufficient money, I will be perfectly fine. You can rarely find a person who can become stagnant enough to end this quest.

We sometimes think that a futuristic and fast paced life can make us happy and at peace; wherein in fact, these ideas take away the very peace and happiness we seek. That is why the spiritual principles of the world suggest some kind of meditation to tranquil the mind.

It is vital to allow oneself calm the mind. Doing so is not just another cerebral exercise; it is also a change of attention. Meditation is focusing on the innermost world, away from the physical and mental world.

You don’t have to battle the inner talk since as soon as you concentrate on being still, the inner talk starts. Simply allow each thought and let it pass; completely adore your thoughts as they will become more calm when you just acknowledge and let them pass away.

Meditation has heaps of health benefits. It is also a fantastic way to relieve stress and keep a healthier lifestyle. There are several methods to meditate—and this particular one is one of the most basic. With a little exercise, you can utilize this skill to feel innermost peace whenever necessary.

Here’s how:

1. Find a comfortable position you prefer. Most people like to sit in a snug chair or sit cross-legged on the floor. You want to be able to fully relax while still staying conscious.

2. Shut your eyes.

3. Clear your mind (This is the tough part that takes some practice). The plan is to keep unattached to any kinds of thoughts, which means if that inner narrative voice in your head speaks up, lightly hush it and go for internal silence.

4. That’s basically it. Continue letting go of any ideas that may suddenly pop into your mind and the quiet gaps between thoughts will be longer and more recurrent—you’re on your way to meditation!

Tips:

1. Take your time as meditation often takes some practice. If you’re immediately expecting to perform it perfectly, you might actually end up creating more stress and you won’t stick with it.

2. Begin with brief sessions, say five minutes, and work your way up to longer sessions, like 30 minutes or so. With dutiful practice, this form of meditation turns out to be easier and more efficient.

3. If the experience is frustrating and you feel like giving up, you may be more successful taking up other types of meditations such as the Karate Breathing Meditation.

Here’s a free helpful resource for you to learn more about managing stress with meditation.

And here are more advance techniques.

Imagine having to spend at least 8 hours in front of the computer doing your usual duties, workplace is truly a very toxic site. To prevent burn out in the office, here are some helpful methods to reduce stress in the workplace.

First of all, bear in thought that positive job factors play a significant role in keeping stress at bay, like having encouraging colleagues, managing time wisely, being participative in social organizations, and not taking home your work-related tasks (leave them where they belong—in the office!).

Furthermore, your company can provide very useful assistance to its staff by implementing helpful stress management techniques. Find below some of these methods that you can apply:

1. Set attainable goals and priorities – Persuade employees to take part in the priority setting process. When they realize that their opinions matter or that they are part of the decision making, they are more liable to take responsibility. This also avoids complaining about “my wicked boss” and “this horrible place.”

2. Promote good time management skills – Organizing important activities, arranging them ahead of time, following up with other staff, and maintaining good memos aid people get things done in a timely fashion and make them realize its worth. Also, find time to document achievements and accomplished assignments.

3. Take brief breaks after an intensely demanding event – Encourage employees to go for a 5-minute walk around the block or a few minutes of meditation to balance their energy. Short breaks in between the day can help employees work at top performance.

4. Practice and organize – Getting prepared reduces anxiety most especially when anticipating stressful situations.

5. Never procrastinate – Procrastinations and holdups rear stress! Prioritize tasks that need to be done first and eliminate those unattainable “to-dos.”

6. Understand your limitations – Be true to yourself; be realistic about what you are capable and incapable to accomplish.

7. Change your outlook – Consider stressful situations as challenges to your innovative mind. Recognize that in the long run, everything will either get done or not—fretting about it won’t do any help.

8. Learn to decline and say “NO” - When your schedule is jam-packed, just gently say “No” or “I’m sorry, I can’t” to pursuits you don’t enjoy, to impractical demands, to responsibilities that you’re not liable for. Tactfully doing so takes some practice and may involve special training.

9. Schedule stress – Stagger recognized nerve-racking activities and get ready for known stress ahead of time.

10. Convince employees to take care of their body right – They should eat a well-balanced diet, get sufficient sleep, and work out regularly. Businesses that persuade employees to go for a “fruit break” or a 5-minute walk discover that employees become more efficient than when they opt for a coffee or cigarette break.

11. Promote positive self-talk – Use optimistic self-reinforcement statements like, “I can deal with this one step at a time” and “The whole team will work this out.”

12. Confer constructive reinforcement – Make certain that all managers and supervisors inform people when they perform a good job, praise them on their tidy cubicles or diligent work habits.

13. Organize employee recognition program – Acknowledgements such as “Employee of the Month” or “Creative Idea” cheers people to do a great job. Everyone needs a sense of value and a pat on the back whenever worthy. Constant criticism is unproductive and produces hard feelings. A daily positive remark truly goes a long way, at no cost!

14. Take accountability – Advise employees to take responsibility for their own job and for their involvement to the company’s success as a whole. This promotes a feeling of control over their life. Constantly tell them how significant their endeavors are to the overall plan.

15. Offer a considerate ear – Stressful situations can often be beaten if there’s someone willing to listen to the employees’ issues and provide them positive support. For most, a few minutes from a supportive listener can cancel out several days of otherwise wasteful apprehension.

16. Most importantly, keep a sense of humor – Like what the clever philosopher once said, “Don’t take life so seriously; it’s only a hobby.” If you try to recall your stressful days 6 months ago or a year ago, chances are, you can’t. Remember that this day will be just another day in the past and anything seems distressing today will fade into void as time goes by.

Here is a useful resource for you to manage and reduce stress in the workplace

Follow this link for more advance technique to eliminate your stress naturally, easily and permanently.

With the current economic difficulty, a lot of people easily get affected that their self-confidence tends to drop drastically. Instead of managing the situation, most people let the condition take charge.

When you have a robust self-esteem, you are most likely to obtain whatever your heart desires. Remember the Secret and the Law of Attraction? On the other hand, if your self-confidence is weak, you start to question yourself and your abilities, which is comparable to strangling the power of the Law of Attraction.

This article is dedicated to revive your lost self-confidence. I have already tackled the difference between being confident versus being arrogant. So, today, I’m going to discuss about reawakening your weak or vanished self-esteem.

Self-confidence melts when you feel frightened, guilty, depressed. Your confidence level drips down the drain whenever you encounter such feelings. Those emotions are no doubt the verdicts for losing your self-confidence. Hence, to restore your self-confidence, you should first abolish fright, guilt and depression.

Now, the BIG question is how to get rid of those emotions?

I will provide you with the steps and guidelines to help you eliminate those feelings, BUT only if you are ready to play your role. Yes, it requires some effort.

Step #1 – Feel the grief

Allot a few minutes to jot down how would it be like if you have a day or two of total liberty to enjoy your DESPAIR.

Stop reading until you’re done with this exercise and start participating.

Step #2 – Be thankful

Scribble down 10 things that you are grateful for (I literally do this everyday).

This simple task can change the way you feel and your outlook in life generally.

Step #3 – Eradicate the fright

The only way to totally do away with fear is by facing what scares the hell out of you. Write down something you are afraid of doing at this particular moment – then try DOING IT!

I also have a lot of “ghosts” and procrastinations. And when I see myself nurturing these ill feelings, I oblige myself to face them no matter what. The best thing is, after approaching them; they’re gone and are simply like illusions.

Step #5 – Empower yourself

There are practically tons of ways you can empower yourself. Go ahead and try reading some inspirational books or blog posts and listening to motivational audio tapes or CDs.

I really hope you have taken some actions to follow this simple guide and once you have done so, thank yourself and give yourself a pat at the back. It’s very significant to reward yourself for any victory that you accomplished, regardless of how small or big it is.

Once you have acquired back your self-confidence, get set to draw like a magnet all the things that you need and want with the Law of Attraction.

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Anxiety is a “popular” cause of stress. When you have no control over an event or a situation, you feel anxious. Usually, the negativities settle in your anxious mind. When you try to be perfect in everything including your work, relationship, health and wealth you become anxious because striving for perfection is not a realistic goal.

You want to be loved. You want everybody to listen to you. You want every event happens by your choice. This kind of feeling is impractical because everybody has their own thoughts and it’s the variation that makes this world such a beautiful place.

You just can not control the feeling and behavior of others. Learning how to respect others and accept your own imperfection can greatly reduce your stress and anxiety. You are not borne with the stress and anxiety. It is created by you and only you.

It’s okay to be imperfect sometimes, just learn from it and keep on growing. Feeling stress about the imperfection will not only not solving the problem but also retards the growing process, invites diseases and rob your happiness.

Learn to manage your stress today and your life will be so much better.

Image by xeeliz via Flickr

Stress is good if it happens for a short period. Here’s why?

When you feel stress, the muscle and limbs function together as a whole. This autoresponse system is good and it can help to prevent you from disease and infection. Only it it’s a short stress.

If the stress continues for a long time, then it may be harmful to you. I explained it in the 3rd Symphony in my “4 Symphonies of Stress ebook”. You can download it at the top of this page. Simply enter your name and email and the report will be sent to you.

Back to the stress management.

Here’s another reason why a short duration of stress is good. When we feel stress, our body will treat it as danger and as a result, our body gears up to face the challenge. That increases the immune system of your body and your brain.

Ever seen people who perform extraordinarily in a stressful situation? They actually tap onto the unfair advantage from the short stress.

See, not all stress are bad. If you know how to manipulate them properly, it can be turned into plenty of advantages for you. A person who knows how to manage their stress can inject or eliminate the stress from himself whenever and wherever he wants it.

In another words, the stress won’t stick long within him because he can control it. He is the master of his stress, not the slave.

Stress management is extremely important for men, women, kids, teenagers, adolescents, students, adults and literally any stage of your life.

Click here if you want to discover the secrets and techniques of managing your stress.

Learn to manage your stress today and every area of your life improves automatically.

If you have any question, opinion, suggestion or issue about managing your stress, feel free to leave them in the comment box. I’m all eyes.

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Did you know that the average adult laughs 15 times per day, while the average child laughs 400 times per day? This is really something worth ponders.

“Humor is the great thing, the saving thing. The minute it crops up, all our irritation and resentments slip away, and a sunny spirit takes their place.”

~~Mark Twain~~

Generally people find it easier to forward jokes to their friends than other stuffs. When you want to connect with some friends but do not know what to say, you forward jokes to them. It keeps both of you happy. Jokes and humor are excellent ways to bond people together.

So, I would like to take this opportunity to share some jokes with you and at the same time it would reduce your stress and bond us together. J

Mommy Jokes

Son: Mommy, Mommy! Can I lick the bowl?
Mom: Shut up and flush t like everyone else.

Elephant Jokes

Q: How do you Catch a White Elephant?
A: Go to an place where there are white elephants. Bring with you a muffin (with raisins). Climb a tree. When the white elephant is close, drop the muffin (with raisins) in front of it. The white elephant will be happy, and eat the muffin (with raisins). White elephants like muffins (with raisins). Repeat this procedure for five days in a row. After the fifth day, the white elephant will be used to its daily muffin (with rasins). The sixth day you climb the tree, bring with you a muffin without rasins. Drop the muffin as usual. When the white elephant finds out that the muffin lacks rasins, it will darken in anger. And then you catch it the same way as an ordinary grey elephant.

Q: How do you shoot a blue elephant?
A: With a blue elephant gun, of course.

Q: How do you shoot a red elephant?
A: No, not with a red elephant gun. You strangle him until he turns blue, and then shoot him with a blue elephant gun.

Q: Why won’t they allow elephants in public swimming pools?
A: Because they might let down their trunks.

Scuba Diving Jokes

Rules of Diving
* Don’t take up diving to get a suntan.

* People who look good with a mask on are usually ugly without one.
* Inverse Law of Patches: A diver’s ability is inversely proportional to the number of patches they wear
* Diving unprotected with a stranger is like having unprotected sex with a stranger.
* Never clear a snorkel on a Mexican Federale’
* Anyone who says they have never been afraid while diving hasn’t been diving or is a bad liar.
* Never use a sun intensifier lotion within 30 miles of the Equator.
* People say the funniest things when you shut their air off.
* Never have sex underwater above a coral reef.
* Dry Suits and Beers do not mix
* Buddies are never where you need them to be.
* You WILL run out of film before the Whale Shark Swims By
* 60 minute camcorder batteries aren’t

I hope you have some fun here.

Stress can smash up your physical and mental health. It is also the seed of many diseases and disorder. Reducing stress is a must for a better living and a healthy life. A simple change in your lifestyle can produce a huge impact in your life.

Here are some simple and easy-to-follow ways to eliminate your stress naturally:

Relaxation – Our body gets fatigue when we work continuously. Relaxation helps to restore the energy back into our body. Yoga, meditation or even some simple breathing exercise can increase the ability to handle stressful situation. Relaxation not only helps to increase remedial hormone and lower your blood pressure but also increase your creativity and productivity.

Play – Yes, just one word. Play! When was the last time you play? And how it feels when you really go and play hard. This simple activity can activate the immune system of our body.

Laugh – Have you heard of the phrase, “Laughter is the best medicine”? This technique can not only cure stress but literally any disease in your body since most of the sicknesses are created by the stress in your body.

When one laughs, endorphins are released from our body. Endorphins reduce stress, boost our immune system, eliminate pains and lowered our blood pressure. I have a friend who uses laughter to cure her cancer within 3 months. That’s how powerful your laughter can be.

Get a pet – Pet is one of human’s great friends. Their company can enhanced and enriched ones life and erase the stress away.

Friendship – Being in the company with friends can help you to stay happy and forget all your worries. If you do not have any friend and shy to make friend with others, afraid not, with the power of technology, you can always go to the website such as facebook, Myspace and Friendster and begin to know new friends there.

Hobbies – Anything that you enjoy doing and it’s not a part of your daily routine is your hobby. Hobbies give you a break from your hectic life and give you the opportunity to do what you really enjoy doing. This is a fantastic stress reducer because when you do something you really love, you feel happy, calm and relax.

I recommend you to read Cure Stress Naturally, Easily and Permanently for more advance technique.

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Your physiology change when you feel stressful. Why? It’s because your body is designed to protect yourself from harm. It is like a huge battalion of army that protects the castle of your body from intruders that appear to be dangerous. Thus, it will fight against the negative effect brought by the uninvited stress.

As soon as your stress level raises, the general, which is the hypothalamus gland in your brain begins to send out the command to the pituitary gland to release ACTH hormone. The ACTH hormone will then activate the adrenal gland in your kidneys to fire out both adrenalin and non-adrenalin into the blood stream where they can meet more other hormones.

All these hormones are ready to receive the sugar released by the liver to be activated. Now, your blood stream is filled with the energized and activated hormones. This causes your heart to beat faster and raise the temperature of your body.

They are all ready to charge for the war and slash the stress into pieces. The wall of your arteries tightens and your blood pressure increases.

The whole attention of your army is now focusing on the STRESS, the enemy. The entire attention of your body is now on the nasty stress. The activation of the mental alertness caused you to feel excited or frightened and you’ll become highly sensitive.

As for physical changes, you sweat more, your muscle tightened, your face turn whitish, your concentration skyrocket, your mouth dry and other body functions such as digestion, defecation and urination stop entirely.

There are times where stress can lead to diarrhea and urination. Your body feels cold as all the energy and attention is focused to fight against the stress level.

It’s a very vulnerable experience when your body suffers from the immune system breakdown. In another word, when the foreign body such as bacteria or virus comes to attack your body, your immune system is not ready for it and thus it caused you to lose in the battle easily.

It is like when you have every single soldier standing by guarding the main gate preparing to attack the “Stress” enemy, another group of “Fever” enemy attacks you from behind when the whole castle is in the lowest level of security. Since all the attention of your body defense system is focusing on the Stress army and not aware of the existence of the Fever army, the Fever army will have a sure win battle.

That’s how easily for you to fall sick when you are under stressed.

The only way to defend both armies is absolute relaxation of your body as a whole. This will not only erase your stress but also alert of the intrusion of other foreign body (the Fever army, in this case)

By relaxing yourself, the soldiers and guards in your body would go back to their original position and able to guard your body from every direction. Once the balance is restored, you will regain your physical and emotional strength.

Stress is like air. It is everywhere (if you choose so see it). But here’s the good thing. You have some options here. You can choose to inhale the stress into your body or you can choose to exhale it out off your body.

Stress is mainly caused by anxiety and depression which may be brought to you through these events and condition:

1. Specific events and happening such as argument with love ones or suffer from loses.
2. Health – including mental health (e.g. loneliness) and physical health (physically disable).
3. Marriage
4. Sex
5. Financial
6. Job
7. Bad habits

There are many more things that you do in your life daily that adds more stress in your stress bucket where you may not realize that you are helping to escalate the problem.

Here are some of the ways where you can change your bad habit into a more productive and less stressful habit.

1. Spending the future money – While credit card is a great tool for us to carry our money or future money around, always remember to spend wisely. Make sure you have the ability to pay it off so that it won’t get you into bad debt which will stress you up.

2. Empty gas tank – I always drive on empty gas tank because I love challenge and I will only look for gas station when the fuel in the tank is really low and I will only get my gas from my favorite gas station (brand, not a specific location). In the end, I’ll have to do anything to reach the next gas station such as switch off the unnecessary stuffs that consume gas, drive slowly and less brakes.

However, this may not be the case for everybody, most people (based on my experience) get stressful when they begin to imagine that they’ll have to push their car or call somebody else to tow their car which causes unnecessary inconvenience and expenditure.

3. Drinking – not water but alcohol. Some people drink with the intention to wash away their stress but in the end, the opposite happens. While you drink, you have a high tendency to make mistakes that serve as stress provider.

4. Using tools or machinery with potential problem – Let’s take car for example. If you drive a problematic car, here’re the high probability questions in your head. Will the car start? Will the tire go flat? Will the smoke come out? Will it explode? This is an absolute no no. Too mush stress for you.

5. Do not know how or when to say no – Have you ever promise somebody on something and feeling stress when you can’t make it or don’t like to do it such as drive your friend’s kid to school where you can actually spend the quality time with you family. Just day “NO” (I have a whole chapter talking about this topic in my Cure Stress Naturally, Easily and Permanently ebook)

In the next article, you will discover how your body reacts to stress …

Image by ashley.adcox via Flickr

Stress is the effect of emotional and physical pressures on your mental and physical wellness.

Different people experience stress differently.

Do you notice how much the world has changed in the past 50 years?

Human used to travel from one place to another on their feet. There’s no car, motorcycle, bus, no, nothing! It went for years of using pails to carry water from rivers. In fact, people relied much on the strength of their limbs and some animals to do most of the work.

All of the sudden, the amount of change has become shocking. One person could have gone from telegram, car, black and white bulky television, to stereo system, to ipod, to airplane, to landing on the mars to watching everything that’s going on in the world on a plasma television from the comfort of their home within their lifetime.

In this fast changing world, it is perfectly all right to admit to being stressed. There are many different method to overcome stress and different people handle it differently. What works for you may not work for others.

Understanding the stress and know how to control or even eliminate it is the key to the freedom of your life.

Why is it that some people can handle stress so effectively no matter what come to their way while some others throw themselves into the sea of depression just because of the tiny little thing such as a little changes in their routine or because of their assumption on what other people may think of them.

Can it be like some people find pasta is an excellent while others feel yucky about it?

I believe that you have heard of the expression “the straw that broke the camel’s back”.

Many people don’t know much about that most probably because they have never owned a camel or do not know very much about it.

Well, every camel has a limit of the weight which they can carry. If a camel has carried the maximum weight, an extra tiny weight of a feather can break its back. Literally.

The same thing goes to stress. It is accumulate and accumulate and accumulate until out of the blue, you blow up over a silly little thing such as a door left open by one of your family members.

You will undoubtedly look very unreasonable as you “scream” about the door.

It is not about the door, it is about the collection of stress.

When you do not feel comfortable about something, a regular nagging of anger, fear or frustration generate negative feelings and some unwanted reaction in your body, resulting in pains, aches or a temper.

A person who stresses easily tend to quarrel with their family members, friends, and co-workers more frequently and that leads to fights, arguments, aggressive attacks, over-reactions, changes of jobs, shy away from society and impulsive driving of vehicles.

Failure to identify the warning signals and the constant experience of stress may lead to ending up in a hospital or worse, in the coffin. (No joke. I have seen this many times)

In the next post, we’re going to see the causes of stress. Meanwhile, I’ll appreciate it if you can leave your comment and tell me what you think of this article. Thank you.