10 ways to enjoy your stress more.
1. The Mentor Method: think of your favorite person. Someone you
love, admire, trust, like a mentor or someone from your
spiritual tradition. Simply thinking about them will help you
change your focus from the stress hooey to a more desirable
response associated with your favorite person. Also, you do not
need to wait to get stressed out to do this as thinking of your
hero's always makes you feel better. Pictures of family and
loved ones also help so make sure you have these at work. Think
of happy and/or silly times you've had with these people. Feel
better already don't you? Good. Now relax, take a deep breath
and enjoy yourself even more as you read on...
2. Create Worry zones and Stress times: pick a specific location
for your worry party and limit yourself to this location for
things worth worrying about. Get serious. Get wigged out. Get
ready to worry! Do your rants/raves only in this place you have
chosen and for the time you have specified. That's right, there
is a time limit to the moaning/groaning!
When stuff happens that you habitually worry about then go to
your zone and take care of business. Remember the time limit...5
minutes max. If this does not seem like enough time then you
must get better at worrying in a shorter time frame! Behave
yourself everywhere else.
Make sure the zone is not a place where you spend most of your
time or has other people in it. Keep the kitchen and family room
as cheerful as possible. The bedroom is for sleeping and other
pleasant activities so no worrying is allowed there. Ditto for
the office, the bathroom, the car, church meetings, movies,
restaurants, etc. Pick only one place for the worry zone.
3. Use " hello to life" activities to break out of your routines
that produce stress. One of my favorite people, Truman Madsen,
introduced me to this one. Do something radically different that
is enjoyable. For example, instead of walking/worrying do some
skipping instead. It's OK to continue with the worrying but your
main focus should be on the skipping. You skipped as a kid. It's
time to do it again. Not only will you feel better but just
think how ridiculous you'll look to other's who see you skipping
in your work clothes, carrying a briefcase and talking on the
phone at the same time! At the very least, it will make others
feel better! They may not realize you are angry or worried.
They'll simply think you are nuts.
4. Touch your nose: yes, you heard me. First, get yourself in a
great state like hilarity. Get yourself laughing and goofing
around feeling terrific. In this peak state of enjoyment, touch
your nose. Get others in on this and make yourselves laugh more
and more frequently touching your nose as you laugh, giggle,
smile. This creates a neurological "anchor" where your brain
associates the good feelings of laughing and goofing around with
touching your nose. In the future, you may simply touch your
nose to create the good feelings. If you do this a lot you may
learn to enjoy your stress. Warning: touching other people on
the nose when they are pissed off does not really help that much
so touch your own nose only.
5. Howl and hallucinate: imagine those that you are blaming for
your stress. What would they look like if you started howling at
them during the stress episode? Imagine the look on their face
when you howled with glee. Imagine the look on your in-laws
faces when you howl in their kitchen. Imagine the look on your
boss' face when you howl standing on your desk. Imagine the look
on those folks waiting in line at the grocery store when you
howl like a maniac. Need to spice up your romantic life? Next
time you are in the midst of that romantic stuff just start
howling. Your wife will think you are a stud muffin. Your
husband will think you are a hotty.
6. Motivate yourself with good feelings for a change! Many
people motivate themselves with bad feelings! Even worse, they
frequently motivate themselves to do what they don't want or
enjoy! Use pleasant voice tones to talk inside your head. Use
them to talk with others also. Think of the enjoyment associated
with completion of a project instead of the many steps required.
Focus on the benefits of what/why you are doing the activity
rather than on any unpleasantness associated with it. Also focus
on how good it will feel to be done with project and on to other
things you enjoy even more.
7. Eat real food that protects your body from stress. Junk food
decreases your body's ability to deal with stress. It also
weakens your immune system so that you are weaker and more
vulnerable to injury and/or illness. Ditto for alcohol and other
self defeating habits. Exercise is close to the magic bullet or
fountain of youth. Make sure you get enough to make a major
difference in your health/fitness levels. What is the best
exercise? Something that you enjoy enough to do several times a
week for a lifetime.
8. Procrastinate until you feel better. You've been told that
procrastination is a bad thing. You've been told wrong! I'm here
to tell you that procrastination is one of the greatest skills a
person can develop. Imagine your life rapidly improving by
procrastinating your usual responses like anger or
discouragement. I know you want to get mad at your kids and I'm
sure they deserve it, but for now, let's just procrastinate.
We'll get mad at them Saturday or maybe next week. That yummy
junk food is beginning to talk to you...well, since you are a
procrastinator, let's just procrastinate the eating the junk
until we are full from eating something healthier and don't want
it. I know that sometimes you have a tough day and people are
not sensitive to your needs but since you can procrastinate so
well perhaps we could put off the discouragement until the
Fourth of July or your maternal aunt's birthday.
9. You are special. Start acting like it. There is nobody else
like you. You are truly unique. Never in the history of our
planet has there been another you. There will never be another
you in the eons of eternity that make up the future. Never. You
are one of a kind. When God made you He was simply showing off.
Now, go do great things. You deserve them and are fully capable.
10. Everybody else is special too. Start treating them that way.
Everything in # 9 above applies to everyone. Yes, even the
boneheads. The reason they are boneheads is that they don't know
how special they are...yet. Your purpose in life could include
teaching them. Remember: we did not come to this planet to fail.
We came here to succeed on a massive scale doing the right thing
in the right way for the right reason while having a
spectacularly good time helping the others.