Don’t manage the damage that is related to stress. The only form of stress management that will make a difference in the way you feel is managing to be free of stress.
According to a report from the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development stress as a cause of death
overshadows stroke, heart attack, cancer and back problems. According to Beck Barrow, www.dailymail.co.uk, “Experts said the psychological condition [stress] had become so widespread that it was the ‘21st century equivalent of the Black Death’.” Likewise, Ezine Articles Expert Elisabeth Kuhn writes, “Maybe this sounds a little overdramatic but unfortunately the reality is that excessive, untreated stress can actually kill you.” Since it has been established that stress kills, what part of your stress would you really want to manage anyway?
Once we feel stressed out, the damage has been done. The body is already responding to the feeling of stress, and a whole host of negative physical and psychological symptoms have already begun. Instead of spending years in workshops and listening to stress management lectures trying to learn how to manage your stress, why not learn how to avoid feeling stressed altogether by managing your thoughts?
The million dollar question is — how do you learn to manage your thinking to avoid creating stressful feelings?