Stress Management and Self Esteem

Stress management is a skill for life. One thing is certain, there is one constant in life and that is change.   Although change is often for the best and we welcome it it is nevertheless stressful. In fact all kinds of things are stressful for us – new people, new situations, too much information, too many demands for our time, energy and money. It is a reality of 21st century life so we have to learn how to deal with it or we will get swamped.

Like the other topics we have on this site stress management is a skill and we learn it best by seeing it modelled by people we admire and respect and by practicing it over and over again.  We are not born with all the stress management skills we need. We have to develop them. Along with our anger management, our self development and body mind and spirit connections we gradually develop them all until we are able to relax, enjoy life and feel really good about it all. Our stress levels will be manageable and we will be having a good quality of life.   So how do we do this for our stress management?

Stress management has been a trendy concept for some time now and there are many courses on how to manage our stress levels better. If there are any running in your workplace or the local college they would be worth attending because you will pick up tips that will help you. There are many books and dvd’s too and the ones we recommend will be good for you. The long and short of stress management is that you have to pay attention to your body because that is where you get all your signals about how stressed you are. Tension, stomach aches, headaches, fuzzy head not able to think clearly, tapping hard with a pencil on the desk, automatic kicking with your foot as you sit, over drinking or eating.... the list goes on but all of these little signs are signals.  Each of us has a stress management hierarchy of increasingly desperate calls from our body saying ‘don’t like that, REALLY don’t like that, feeling overwhelmed now, feeling REALLY overwhelmed now, ready to explode, ready to REALLY explode now, about to shut down and be ill now.... ‘  What we need to learn is what the signals are and what our hierarchy looks like. When we know that we can step in and take better care of ourselves using all kinds of techniques and stop our stress levels climbing.

Stress management is a life long task but one that means we will live longer and more healthily.   If we do those stress management tasks we will feel better in our spirits, more in control of our lives and have sounder self esteem. Stress management is something we ignore at our peril and this site has many suggestions for how you can help yourself.