by Faye Cox | Jun 9, 2020 | Tips
Unfortunately, there are many times in our lives when stress creeps in and causes great angst. Life is busy and work, kids, school and responsibilities can seem overwhelming at times.
74% of UK adults have felt so stressed at some point over the last year they felt overwhelmed or unable to cope.
81% of women said this compared to 67 percent of men. 83% of 18-24 year-olds said this compared to 65 percent of people aged 55 and over. (Source: mentalhealth.org.uk)
Do you feel that your stress is getting you down?
Here are some tips to help deal with stress and its after-effects.
Stress has become a major cause of anxiety and panic attacks. If not dealt with, it can have an incapacitating effect on your life. More often than not, most people with A-type personalities are prime candidates for stress induced symptoms. The perfectionism they seek in everything they do never quite measures up to their expectations. This is not a perfect world; and it’s time those who live in it realize they aren’t perfect either, and nor should they be.
Most people deal with stress in different ways; either they ignore the initial problem which caused it; retreat within themselves or fall apart. However, those who recognize the signs nip it in the bud before it completely takes over. Using simple exercises can relieve the onset of stress. For example: While sitting at your desk at work, breathing exercises can bring you back to a calm state. Going outside for some fresh air also helps.
Walking or running for 20 minutes can release endorphins which relieve stress. Listening to classical music lowers the blood pressure and brings calm within.
Sometimes, however, stress reveals itself in other ways. Light headedness, an inability to focus, feelings of pressure and palpitations are all symptoms of stress. Moreover, continued stress can produce anxiety, panic, and the fight or flight syndrome. Here is one such case of how stress can simply overwhelm and, in some cases, debilitate.
A secretary was called into her administrator’s office, which was quite large and comfortable. As she was taking dictation, she suddenly found it hard to breathe; began to lose focus; and a queasy feeling in her stomach emerged. She could no longer concentrate and left the room suddenly.
Unbeknown to her, she had just experienced an anxiety attack brought on by stress. However, while there was nothing stressful going on at the time, she later identified the cause. An unpleasant thought had entered her mind while she was taking dictation, causing fear to take over forcing her to leave the office.
Upon further examination, it was determined the stress in her home life simply became too much, and filtered its way in to her working day.
This happens all too often and vice versa, where work stresses can filter in to your family life causing arguments. health issues and in some cases total disconnection from your loved ones!
If stress is getting you down, examine the cause. Determine the origin and discuss it with a professional or a loved one. Stress, if not acted upon, can cause serious health problems. Avoid it wherever and whenever you can.
You can learn more about reducing stress in our Personal Transformation Mastery self-study course.
If you need any further help reducing stress or creating healthier habits to move you towards success you can email me or take a look at the services we offer here. Using the FLOAT system we take our clients from Chaos to Calm in both life and business and help you create the success you deserve.
You can also come and join us over on Facebook in The Positivity Hub, where we talk all things, mindset, confidence and positivity.
by Faye Cox | May 18, 2020 | Tips
Have you ever had a negative thought? Of course you have, we all have negative thoughts. We have between 50-70,000 thoughts each and every day. Have you ever uttered it out loud, even in jest? Of course you have. Negative thinking can be damaging not only to our self-esteem, but can begin a cycle of thought and behaviour which negatively impacts our own perception of events in our lives.
For example:
Perhaps you’ve been assigned a special project at work. You’re confident in taking it on, but upon completion you notice one tiny error. You begin to berate the way in which you handled the project, even though the error was not significant. While your boss is telling you what a great job you’ve done, you begin to make excuses for it. Your negativity has belittled the entire project, and magnified one area of it.
What steps can you take to avoid this pattern? Take a step back and look at the project objectively. Not only did you complete it in an efficient manner, but it will become the template for future projects. Forget about the mistake; think about what you’ve achieved. Focus on what went right, not what went wrong.
The holidays are approaching, and you need to begin cleaning the whole house ready. You look around and decide it’s just too much; you can’t do it; why bother. Stop! Take a deep breath and consider dividing up the tasks. Get your family involved to help by giving each one a specific job. Once you begin the process of prioritising, you will feel better and it will get done.
You’ve started a diet before your holiday. One day, you have a craving for a particular dessert. You quickly decide your diet is over, and it wasn’t worth the effort. You walk over to the mirror and utter to yourself, “I’m fat, and there’s nothing I can do about it.”
Wrong!
Setting yourself up for failure by thinking negatively about the way you look does not solve the immediate problem. Instead, admit to cheating; promise you’ll try harder, and allow positive thoughts to guide you through.
Improving your self-talk and re-framing your beliefs relating to it can help you think your way to a better you.
Once you discover the belief that is holding you back you can start to challenge and re-frame it.
Here are some questions you can ask yourself to challenge that belief
- Why do I believe this is true?
- Where did these beliefs come from?
- What is it that’s holding me back from achieving success?
- What can I do to change it?
Re-framing your thoughts in to positive ones is incredibly powerful and once you’ve cracked the habit of doing it, it becomes easier to catch those daily negative thoughts, stop them and give yourself a more positive thought in its place.
You can learn more about creating more positive thoughts in our Personal Transformation Mastery self-study course.
If you need any help creating better, healthier thoughts to move you towards success you can email me or take a look at the services we offer here. Using the FLOAT system we take our clients from Chaos to Calm in both life and business and help you to create the success you deserve.
by Faye Cox | Apr 30, 2020 | Tips
We all experience it at one time or another; this trespasser called stress. It is perhaps the number one cause of most health problems in our society today. Here we explore 6 ways you can deal with the stress of life in a healthy and effective manner.
* Talk about the problems you are experiencing with friends, loved ones or a professional. Keeping everything bottled up will only create more problems later on. Talking is a great way to release the inner stresses of a situation and help you gain a better perspective on the situation that is the cause of your stress.
* Exercise often. Go for a walk for 20-30 minutes either every day or at least every other day. Exercise relieves tension and produces a calming effect. Perhaps joining a gym would work better for you. Remember it needs to be something that you will do regularly.
* Yoga is not only a great form of exercise in general for creating body strength. It’s also well known for quietening the mind and creating calm. Sit in a quiet room alone and begin breathing exercises.incorporate meditation in this and you have a powerful combination for relieving stress in the mind and body.
* Music is known to calm the stress beast. Listen to something that either relaxes you or gets you up and motivated. This is a great distraction technique that works wonders.
* Healthy meals can become an important factor in limiting your stress. Ensure you eat three meals a day, and make an effort to avoid too much caffeine and sugar. We’ve all heard the term ‘hangry’ and we’ve all felt it too. Skipping meals isn’t good for either your physical or mental health. Too much caffeine will send your head in to a spin, it over stimulates the brain and can cause what I term as the fast spin on the washing machine affect.
* Sleep deprivation is a big cause of stress. Go to bed earlier. Seven to eight hours sleep can make all the difference when possible. I used to stay up later as it was the only time I got to myself when the kids were younger, but it wasn’t doing me any good in the long run. In fact it was having the adverse effect.
Coping with stress can be challenging. Every day you seem to be pulled in every direction, trying to accommodate others, living in what feels like chaos. The first priority is to take care of YOU. YOU are the thread that holds your family together. If you’re stressed, you won’t be much good to anyone. You need to fill your cup first. You need your cup to be over-flowing so that your over-flowing cup then fills your partners and your kids cups. If you fill theirs first, then there is nothing left for you.
Give yourself a break every now and then. Buy a new outfit; go see a movie; do something you’ve always wanted to do. Your family can take care of themselves for one day. Alone time is just as important to you as it is for everyone else. Think of yourself as a gas tank; eventually you will run out of fuel.
Laughter is a wonderful release. You’ve probably noticed those times when you’ve laughed so hard, you cried. This is probably due to the fact you haven’t laughed in a while, and the tension released through laughter is the best cure-all method for dealing with stress-related issues.
Avoid stressful situations whenever possible. If you are a working mom, it’s probably not the job but the people who are causing you the most stress. Take everything in your stride and remember that it’s not about you, it’s about them.
If you can’t finish a task, don’t worry about it. If dinner doesn’t turn out as you expected, improvise or get a take-away. We stress over so many things that really don’t matter! No-one is judging you anywhere near as much as you’re judging yourself, so give yourself a break and stop being so hard on yourself.
Life is too short; and stress can reduce it even further. Nothing is more important than your health or state of mind. Eleanor Roosevelt wisely said, “No one can make you a victim without your consent.” She was right; it is, after all, up to you.
If you’d like help managing your stress then feel free to book a FREE 30 minute call with me where we can discuss how I can help you further.
by Faye Cox | Mar 16, 2020 | Uncategorized
Some people have a difficult time in managing their anxieties and fears. In addition, a person’s self-esteem and self-confidence can also suffer. As a result, here is a list of techniques a person can use to help manage their anxieties, fears, and self-esteem.
Remember that practice makes perfect. Whenever it comes to dealing with your anxieties or any other task; practice, patience, and persistence is the name of the game. If you don’t get the desired results the first time around, then keep trying until you do. Through practice, you will become better at the task at hand and your self-confidence will increase. This also applies to managing your anxieties.
In every anxiety-related situation you experience, begin to learn what works, what doesn’t work, and what you need to improve on in managing your fears and anxieties. For instance, you have a lot of anxiety and you decide to take a walk to help you feel better. The next time you feel anxious you can remind yourself that you got through it the last time by taking a walk. This will give you the confidence to manage your anxiety the next time around.
Sometimes, we can get anxious over a task that we will have to perform in the near future. When this happens, visualise yourself doing the task in your mind. For instance, you and your team have to play in the championship volleyball game in front of a large group of people in the next few days. Before the big day comes, imagine yourself playing the game in your mind. Imagine that you’re playing in front of a large audience. By playing the game in your mind, you will be better prepared to perform for real when the time comes. Self-Visualisation is a great way to reduce the fear and stress of a coming situation and increase your self-confidence.
Don’t forget to ask for help when needed. A person can only do so much. Asking for help can give us additional resources to help manage our fears and self-confidence. It is not always easy, however as humans, we thrive on being asked to help others and if you ask the right people it will lighten the load. Remember the old saying ‘a problem shared is a problem halved’.
Write down on a list everything that you are thankful for. Do not take anything for granted. The next time you feel down, take out your list and review everything that you have listed. This is a great way to remind us of what we have when we lose sight of the good things.
It can be difficult to manage our anxieties and self-esteem. If you are having trouble despite asking for help from friends and family etc. then talk to a professional who can help you manage your fears, anxieties and self-esteem. They will be able to provide you with additional advice, techniques, tools and insights on how to deal with your current problem. In the meantime, remember to take it one day at a time.
You can book a FREE 30 minute clarity call with me to see how I may be able to help
