Take a step back, evaluate stressorsStress for Success
Stress for Success
April 17, 2007


Living by Mind Management Truisms, general rules that apply to all stress, helps you deal more effectively with life’s challenges. Keep these in mind when determining where to put your energy when something’s stressing you.

Stress is in the mind of the beholder is Mind Management Truism #1. For example, if you obsess about screaming kids in a restaurant “Those kids are driving me nuts! Why don’t parents leave unruly kids at home”, etc., you’re stressed.

It boils down to what you say to yourself. Wherever your thoughts are going that’s where you are going. Your stressful interpretation makes you stressed. Perhaps your dinner partner doesn’t even notice the kids so her interpretation doesn’t stress her. Neither of you is right or wrong. To reduce your stress, however, your thoughts must sooner rather than later lead toward problem-solving.

Mind Management Truism #2 is about your perception of control. Control equals options so it’s vital that you put your mental energy into identifying them. You usually have more choices than you think you do. If you think you don’t have any you won’t look for them. The trick is to look for options in areas where you actually have control and cope with the areas in which you have no control.

Mind Management Truism #3 is the one we’ll consider today: the more you fuss and stew about what's beyond your control the more stressed you become and the more stress energy you create. It’s normal to fuss about something for a while but how long is enough?

If you perceive something as stressful it means you see it as a threat. Stressful thoughts are by definition angry and/or fearful and are automatically triggered whenever you feel threatened. This is normal. How long you stay in these stressful thoughts determines not only how stressed you are but also which options you can or can’t see to solve the problem.

Some of you virtually never fuss but instead automatically jump into solving your stressor. Great! It may not be 100% good in situations that trigger your strong emotional reactions, however. Jumping too quickly into problem solving allows you to hold difficult emotions at arms length; you intellectualize much of life.

But repressed emotions ultimately control you more than those that you appropriately express. Denying them inhibits your ability to deal with them.

Fussing and stewing too much over stressors, delaying effective problem solving, create complications for multiple reasons:
§ The more stressed you are the more your life blinders (we all wear them) narrow so you see less and less, which also means you see fewer problem solving options.
§ When you think stressful (angry/fearful) thoughts you keep your Stress Cycle going round and round so nothing changes. You’re like a hamster stuck on a wheel; you perpetuate the very problem you supposedly want to resolve.
§ Stressful (angry/fearful) thinking releases more cortisol into your body making you more vulnerable to illness and disease.

So vent quickly about what stresses you then apply advice from a workshop participant’s grandmother, “Stop stewin’ and start doin’.”

Jacquelyn Ferguson, M. S., of InterAction Associates, is a trainer and a Stress Coach. E-mail her at www.jackieferguson.com with your questions or for information about her workshops on this and other topics and to invite her to speak to your organization.