Learn to be an efficient worrier over financial stress
Stress for Success
December 16, 2008

Financial stress triggers basic survival fears so it’s normal to worry excessively and experience symptoms like:
* insomnia
* digestive problems
* increased alcohol/drug consumption, etc.

The mind is absolutely connected to the body. So, to limit these and other negative consequences you must control your mind.

Become an efficient worrier by not worrying about what’s beyond your control. For instance, I still look at our monthly investment statements but if I start stewing about the state of our retirement funds I’ll stop. Wall Street's ups and downs are beyond my control so why obsess about them?

Or worrying about your mate’s stressful sleeping habits is also beyond your control, so don’t go there.

Instead, try these ideas to stop invasive and anxious thoughts. These only work if you use them habitually.

Redirect your thinking:
* Thought stopping: when you hear the rumblings of stressful thoughts think or say out loud, “Stop!” Repeat it over and over until you successfully stop the undesired thoughts.
* Affirmations: replace stressful ruminations with thoughts that carry you toward your positive goal. For example, for the goal of finding additional income think, “I’m finding financial opportunities.” Habitually replacing stressful thoughts with affirmations, over time, gives you more personal control, while directing your mind to look for (and find) those opportunities.

Redirect your emotions:
When stressed you’ll always react emotionally. Anger and fear, Mother Nature’s survival emotions (and “sub-emotions” like irritation, loneliness, etc.,) are present to the degree you’re stressed. They mostly operate out of the amygdala region of your brain, which also triggers your physical fight/flight response putting strain on your body and emotions. This explains the above symptoms.

Medical scientist Dr. Nick Hall reports that discomfort with negative emotions, especially anger, correlates with increased susceptibility to some cancers and immune system dysfunction like rheumatoid arthritis. He advises stopping the “chemical pinball game in the brain areas that are engaged in emotions,” by shifting your focus away from your feelings at the moment of their escalation. For example, if you’re stressed by job losses where you work he recommends finishing this incomplete statement three times in context of what’s upsetting you: “I am glad that …”
* “… I still have my job”
* “… my spouse still has hers”
* “… I still have an opportunity to be useful to my employer.”

Noting what you’re glad about in the very situation that’s driving you to the edge gives you more power and the stressor less.

Finally, in this same vein, list your “I’m gratefuls” each morning upon awakening. Given this financial mess you could be grateful for:
* Your health
* Your strong relationships
* The beautiful weather
* No hurricanes this year

The economy will do what it’s going to do. It’s certainly beyond your control. How you handle it is within your control. Even though these ideas change nothing in the tangible world, they change your internal world, which will determine how you handle this crisis, therefore its possible consequences.


Jacquelyn Ferguson, M. S., of Inter Action 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