Stress-beating tips can bring Peace

Last week I began a discussion of anxiety and possible mechanisms to help reduce this potentially debilitating problem. The steps outlined below have proven helpful.

Don’t necessarily consider a quick fix a good one.
Regard ups and downs as normal and expected. The goal is to increase the ups and reduce the downs.
Recognize your assets and strengths as building blocks for improvement, rather than focusing on the liabilities in your life.
Step back and look at your situation from a different perspective. Perhaps you have been suffering from “rutted” thinking.
Talk to someone who genuinely cares and whom you can trust. Getting things off your chest may allow you to see new solutions.

Since anxiety, stress and depression stem from a myriad of causes, finding solutions to cope with them may require incorporating some other basic principles as well.

For example, research shows that feeling physically fit increases one’s ability to cope. Fitness is possible throughout the life of most individuals. The value of exercise and good nutrition are often overlooked, but they are essential elements in increasing one’s ability to cope more effectively.

Talk with your doctor to rule out a physical explanation to your problem. Medication may be helpful as an adjunct to making other changes.

It also helps to stop trying to control everything in your life. A great sense of relief can come from acknowledging and believing that a God exists who cares for us, can help us find directions and give us strength.

Strive to correct irrational beliefs about yourself and life. Examine the assumptions you make about yourself, others, and the world around you.

Are they true or based in a habitual patterns of communication you received earlier in your life?

Many individuals suffer from guilt and unresolved psychological conflict resulting from an unhappy childhood and adolescence. But most thought patterns can be corrected with help and practice.

Seek help, too, in decreasing anxiety by neutralizing it. The opposite of being anxious is being calm and relaxed. Many techniques are available to assist with this change. Relaxation exercises, meditation, and biofeedback, for instance, rank among approaches that can work well.

Finally, consider whether some of your anxiety results from goals and values that are in conflict with what you really want out of life.

Are you climbing a ladder someone else has defined as successful, competent, and worthwhile? Are you going to suddenly realize that your family grew up without your being a part of the process? Did intimacy and close relationships get pushed aside because you were too busy with your career and your personal accomplishments?

Are you going to be remembered as someone who gave of yourself to family and friends, who was sensitive to the needs of others, or as someone who only strived to meet the needs of your own ego?

Anxiety and depression are things most of us want to diminish in our lives. Reducing it is possible and attainable through insight and effort.

Copyright c 1992 Harold H. LeCrone, Jr., Ph.D.