How to Reduce Negative Stress by Just Being You

Have you ever wondered about how you can reduce negative stress in your life?

One of the most common problems we are facing in society today is stress. It can show its ugly head in various forms. People are impatient, short-tempered, irritated and have low energy levels to name but a few.

Why are these problems so common in modern day’s society? They are robbing people from having an exciting and high-quality lifestyle.

“Oh, I live an exciting lifestyle”, I hear you say. Great, but why are you using all those energy-boosting supplements? Why are you using anti-depressants? Why are you on medication for high blood pressure?

“Yes, but I need all the energy I can get to meet all my deadlines”, you say. That means that you are under pressure. Don’t get me wrong, I have no problem with using supplements, I use them myself. We don’t get the proper nutritional values from our food today as we should. But when you become dependent on some of these supplements just to keep you going, it becomes a problem. When you can’t wait to take the next dose, red lights are flashing.

Who or What Is Applying The Pressure?

It is commonly accepted that everybody is facing stress today. Stress is unavoidable and everybody experiences stress. “It is part of life”, they say. To a certain degree, there is truth in that statement. But the point we easily miss is that there are two kinds of stress.

There is positive stress, and there is negative stress.

Positive stress is when we can feel the excitement of the activity we are busy with. It gets the adrenaline pumping and our minds and bodies are functioning at peak levels. We perform at our maximum capacity and we are productive and alert.

Negative stress, on the other hand, is draining our energy. We don’t feel challenged, we literally feel under pressure (and stressed).

If we don’t practice self-control, positive stress can easily turn into negative stress. We can get so carried away with whatever it is we are doing, that we don’t know when to stop for a break. In our excitement, we might set unrealistic deadlines for ourselves.  This may also lead to making commitments to other people, and eventually, we find ourselves under enormous stress and pressure. This is when positive stress turns into negative stress.

It is normal for people to talk about how stressful life is. They have stressful jobs, or they frequently have to deal with stressful situations or people. But, taking the above-mentioned scenario into consideration, we are often the cause of our own negative stress.

Why Do We Do It?

It often starts small. It might be something fun, or it might even just start out as doing a favor for someone. Yet, someone else makes a big deal out of it and tells you how great you are at doing this particular thing.

This might get other people talking too, and without even knowing, (subconsciously, without any resistance) you start feeling the need to do it again and again….and faster and faster. It feels like the natural thing to do and as if that is what everybody expects of you.

You start acting in a certain way and you start getting more and more involved in whatever it is you did. You start living up to the expectations of other people. Because other people always mention how fast you are to get the job done, you start feeling guilty when you want to slow down a bit in order to do a good job. You start trying to get more done in less time.

In this case, something eventually has to be sacrificed; either the quality of your work or your health.

Learn to Say the Magic Word – ‘No’.

If you want to have a good quality lifestyle, you need to learn how to use the magic word – ‘no’.

Yes, I know, as children we were taught the magic words are ‘please’ and ‘thank you’, but there is another magic word. That word is; ‘no’.

There are often campaigns (especially aimed at the younger generation) to teach and encourage people to say no. We ought to say ‘no’ to drugs and all kind of bad habits that can ruin our lives.

But it doesn’t stop with drugs and an immoral lifestyle. We need to develop enough confidence in whom and what we are, to start saying no. We need to find our true God-given identity and become God-pleasers instead of people-pleasers.

If you feel overwhelmed and under pressure in your business life, read “How to Use the Single Most Powerful Word in Business (Without Feeling Guilty)”

Over to You

Do you do what you really want to do? Do you do what you feel you have been called to do? Do you have the courage to say ‘no’, and do you have the freedom to choose what you will do?

Tell us about it in the comments section below.