Stress Reliever

How to Nail Stress

Most people report stress as being their number one problem at work, but there is a method of categorising pressure which can help you deal with stressful situations.
Put simply: it is to do with your ability  of keeping your sense of perspective whilst experiencing  a stressful situation. So when the pressure build you need to be able to build the skil of stepping back and considering where the stress ranks against real-life threatening experiences. Sounds easy doesn't it - but how is this kind of mind-game carried out in your place of work?

Life is of course full of very stressful situations.  But broadly speaking they can be categorised into various levels of severity.  For example: thre is a clear distinction which is easy to grasp, between a life-threatening situation - like failing to do something on time for your boss, on the other.

Now measured against the stress categories above, most work related pressure is really quite minor.  A deadline missed, a meeting attended late or an incomplete project, just can't measure up against real-life threatening problems. And yet the stress levels experienced by some can be almost identical.

So nailing stress is all about keeping it in perspective. As you feel the pressure growing, step back for a moment and in your mind rate the likely outcome of failing to meet the deadline or attend that meeting.. Sure, you might upset some around you; it might even lead to your losing your job. But in the process of categorising those things that really matter, you'll quickly see that none of the above are life threatening propositions.  And once you have this one simple fact in perspective - the immediate stress will semm far easier to handle. Indeed you've just nailed your stress.

If you feel stressed all the time you need to check out whether you're heading for burnout. click here to complete this assessment. The sooner you understand the signs of burnout and are more aware of your condition the sooner you can do something positive about it.

Hypnotherapy helps cancer patients

I have come to realize that the power of the mind is staggering.  I was working the other day with a client who suffered from severe back pain that limited her both mentally and physically.  She believed that her pain was something sinister and suspected it was cancer.  Such thoughts rushed through her mind at night keeping her awake, damaging her health further and making her feel even more tired and helpless during the day.

We worked together on creating a calm mind space for her so that she could allow her subconscious to get to work on the healing  process.  Through regression we  pin-pointed a significant event in her past that led her to have little belief in herself and that meant she could not move forward. Once she had been able to re-process this event her progress was swift.

The woman's fears that she had cancer reminded me of a recent BBC headline claiming that hypnosis should be a core therapy in the treatment of cancer.

Phyllis Alden, consultant psychologist in the department of clinical oncology at Derbyshire Royal Infirmary, made this claim a couple of years ago: "It helps people achieve control of their emotions and be calm and relaxed.  It can also help in symptom control, for example treating pain and nausea."

Most anyone can be hypnotized and therefore benefit. Learning the art of self hypnosis is a life enhancing skill, that once learned can help you reduce and manage pain, prepare for demanding situations, discover and reconnect to inner resources and abilities and generally be more self aware.

A simple way to introduce yourself to the power of self-hypnosis is to find a few quiet moments where you can sit quietly and become aware of your breathing. As you do this find something a little above eye level to rest your eyes on as you continue to be gently aware of your breathing, noticing as you do that it slows right down. Now just keep your eyes fixed on that spot and notice the rest of the room or environment that you're aware of on the edges of your vision, be aware of the feeling of your body in the chair and your feet on the floor and just stay with your breathing happening gently all by itself and notice how your state has changed. This is just the beginning of how to enter a state of trance where your mind has a single focus and therefore increased power to resolve problems or heal your body.

Sometimes we don't appreciate the level of stress we have become used to and this is dangerous, it can lead to serious illness.  If you're in any doubt take a self assessment here check your levels of stress here and if they are higher than you thought decided to take some action today before it's too late.

Zap Stress and Take Action

We can often get into a state of anxious paralysis to the point where we feel like a rabbit caught frozen-still in the headlights of an on-coming car.

How does this happen? Well if you have big ambitions for your career or business then you no doubt have a big picture in your mind of what must happen for you to succeed. Perhaps it’s making a certain amount of profit in a period or year, or getting promoted or developing winning relationships.

Now thinking big like this can be a very good way to get to where you want to go.

On the other hand, as I find with my clients it can often be the source of stress and paralysis. Let me explain. A common scenario that means my client is suffering this kind of paralysis is when they say: ’I’m losing sleep because I get loud, anxious thoughts swimming around about not having achieved enough and my big goal is impossible’.

Or perhaps my client describes an increasing inability to present or perform well because they’re worried about the damage they may do to their career prospects if they’re not perfect.

Sound familiar? What I would suggest to both of these clients is to decide consciously to daily take action toward their big picture.
Or even better to think big picture but to paint one small piece at a time.

So if your big picture is to have enough profit at the end of the year then decide on a daily basis what small step you can take to ensure this. It might be to buy a software programme to make it easier for you to input your expenditure and income. Or to investigate the cost of a professional accountant to keep your finances in order.

Whatever it is you decide to do when you consciously and regularly do it, it has the effect of coding in your mind that the big picture is actually getting completed. And that means your mind is able to record the evidence that the big picture is possible and allows it to build the next constructive step to take..

Making sense to you now? So what do you see yourself doing on a regular basis towards achieving your big picture or dream? Write it down now and start making your dream come true . . . . .

Over the many years that I've worked with clients a common desire comes up and that is to achieve more and to make work easier.
In today's fastpaced world of work it's easy to get sucked in by doubting self-talk and thoughts to the point where you begin to believe them. Often all that's needed to create a feeling of being more successful in your life and in control is a change of perspective so that you can re-connect to your own streghts and powers.
If you're interested in learning how to perform at your best, bounce back from challenges faster and get more done then please read on.
Over the come weeks I am going to give you specially slected exercises and strategies that you can use immediately and over time to help your life, your career or business flourish.
This new free service has been carefully crafted and condenses years of my own experience in business and therapeutice knowledge to meet the needs of a professional like you who wants to excel in your field and feel in control.
You probably already know that there are things you can do to help yourself - if only you knew what they were. Well I am going to help you there, if you follow all of just some of these ideas and exercies and incorporate them into your life you will feel the benefit.
That doesn't mean you have to completely change your life, just make small adjustments over time. That way you'll find that over time you will have made a huge change in the way you view life and deal with what it throws at you.Now if you're in a hurry and want to dive into some immediate help now then why not consider my e-course 'Beat the Burnout Blues', it's choc full of helpful and practical actions that you can apply straightaway and over the long term to improve your outlook and the quality of your life.
In the meantime . . . . do one small thing now . . . . b-r-e-a-t-h!  Whilst you're sitting there in your chair reading this, just become aware of your breathing . . . . the rythm, the gentle rise and fall of your breathing. And as you notice this just become aware of the small sounds around you and let you mind wonder, whilst your eyes find a comfortable place to stare at just above the height of your pc-screen  . . . . . . keep noticing your breathing, the sounds outside . . . your gaze . . . . then when you're ready come back. There a small exercise in staying in the moment and in reality, so that your mind can reclaim peace and space. Doing this from time to time will boost your powers of concentration and problem solving. So practice!

Are Bad Habits Making You Blue?

We all makes mistakes, most of them we recover from fairly easily, others make us feel helpless and stuck.  The later are usually the final straw type that follow a seemingly endless negative period where one thing after another is going wrong.

When we are in the midst of these bouts of bad luck our focus is on the negative and that means we are tuning out the positives in our lives.

Let me give you an example.  The other day I asked I client who'd come feeling at the end of her tether and complaining of feeling strung out and anxious all the time. "If you didn't feel stressed; what would you be able to do instead?"

She looked at me for a moment or two, opened her mouth to start to speak, changed her mind and paused. Then started to explain all the things that were making her stressed and how she didn't want to be so stressed.

My client had got so used to focussing only on her stressed state and the reasons why she felt that way that her mind was stuck in that grove, seemingly unable to go in any other direction. It had become a deeply ingrained habit.

Habits like this and others are often the reason why people stay stuck with feelings of being helpless and hopeless.

There are some common mental habits that keep people stuck and cut off from living a full life and here are my top 5

Top 5 Mental Habits to Keep you Feeling Blue and Stuck:

1. Believing your thoughts are in charge.  Stop and ask yourself: 'Where do my thoughts come from?'  You answer should be obvious, but sometimes you need to remind yourself that you are in control of your thoughts.
2. Fogetting all the acievements you've made in your life. A sure way to keep yourself on a downward spiral is to never think about you have achieve or what is good in your life right now.
3. Stop any connection with nature. This is a good way to cut yourself off from feelings of vitality and optimism.  Stay away from every opportunity of taking a walk on grass, to notice the sky, the trees,to hear birdsong and breath in the air.
4. Resist exercise or spontaneous action.  Our bodies are meant to move and when we avoid doing this our minds suffer the consequence and feel stagnent and even more inclined to feel sorry for ourselves.
5. Decline invitations to socialise and stay in touch. Taking the focus off ourselves and outwards to other people especially those we love or consider our friends breaks the spell of introversion. We are by nature social animals and thrive on interaction with others.

Do you find yourself guilty of any or all of the above?  If you are curious as to hw oa few simple changes in your habitual thinking patterns can make big changes in your life why not explore my new e-book Beat the Burnout Blues.  It is practical, step by step help that really works and is the result of many years experience working with clients one to one. 

Or stay tuned to this Blog for the next few weeks to find out other ways to help yourself live the life you were meant to.

What's the negative mental habit that you realise has not served you well or kept you in a negative state of mind.  Please share it here.

Hypnotherapy works for chest pains

I read this headline today on BBC News service and was amazed but not surpised. Apparently severe chest pain that is not cardiac related is a common complaint that GPs are faced with.
And in effect they advise patients:  "It's all in your mind, there's nothing wrong with you."

To me it's just further proof of how your mind can whip up such high states of anxiety that acute physical pain is the result. 

You know how it happens; life just gets busier and busier, more people around you make demands and then don't even seem grateful when you pull out all the stops to help them. You feel tired and resentful.

Then all it takes is just one more thing to go wrong and bam! You feel awful, panicky, you've got chest pains - you can't think, you're worried you might die.  Pretty soon you are an emotional and physical wreck.  You ask yourself: 'How did it get this bad?'

The answer is simple.  You didn't give yourself mental space, time and due consideration in between tasks and demands.  For some reason in this fast paced Western society we've got into the idea that we must be constantly busy and stimulated, so our minds never have the chance to reflect, take stock and chill out.

When I work with clients for stress and burnout we spend time on learning the art of relaxation, and yes it is an art.  To know and experience deep relaxation is one of life's important skills to learn.  It will prolong your life, reduce pain, help you solve problems quickly and feel more resilient.

Hypnotherapy and deep relaxation significantly helps with pain relief. Knowing how to relax and then doing so improves your sense of well being and takes away the feelings of helplessness.

Your state of mind is something you have control over – even if it doesn’t seem like it at times!

Often the reason for our stressed out feelings is that we let our imagination run away, building mountains out of mole-hills and bombarding us with bad news and foreboding.

The trick is to break this habitual thought pattern and do so very distinctly.

One of the easiest and unobtrusive ways is to take to simply take a long slow breath in through the nose, gently hold it for a count of four and then let the breath out as if sighing slowly. Try it now . . . . . feel the difference it makes with just one breath. Now try two more and with each out breath say the word ‘relax’ to yourself. Now how do you feel? How easy was that?

If you are worried that you're heading for burnout complete this assessment Burnout Quiz  and take action now to reduce the number of stress triggers in your life.

technorati tag: stress stress

Another holiday over

The Easter break for most of us is over and it's been the first day back to work, the morning spent staring perhaps at a pc screen and zapping into the delete folder as many e-mails as possible with a small sense of glee.

It is surprising sometimes to stop and discover what pleases us and how limiting these small unconsidered pleasures really are. 

What if you decided at the beginning of the day the kind of discoveries, actions and exchanges with other people do please you that you'd like to have. 

Perhaps you might decide to make at least one person smile today.  That person could be a stranger on your train journey, the person who serves you at the coffee shop, the stranger that you help by holding the door open for them.

There are numerous ways for you to make this small event happen, but what you'll notice now is that by having that thought for just a nano-second whilst reading this text images or notions of how it could happen and the immediate outcome have already popped into your head.

This is the marvel of your mind, once you give it direction it will set a course almost immediately. So why not put this to good use and populate your forthcoming days and weeks with a number of small but life enhancing events to look forward to that give you real noncommercial pleasure. Don't limit yourself to my earlier suggestion include other nature-oriented pleasures like noticing the sunlight and clouds, or the trees emerging into bud as spring marches headlong into summer.

Set your imagination free and it will do the work for you. The thing about doing this is that it will become the norm over a relatively short period of time and you'll notice the difference in many ways. You'll feel more positive , you'll attract new responses from the people around you because you are noticing more of what's good in life.  We tend to gravitate towards people with positive vibes and those that send out such vibes usually appreciate the simple pleasures in life and as a consequence suffer less stress.  Think about it . . . . . and let me know.

The Language of Stress

It occured to me today whilst I was busy multi-tasking on my 'day-off' how the language we use in our heads has such a direct affect on the way we feel.

I was struggling to get to grips with putting some new copy on my website www.lizlabrum.co.uk about a new e-book I've finished. After the third time of trying and failing to master the process my mind was awash with phrases that I won't bother to repeat here, I felt thoroughly defeated.

I gazed out the window with the rain lashing against the glass.  In that moment I realised that I was allowing the thoughts in my head the upper-hand. A quick change of emphasis and I was underway with renewed enthusiasm.

To understand what I mean try this: How would you describe a relaxed and comfortable situation?

Now describe a stressful situation. Notice the words you use to describe both of these situations.

Your choice of words and phrases influences your feelings.

As an example, look at yourself in a mirror and say the following words, thinking of something that you did recently, “I failed, I totally failed to reach my ideal.” When you complete that, how do you feel having said those words? Note the expression on your face as you said them.

Now look at yourself and say, “I succeeded in some ways, and learned how to respond in a smarter way.” With the saying of these words, how do you feel? What does your expression look like? It should be clear that your choice of language does indeed affect your body. You can see that some words and the phrases that you use can move you into a more relaxed state while others shift you into a not so relaxed state.

The following offers a Three Step Process designed to take advantage of language in order to improve your perspective on life.

1. See the situation that produces stress. Hear the language you and other people use. Feel how you feel affected by your language and that of others.

2. Replace negative words and phrases with positive, uplifting words and phrases.
3. Repeat to yourself silently, but with a loud internal voice, positive, uplifting words or phrases that you find solution-oriented. See yourself in the mirror. Then ask yourself how you feel when you use a different set of uplifting words and phrases.

So when life starts to get too busy and you can feel your well being being drawn into a web of negative thoughts, just stop a moment and check out your language. You'll be glad you did!

Is life Stressing You?

You may have noticed that after yet another stressful day at work the idea of looking after yourself or taking some time out for meditative reflection doesn't have much appeal.

Perhaps more tempting is to have some comforting chocolate, maybe a drink or two and generally crash out in front of the TV for the evening.

However long term this course of action to combat the feelings of stress leaves you less able to cope and leads to health problems such as obesity, IBS, diabetes, high blood pressure and heart disease.
Stress is epidemic and many people suffer, in fact up to 64% of the UK workforce are suffering according to research carried out by the UK's Health and Safety Executive.

Unchecked stress can lead to burnout, a term that succinctly describes a state of emotional and physical exhaustion that brings sufferers to a standstill and will take many months if not years to recover from.

Many of us suffer from stress but what exactly is it?  Briefly it's a chronic state of anxiety and fear.   For most of us living this high-tech, high-speed 21st century life the source of our fear is mostly around our perceived ability to perform against our peers or meet the demands of our job or providing for our loved ones.

Fear is a natural and useful instinct and kept our ancestors alive when they needed to fight or flee. 
However in most people's place of work this reflex mechanism of muscles flushing with blood; shoulders and neck tensing and raising levels of adrenalin doesn't help us at all. In fact it becomes a big disadvantage because we never release this tension, we just store it up with a large helpings emotionally charged resentment and frustration. The result is a continuous self-feeding loop of stress, fatigue, feelings of self doubt and reliance on short term fixes and rewards such as binge drinking, smoking, drugs and comfort eating.

It's very easy to slide into this way of life and even easier for it to lead to burnout when your mind and body pretty much closes down.  Burnout doesn't happen overnight and can happen to anyone, it begins with small warning signals and if unheeded these symptoms get worse until you find you just can't drag yourself out of bed.

So what symptoms should you look out for? There are many but here are a few of the behavioural type:

• withdrawing from close/intimate relationships
• loss of appetite or overeating
• criticizing or blaming others
• being more or less inert in front of the TV for hours
• using tranquillizers or other drugs
• finding your are more cynical about work/career

Some typical physical symptoms are:

• headaches
• back and neck pain
• muscular tension
• Allergies
• stomach upsets
• colds that don't go away
• palpitations

If you are reading this, mentally ticking the symptoms and you may be asking; "Well what can I do - I don't have any power over what happens to me at work?" 

You are right of course, however you can change the way you think and respond to common triggers.  As human beings we have the ability to think, unfortunately that tends to mean we go over and over problems in our heads without ever solving them.

Has it occurred to you ever that your best solutions to problems have been when you weren't even thinking about them?  Perhaps you were driving  or mindlessly doing some task and  your mind suddenly creates an answer.

Therein is the clue to allowing ourselves to recover from the stresses of our lives. Our brains weren't meant to be constantly stimulated or thinking, we need downtime and mental space. 

One way to start creating this is to take a moment every so often to focus on our breathing.  Go on try it now.  Just sit there and be aware of your breathing. Imagine it happens from your belly area and notice the difference.  Now let it slow down a little and become deeper with your out breath taking longer than your in breath. Just decide to soften your muscles with each out breath . . . . .  and keep this going, noticing any feeling that lets you know you're slowing down and your mind is calming . . . .
Perhaps you could close your eyes for a moment . . . .. Then come back let your eyes focus on something in the distant, perhaps the view outside. Now stretch your arms up and yawn. Check how  you feel - lighter and brighter? 

Techniques such as this are great ways to build your skill in staying grounded and in the here and now.

Finding ways to break free from the destructive spiral of internal doom laden thoughts means we change our response to stress triggers and be more resourceful.

In my forthcoming posts I shall give you more techniques designed to build your skills in stress resilience and to give long term strategies to  help you feel mentally stronger and more able to meet your emotional your needs.

Til the next post take care and remember to BREATHE!