5 sure ways to kick Stress

- Cuddle me, darling?
- Oh, sorry, sweetie, but I must run! I am on the mission, I need to do this and then that and then this....
The list goes on.

Are you a super-busy person too? So busy that you don't have time to breath out, take a moment and give your partner a cuddle?

Do you feel overwhelmed with millions of things to be done? Yes, in our days stress is a status quo, an attribute of a certain lifestyle, like a car or designer jeans. It is fashionable to be busy. Who can afford to leave the office at 5 pm? Who can openly talk about the whole weekend spent snuggled up in bed, munching apples and reading a silly love-story book? Oh no! This is viewed as an element of laziness, even some kind of failure. People congratulate us on being able to juggle so many balls without dropping any. It is some sort of competition: who is the Busiest, who is the most Stressed.

Stress addiction
Watch out for these factors:

• You are switching out of conversations because you are thinking about other things to be done
• Feeling rushed wherever you are because you feel that you must be now attending to something else
• Feeling uncomfortable and nervois when you find yourself doing nothing

What might have started as an attempt to make yourself appear important, or to make yourself feel indispensable, either at work or in your personal life, could have turned into an addiction to the powerful hormones that are released by your body in response to stress. It is very easy to get used to adrenalin rush and to start accepting the buzz as a norm.
In my article on Personality Types http://cherryblossomcoach.blogspot.co.nz/p/personality-types.html you would have read that some of us, like Powerfuls, for instance, absolutely thrive on stress and emergency situations.
Once you've understood what keeps you super-busy and why its happening, you will be able to see that 'stress addiction' is nothing more than bad habit and can be kicked as all other bad habits.

Deal with it!

• Sit down and give yourself an honest answer: are you really busy or you're 'busying' yourself, wanting others to see how important and busy you are?
• If you still believe that all the things that keep you so busy are important to be done, then the next step is to take a sheet of paper and start writing lists what really needs to be done. Use a red marker or pen to scratch out each completed task. I promise: you will feel less overwhelmed and sressed once you see it all in front of you, on a piece of paper. You will feel more in control!
• Get rid of all the time wasters like posting your ever-changing status on Facebook, or attending to dozens of newsletter-type emails in your Inbox. Yes, sure, the information that is contained in there seems to be of vital importance, but you usually end up rather stressed after jumping from one informative email to another. Before you know it, at least 40 minutes are gone from your day.
• Still feeling stressed and overwhelmed with your own busyness? Take some time off. Change your daily routine and do something that you won't be doing otherwise: put those cosy socks on, grab a good book or even latest gossip magazine, make yourself a cup of relaxing herbal tea and forget about the world. Purposely!
• Have a glass of wine with your friend and a good giggle. If laughter doesn't come easy in your situation, have a good cry! I'm serious: both, laughter and tears are wonderul cleansers of stress.

Do be aware, however:
- if you having problems sleeping
- find it hard to concentrate
- feel depressed and have muscle pains
- having problems with your skin,
do seek professional advice. Chiropractors, herbalists and GPs are absolutely capable of helping you, if needed!

And to end my today's post, I would like to mention two of my favourite quotes on stress:

"Stress is nothing more than a socially accepted form of mental illness" - Richard Carlson
" There is more to life than increasing its speed" - Gandhi

Think about it. I welcome your comments!