Everyone responds differently to stressful events. That stress response is part instinct and part to do with how we think. We can train our minds how to best respond to the stressors in our lives.

Stress does not need to be all bad.

Some stress in our daily lives is good and challenges us to reach even higher heights.

This is dedicated to helping people, everywhere, to harness
the stress in their lives and channel it into something that is beneficial and positive.

Identifying Stress in your Life

Many people go through their days not aware of the stress in
their lives. They might think, Well, how serious can it be if I don't even know it exists?

Regardless of how little or how much stress you have in your
life, being able to identify it will be a big help to you. Once you are able to identify the stress in your life for what it is, you can then go about the business of dealing with it more effectively.

Make no mistake about it, if there is stress in your life, chances are you are reacting negatively to at least some of it.

Keep a Stress Diary

When you commit to keeping a Stress Diary, you gain important insight into how you react to stress. This allows
you to better channel your energy into performing as you choose to and not as the result of the unidentified stress that has a foothold in your life.

You will begin by recording, each day, information about the
stresses you are experiencing. Your goal will be to analyze
these stresses and then better manage them.

Here is an example of a day one entry:

. Woke up late (alarm did not go off)
. Got the kids off to school in an awful rush, very cranky
. Arrived to work without any breakfast, feeling like a zombie
. Short-tempered with co-workers all day
. Picked up kids from school and nearly bit their heads off
. Locked myself in my room.
. Stayed in room entire night, sleeping and watching TV, had a bath

Your Stress Diary will better help you to understand:

> What causes your stress in more detail?
> Level of stress that you operate at most efficiently
> How do you react to stress? Are your reactions appropriate and useful?

When you write your Stress Diary each day, you will gain valuable insight that will help you to manage stress more proactively.

So that you can best analyze your stress, include the following information:

*Date and time of each entry

*How do you feel right now? On a scale of 1 - 10 with 1 being miserable and 10 being ecstatic

*Record your mood on a scale of 1 - 10 with 1 being low and
10 being very happy

*Record how effective you feel you are on a scale of 1 - 10
with 1 being very ineffective and 10 being highly effective

*How stressed out do you feel? On a scale of 1 - 10 with 1 being in a Zen state and 10 feeling like you are crawling out of your skin

*What stress symptom do you feel?

*How did you handle the stress?

Analyze your Stress Diary

Commit to making daily entries into your diary over a
reasonable period of time. After a period of about 4 weeks,
you should be able to start to see patterns.

Some of your behaviors which are provoked by stress will be
repeated on a regular basis. Make a list of those behaviors
that you see most often. These will be the stressors in your daily life you will want to learn to control first.

Next, look at the causes of these obvious stressors. Also,
look at how well you managed them on a day-by-day basis.
When you can identify areas where you can learn to manage
your stress responses better, list those.

List all of the every day events of your life that cause you
stress and list how these events made you feel.

By now you can see the contrast in what events cause you the
most stress compared to what events cause you the least.
You can now see at what stress level you can function best.

Your goal now will be to lessen the stress in your life by managing how you deal with stressful situations and you can
do this by responding to the stress in your life in a more proactive/positive manner.

There is no better time than to Get into Stress Management to Reduce Stress Today! Stress Reduction is the best way to live life, stop feeling that stress and anxiety...come and live the better life you deserve.

© Copyright 2005 Janice Pagan

Janice Pagan makes it easy to help anyone Zap Stress out of their life. For more ways to take control of your stress, visit us now at:http://www.Better-Family.com/stress-management