How to Keep Stress From Killing You And Your Business

Stress kills...it’s that simple. It kills people and it kills businesses. If you're not managing your personal stress, you’re not managing your business stress, and it will ultimately kill you, your bottom line, or both. This article can help you understand if stress is hurting you, and offers concrete suggestions to manage your personal and business stress.

The research is clear that stress kills. Most diseases down to the common cold are related to stress. Physical accidents and injury increase when stress is unaddressed.

Here are the physical manifestations of unresolved stress:

• High Blood Pressure resulting in cardiovascular disease
• Headaches
• Gastrointestinal Problems including ulcers, colitis and Irritable Bowel Syndrome
• Impaired Immune System resulting including colds, flu, and cancer
• Pain

Here is a short course on how stress operates:

• Stress is our normal flight or fight response. It is the body’s reaction to danger and includes an increase in heart rate, respiration, blood pressure and serum cholesterol
• A Stressor is stimulus with the potential of triggering the fight of flight response
• Stress reactivity occurs in response to both good and bad situations such as a job promotion or birth of a child, or the loss of job or death of a loved one

Here are the problems that result from unattended stress:

• Sleep Problems - Unable to get to sleep, Night awakening unable to get back to sleep, Night sweats
• Relationship Problems - Family, parents, siblings, lovers Co-workers, teachers, friends
• Work Problems - Frequent absence due to illness, Inability to perform well, Performance problems, Inefficient time management
• Increased incidence of Accidents - Car accidents, cuts, bruises, falling

Here is what we have to do to turn a stress cycle around:

Create a personal stress management program. Personal self-care has to come before all else or we are not personally fit to manage.

A personal self-care stress management program includes the following components:

• Daily relaxation training, meditation, or self hypnosis. Enroll in a training program to learn these critical tools. There are meditation CD’s available on line, and classes available everywhere. You must learn to relax your body and mind at the same time.
• Change your personal BS – your Belief System is a critical component of your experience of stress. “The early bird catches the worm”, “You snooze, you lose”, “There is not enough for me”, “I don’t deserve it”, “Success happens to others, not me”, are all beliefs that must be examined. There are easy and quick ways to discover the origins of all your self defeating beliefs, and learn to release them. You must replace them with new and fresh beliefs followed by new and exciting decisions that insure your relaxed journey to the success you deserve.
• Get enough sleep – make sure your rest is restful. Sometime we just carry our work stress into our sleep time. Meditation along with adequate physical exercise eliminates this stressful rest.
• Exercise your body – you mind is connected. When we keep our bodies fit, it follows that our mind follows along. Make sure you engage in adequate and fun exercise at least 4 times per week.
• Get some help if you need it – consult an expert in the field if you have trouble doing it on your own. Sometimes there are unconscious blocks to being health.

To summarize:

• Stress is our reaction to perceived danger as the fight or flight reaction
• Unresolved stress results in physical, emotional and psychological problems
• A comprehensive stress management program consists of: Healthy lifestyle behaviors including diet, sleep and exercise Practicing regular relaxation exercises Intervening with our Belief System by changing our perception of stressors
• Get help when you need it