The world around you seem is in chaos and it’s no wonder why so many of you are having a hard time to manage stress and find inner peace. Although you have no control over the planet, you do control your internal dialogue. Have you ever convinced yourself that all of the good in your life has happened by mere chance?
Did you ever stop to think that perhaps you attract positive things when you think positively? It isn’t about chance, it’s about action. Your thoughts determine your actions, which shapes your life experience. Internal Dialogue What is it? It’s the inner voice you hear, the one that narrates your life. It guides your actions, comments on the world around you, applies reasoning and logic or pushes you to overreact where you will need to manage stress.
Your internal dialogue influences the decisions you make, the opinions you form, what you believe, what you should do, how you should act, and so on. This non-stop dialogue doesn’t just shape you; it shapes how you view the world. It runs on autopilot if you allow it to, but you can gain control over it. In worst cases, manage stress. In fact, if you don’t learn to manage stress and how to control it you will struggle to relieve your level of stress and find inner peace.
The Link
Think about this. The muscle structure of your face allows you to smile when you feel happy. Just like the act of smiling alone can increase your happiness. Likewise, there is a link between feelings and thoughts. If you feel down, it’s because you’ve been having negative thoughts. If you feel great, it’s because you’ve been having positive thoughts. When you manage stress you produce more positive thoughts to turn negativity positive.
This mostly unconscious internal dialogue is guiding you. Yet, if you switch to manual, you can take control and make your thoughts conscious. Let me ask you this. Do you feel as though your emotions control you? Or, do you believe you have total control over them? You can probably point to both as being true. Sometimes it’s easier than other times to manage stress and emotions.
When your emotions are in the driver’s seat, it’s your opportunity to tap in to gain an insight into why you allow your feelings to dominate your life. When you gain this self-awareness and pay attention to what your internal dialogue is saying, you can change it.
Control It
Accept that your feelings influence your thoughts, and this influences your behavior. It’s the only thing that you can control in this world and if you want to relieve stress and find inner peace, then you have to learn this control to manage stress. You cannot focus on negative or sad thoughts. This will only fuel the behavior you’re trying to avoid and make it difficult to manage stress. More importantly, if you allow it to continue it can change your personality and shape your future in ways that you don’t wish it to be shaped.
By becoming aware of your internal dialogue and learning to correct it, you’re giving yourself a green light to succeed. Manage stress because it’s something you will have to practice until it becomes your default setting. Think about it as new operating software, software so big you have to delete some things before you can install it.
That’s what taking control of your internal dialogue is. This isn’t to say you’re not allowed to experience typically negative emotions. Rather, it’s about learning how to process them healthily and looking to the positives in every situation, so it doesn’t influence your internal dialogue and you now capable to manage stress.
When you feel your dialogue turning negative, start thinking the opposite and exaggerate that by ten. Feel positive, influence your internal dialogue to be positive, and build your own world to manage stress.
Manage Stress
Stress is a killer. It poisons your mind and your body from the inside out, draining you of all your mental and physical energy as it takes control. Managing your stress by incorporating many de-stressing routines and minimizing and/or eliminating significant burdens from your life can help you to improve your outlook and overall quality of life, as well as your health.
Stress Eats Away at You
Have you ever noticed that after particularly stressful workdays, you feel three times as exhausted as you do at the end of a typical workday? That’s because stress eats away at you and drains your energy. Stress can cause indigestion and worsen other digestive conditions. It can cause and worsen heartburn and acid reflux when you are unable to manage stress.
It can cause headaches and migraines, worsen inflammation, and increase other pains. There are many other health risks that excess and prolonged stress can cause. Stress wears at your body both inside and outside, rendering you exhausted and useless, leaving behind a shell. It leaves you weak and irritable when you haven’t learn to manage stress.
Not Managing Your Stress Can Kill You
Too much stress left unattended can cause life-threatening conditions to crop up. Stress can cause heart attacks, strokes, and even aneurysms, all of which can kill you. Unfortunately, you’re not guaranteed a warning for when your body has had enough. The heart attack, stroke, or an aneurysm caused by your stress very well might kill you. That’s why it’s so vital that you manage stress now before it’s too late. Only you can control how you manage stress.
It can be challenging to figure out how to dial down your stress level because each person’s routine will be different. What works to de-stress and minimize stress in one person can be completely different for another.
Stress Can Have Adverse Effects on Your Behavior and Your Relationships
Stress can greatly affect your mood and behavior. It can make you angry, cranky, and short-tempered. It can cause you to lash out at those who are important to you and have little patience with others. Elevated levels of stress could also cause you to react poorly in high-stress or emergency situations. It can cause you to panic much sooner or act impulsively.
Stress can also cause you to react poorly in situations where things don’t go your way. It can cause you to pitch a fit or panic at the sight of something not going according to plan or not going how you want. This could have adverse effects on your relationships, be it romantic, friendships, or familial relationships. If you treat people poorly, they aren’t going to want to hang around you. This could cause strain on your family relationships, romantic relationships, and friendships. It could even destroy them merely for not being able to manage stress.
Manage Stress
To effectively manage stress, you have to first admit to it. The next step is to identify your most significant pressures and come up with a plan to eliminate them. Next, you need to determine what it is that helps you to relax and de-stress. Coming up with a plan for relaxation to help lessen your stress is essential. It will help to prevent panic or cause you to flounder for a de-stressor.
Once you have both these plans in place, it’s time to get active in eliminating and minimizing your stress. Start delegating some of your responsibilities and saying no to too many obligations.
All of us have a degree of stress, some more than others, but if we don’t work to manage, then we could be the ones to suffer because of it. Stress can affect every part of your body. It rips at your relationships and your life. It is known to ruin friendships and cause rifts at work. It can make you sick and even kill you. Your ability to manage stress is essential to functioning correctly and having an overall positive outlook on life.
5 Tips to Stay Positive During a Crisis
So how can we maintain the positive thinking we’ve worked so hard to cultivate back when there wasn’t a crisis? Making positive changes is hard enough when things are normal! Well, thankfully, you have more time to read now. Sometimes you need to accept that you are feeling bad and leave it at that.
Make a New Routine, To Manage Stress
Humans run on routine. If you take it away from us, we end up being stinky, drunk balls of anxiety. If your habit was going to the gym, go to work, come home and make dinner, then you need to keep it going as best you can. Start your day with an at-home workout. Then shower and get ready for work as you usually would, even if you work at home. It will tell your brain that you are transitioning into work time. After work, you can still make dinner.
Don’t Stop Practicing Self Care
The gym is closed, but that doesn’t mean you need to stop working out. Meditation and yoga are encouraged at home, and you’d better keep eating right. Self-care keeps your body and mind in shape, and you’ll need them healthy. So, take care of yourself the way you did before all this. You may need to find new creative ways to meditate now that your kids are home, but you must take the time. If nothing else, it’s something to do.
Make Time to Think
When you have nothing but time to think, then you need to fill more of your time. Look for a new job, learn a new skill, or start a new project. If you are the type of person who never makes time to think, however, then you will need to make it yourself. Time to think is like meditation, but it’s more like being your therapist. Consider your routine. Is it working? Are you happy? If not, why? Are you just stressed because we all have to stay home, and a disease is spreading? That’s reasonable, give yourself a break it helps you manage stress.
Keep Your Eyes on the Prize
They say what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. This cliché may seem old, but there is scientific proof! (Post-traumatic Growth: Conceptual Foundations and Empirical Evidence, Tedeschi, Richard G.) When times get hard, some people become more energetic on the other side with a better appreciation for life in general. For them it helps manager stress. They build bridges that fix and strengthen relationships and learn skills that support a healthier life. You will come out of this event also. When you do, going back to your favorite restaurant will be a spiritual experience.
Believe Yourself and Thrive!