How Long Will You Wait to Start Reducing Your Stress?

How long will you wait to start reducing the stress in your life?

If you’re someone who’s suffering from feelings of severe overwhelm- perhaps your work environment is just too demanding? You may have anxiety about the economic future that lies ahead?  Or you could feel overstressed because of the demands of home and family?   Just how long are you going to wait to get started on managing and reducing your stress?

As a cardiologist with over 20 years of experience in dealing with people who have actual heart disease, as well is having training working with people emotionally and psychologically–I know the consequences of ignoring stress.

Did you know that you could have an actual heart attack if you ignore the stress in your life?  Or did you know that stress could lower your immune function and lead to an illness?  Did you know stress has been shown to increase chronic pain? It can!

Stress can do all of these things.   Many people think of stress is just something that happens to them, a fact of life, or something they should just ignore. But the truth is that stress can be harmful and produce serious consequences on our bodily health. It can also be debilitating psychologically.

So if you’re someone who feels overwhelmed, or overburdened by stress–what are you waiting for? How long will you wait to start reducing the stress in your life?

Most people are well aware that stress is hindering how they live. And quite often they have tried to change or reduce their stress but haven’t succeeded.  But for some reason they just haven’t been motivated were succeeded in changing their stress.  And the question is why?

Did you know that just 2 things in life motivate almost all people- pain and pleasure?

In fact this is what motivates pretty much everything we do in life.  Lets face it, how many people would get up in the morning drag themselves out of a warm bed on a freezing cold morning and drive into work- if they did need a paycheck?   So what makes them do this?  Pain and pleasure.   In this case the pain of getting out of bed, even though it’s cold, is not as bad as the pain of not having a paycheck.

And what about people who were severely overweight? What causes them to keep eating even though they know that they are damaging their health?  Once again, it’s the twin motivators of pain and pleasure.  For most people the comfort they feel in eating in the moment overrides the pain they feel about perhaps getting diabetes or heart disease down the road.   Because the damaging effects of illness are often not felt right away, it’s easy to give in to the comfort of food.

So let me teach you 3 simple steps for working to reduce the stress in your life.

First, you have to Identify Your Stressors that are making your life unmanageable.

Identify Your Stressors- Before you can begin the process of changing your stress level.  You need to be clear about what is stressing you out.  Now for most people this is relatively easy, they know that “deadlines at work” drive them up a tree.   Or they know that financial uncertainty stresses them out.But for other people, they really don’t know.  They don’t really sit down and take the time to examine their life in detail. They go through life just floating.  They might know that they have back pain, neck pain, or even migraines–but they don’t put 2 and 2 together to realize that this is really stress.

Or some people know that they just get “stressed out” by life but don’t sit down to really think about why they really are stressed out. Is it because they have a need to control everything, and when things are out of control the stress rises? Or is it because they have real anxiety and have never seen a physician or counselor to get therapy.

So here’s what I recommend–so get out a pen and a piece of paper and spend about 30 min. really thinking about what stresses you out of life? Make sure you’re in a calm place without distractions. You want to get more in touch with your heart, what I call. “tuning into your heart,”  in order to get into contact with the wisdom that all of our hearts have.  Sit quietly and make up your list. Try to be as specific as possible.

The next, step 2 is to get clear about why you need to change now.  By this I mean you want to write down all the negative things that could happen to if you don’t change. For example, you might have a heart attack. Or your anxiety attacks could actually send you to the emergency room. Stress can also have a profound effect on our work, making this unproductive, and reducing your changes for advancement.

And what about the effect of stress has on your relationships? Perhaps you’re having conflict with your spouse or significant other because you bring your stress home.  Or perhaps you have a very short fuse with your children. However stresses bothering you, you want to identify what could happen if you leave the stress go unchecked.

Finally, the 3rd thing you will need to do is to find a powerful reason to make a change. As I said earlier pain and pleasure control us.  And unfortunately, pain is a better motivator. So you need to really think hard about the pain that you’re going to experience if you don’t make this change now. What is it you want to accomplish in life? How is your stress preventing you from reaching what you want?  What will be the long-term consequences on my family particular those people I truly love if I don’t reduce the stress in my life? These are the questions you need to ask yourself.

About long ago I wanted to make some changes in my own life. And what seem to be limiting me were feelings of fatigue and tiredness.  I’m a cardiologist and have a very busy schedule at work. And I also write, produce online courses for stress reduction, and teach seminars. But I found that I was having difficulty pursuing these things without becoming overwhelmingly tired, because of choices of the foods that I was eating. Even though I’m not significantly overweight, I was drinking caffeine, and eating more sugar than I should’ve been. And although I tried for years to break these habits I have never been completely successful.

Yet by using the methods I’m giving you right now, I was able to make a significant change and stick to it.  Energy and vitality for me are one of the most essential things in life.  And this is my powerful motivator. It’s enabled me to make dramatic changes in my eating and to give me the willpower for follow-through.

So follow what telling you right now. Identify your stressors, get clear about what are the bad things that will happened in your life if you don’t change, and then find a compelling reason to make a change (one can actually motivate you to follow through).

If you do this you won’t have to wonder, ” how long will I have to wait to start reducing my stress?”

It you like to see this teaching in video format feel free to go to my YouTube website at the address below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLSTu3Wbreg&feature=youtu.be

Feel free to comment on these things.  I’d love to hear from you….

Dr. KirkLlaman