Many different factors have the potential to cause stress in a person’s life. If you take a look around you will see that some people have learned to manage and control their levels of stress much better than others. Even though there is no 1 specific key or “secret” to manage stress, the answer lies in learning to balance of a combination of little things and your physiology.

High levels of stress can lead to various medical conditions, negatively impact your daily routine and impair your ability learn and recall. The hormones which the brain releases in stressful situations are meant for fight or flight situations only – over use of these can actually be detrimental to the health of your brain and body.

Work (whether you own your own business or not) is filled with challenges, obstacles and opportunities that have the potential to cause stress. Knowing how this impacts you physically is the first step leading you to new insights and understandings on how to manage and control your reactions in an empowering way.

Your body language is a powerful indication of your ability to handle stress and problems. When your body encounters a stressful situation, hormones are automatically released into your adrenal glands to counterbalance the cortisol in your brain. Equilibrium is established when these stimulating and tranquilizing forces become equal. When one is greater than the other, you will experience a sense of imbalance, commonly referred to as stress.

In fact, your body goes to great lengths to prevent you from experiencing imbalance or stress. Your sympathetic nervous system and parasympathetic nervous system essentially battle each other to bring your body back to equilibrium. This fight or flight response to stress also necessitates the shutting down of many of the other key systems in the body – which makes it much more difficult to reason, react and communicate while in this agitated state.

It is next to impossible to eliminate stress completely from your life. Some stress is actually good for us. However, learning how to quickly and reliably relieve stress and become focused will enable you to tackle challenges with a clear head, communicate clearly and navigate tense situations. In fact, the best way to reduce stress quickly and reliably is through managing the sensory input received by the body: through sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch. Each person responds differently to various levels and types of sensory input – the trick is to find out what works best for you to manage stress.

We all have different preferences, tolerances and needs. For example, certain kinds of music or distinctive smells may relax one person but irritate another. Take the time to discover what works best for you at home, in your car, at the office, or wherever you may encounter stress. Simple deep breathing and relaxation techniques also work wonders and they are free, easy to implement and produce quick results.

Harnessing the power of sensory stress-busting techniques will provide you with a powerful technique for staying calm, collected and in control. You’ll have the assurance to face adversity and challenge in every aspect of your life, knowing that you have the ability to bring your body back into a state of equilibrium and ease.

Optimists trust that the future will be mostly good – they also believe their decisions, choices and actions shape their destinies. There is evidence to suggest that optimists tend to have better coping mechanisms and tend to be less negatively impacted but life’s little ups and downs. They recover faster, tend to eat right and exercise, are less likely to smoke, suffer less from aches and pains and are at a much lower risk for dementia and other diseases.

But what if you’re not a natural born optimist? Studies seem to indicate that optimism is only slightly influenced by genetics – 20% at best. In fact your experiences, the language you use to describe them and the meanings that you have attributed to them shape your world and your future outlook. Every single one of us can learn to become optimistic. However optimism is not achieved by making a decision one day to be optimistic – it takes more than attempting to change your feelings or outlook consciously.

Particularly in this time of economic uncertainty, faith and optimism are powerful belief structures. Arguably however, both are habits and need to be developed and nurtured over time. In fact 99% of what we do is pure habit – the domain of the subconscious.

Positive thinking alone is inherently undependable. Sustained optimism requires more than The Secret, The Law of Attraction and a few positive affirmations. Optimism is not something you are born with – it is a learned behaviour/habit. The same is true of pessimism. When the going gets tough, affirmations fly out the door and the subconscious habits will kick back in and cause all of us to sabotage our own success. In actual fact, each of us is our own worst enemy.

At the end of the day, it is not what happens to you that matters. It is about who you are and what you become because of (not despite) what happens. Change your perspective today…change your life forever!

First let’s get one thing straight – happiness and optimism are not the same thing. Happiness is an emotion, a feeling, a state of mind that can be changed in an instant. Optimism is something quite different – it is a belief about the future.

Optimists trust that the future will be mostly good – they also believe their decisions, choices and actions shape their destinies. There is evidence to suggest that optimists tend to have better coping mechanisms and tend to be less negatively impacted but life’s little ups and downs. They recover faster, tend to eat right and exercise, are less likely to smoke, suffer less from aches and pains and are at a much lower risk for dementia and other diseases.

But what if you’re not a natural born optimist? Studies seem to indicate that optimism is only slightly influenced by genetics – 20% at best. In fact your experiences, the language you use to describe them and the meanings that you have attributed to them shape your world and your future outlook. Every single one of us can learn to become optimistic. However optimism is not achieved by making a decision one day to be optimistic – it takes more than attempting to change your feelings or outlook consciously.

Particularly in this time of economic uncertainty, faith and optimism are powerful belief structures. Arguably however, both are habits and need to be developed and nurtured over time. In fact 99% of what we do is pure habit – the domain of the subconscious.

Positive thinking alone is inherently undependable. Sustained optimism requires more than The Secret, The Law of Attraction and a few positive affirmations. Optimism is not something you are born with – it is a learned behaviour/habit. The same is true of pessimism. When the going gets tough, affirmations fly out the door and the subconscious habits will kick back in and cause all of us to sabotage our own success. In actual fact, each of us is our own worst enemy.

At the end of the day, it is not what happens to you that matters. It is about who you are and what you become because of, not despite, what happens. Change your perspective today…change your life forever!

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/2919330

Do you find yourself asking for THIS and THAT with the Law of Attraction… and not getting the results that you want?

The secret to manifesting your desires may be as simple as asking better questions.

Have you ever asked yourself:  WHY do you want IT  _____ (the desire)?

Do you believe that getting it means that you’ll finally have _________ (the real result you desire)? Is having _________ (real result you desire) the driving force behind you reaching your goals, or is there a much deeper reason (a deeper meaning behind it for you)?

For example let’s use a profession like coaching (you can substitute any career or goal that you like here).  Just imagine that you are out there right now wondering whether or not you should become a coach.  Next you might wonder WHY do you want to be a coach? Do you believe that being a coach intrinsically means you’ll make more money, have more flexibility, be in charge of your own destiny, be happier or have more satisfaction? Is having a huge bank account the driving force behind coaching or is it passion for helping others and confronting new challenges everyday that fulfills you?

You may want the coaching business, to get money, prestige, fame or variety… Then again, you may want to coach for the simple pleasure of helping others. Or you may even want to coach to fulfill your own desire to be needed, listened to, respected or admired.  More likely, you may want all of your desires fulfilled so that you can FINALLY BE HAPPY.

Therefore, it begs the question, does being a coach (or any other job, profession or goal for that matter) = happiness?

For some it may….but for MOST it’s just barely enough motivation to make you get off the couch in the morning and make something happen.  The end result HAPPINESS is so intangible, seemingly elusive and far out in the distance.  It just doesn’t seem real because it is something that we are constantly striving towards but that we never truly seem to reach.

In my experience, having the result or desire of happiness, fulfillment or success (or substitute any state of mind that you like) is not enough to drive you toward your goals.  Happiness, success and peace are in the here and now.  They are not an end destination – something that you drive towards or “try” to obtain.  No matter how many goals you set and hours that you work, you will never end up at the train station of happiness or success.  You need to get on the train of happiness or success now and see where it leads you.  Happiness and success are who you are already – or at the very least, who you are capable of being right now if you choose to be.  Therefore, they can’t possibly be something that motivates you to achieve your goals.

If you are currently struggling to reach your goals, I want you to stop right now, sit down and examine what the real and deeper meaning is for you.  The real “WHY” that you want to have a result or an outcome.  Once you connect to this real WHY – and you will know it when you have stated it because you will connect to some REAL EMOTION - that will be the moment when the tires hit the pavement and you begin to get real traction and momentum towards achieving your goal(s).

From my own experience as a coach, author and speaker,  I can tell you that writing and publishing a book is not easy.  If I simply wanted to have happiness or to make a few dollars selling a book, it simply would not have been enough to keep me moving forward when things got tough.  For me, the driving force behind my first book was 2 THINGS –  (1) I want for my mother’s life to have meant something and for her love and kindness to live on forever and (2) I want to be in a position to financially support children from disadvantaged backgrounds to have the food, clothing, supplies and support that they need to stay in school.  It’s that simple for me.  It was never about the book, the career or the goal – it has always been about the deeper meaning for me.

Now I don’t know what the REAL WHY will be for you….now might be a really good time to figure out what that is for you.  But I do know that when you find it, you will become UNSTOPPABLE and your success will become INEVITABLE!

We live in a world with a million possible distractions, pressures,  emergencies and interruptions – how can you possibly stay focused on your goals and sane?

There are always going to be several things constantly competing for your  time – marketing campaigns to design, team members to manage, customers to  respond to, business opportunities to explore, issues to follow up, personal  commitments etc. However, whenever you try to work on too many things at the  same time, inevitably none of them ever gets done.  Business success often comes down to focus.

To assist my clients in staying on track and keeping things simple, I  developed the following list of 5 simple techniques/questions to put things into  perspective. When in doubt – check the list for guidance.

1. Has Anyone Died? If not, relax and calm down. As long as no one has died,  it’s really not that serious and there is a solution to every challenge you  face.

2. Are You Trying to Eat an Elephant in One Sitting? Breaking things into bite  sized chunks makes the world of difference. Having broad high level goals are  good but having an actionable plan is essential. A detailed, step by step plan  can help you to identify how you can get from where you are to where you want to  be. Remember, a journey of 1000 miles begins with one step.

3. Are You In A Bad Neighbourhood? If you are not in a good place emotionally,  change your physiology immediately. That means get up and get moving, put on  your favourite song or do the “dance of joy”. Whatever it takes, do it NOW.

4. Are You Grateful For What You Already Have? It is impossible to bring more of  what you want into your life if you are feeling ungrateful about what you  already have. It has been said that the whole is more than the sum of its parts.  In many ways gratitude is a bit like that – it’s not what you say, the mere  words that count, but sum of the words and the heartfelt emotion behind  them.

5. Are You focused on What You Want or Don’t Want? Whether we realise it or not,  we are visualising things all the time – visualising either what we want or  don’t want. If you are relentlessly focused on the negative outcome and are  riddled by fear that WILL impact your reality.

It’s very easy to get so caught up in the emotion of emergencies, disruptions  and day to day activities that you can easily lose sight of what is most  important to your business success and well-being. These simple tips and questions will  help you stay more in touch which is what is most essential to you and your  compelling future. These techniques (and keeping a sense of humour) are vital to  helping you to stay in focus with your ultimate goals and business success.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/2314715