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Archive for August, 2008

Life isn’t the sweetest candy. Sometimes, when I feel like the world is just too heavy, I look around and find people who continued to live fascinating and wonderful lives. And then thoughts come popping into my mind like bubbles from nowhere. How did their life become so adorably sweet? How come they still can manage to laugh and play around despite a busy stressful life?? Then I pause and observed for awhile? I figured out that maybe, they start to work on a place called ’self’.

So, how does one become genuinely happy? Step 1 is to love yourself.

My theology professor once said that “loving means accepting”. To love oneself means to accept that you are not a perfect being, but behind the imperfections must lie a great ounce of courage to be able to discover ways on how to improve your repertoire to recover from our mistakes.

Genuine happiness also pertains to contentment. When you are contented with the job you have, the way you look, with your family, your friends, the place you live in, your car, and all the things you now have, truly, you know the answer to the question “how to be genuinely happy”.

When we discover a small start somewhere from within, that small start will eventually lead to something else, and to something else. But if you keep questioning life lit it has never done you any good, you will never be able to find genuine happiness.

I believe that life is about finding out about right and wrong, trying and failing, wining and losing. These are things that happen as often as you inhale and exhale. Failure, in a person?s life has become as abundant and necessary as air. But this should not hinder us from becoming happy.

How to be genuinely happy in spite all these? I tell you - every time you exert effort to improve the quality of life and your being, whether it is cleaning up your room, helping a friend, taking care of your sick dog, fail on board exams and trying again, life gives you equivalent points for that.

Imagine life as a big score board like those which are used in the NFLs. Every time you take a step forward, you make scoring points. Wouldn’t it be nice to look at that board at the end of each game and think to yourself ?Whew! I got a point today. I’m glad I gave it a shot, instead of looking at it all blank and murmur “Geez, I didn’t even hit a score today. I wish I had the guts to try out. We could have won!” and then walk away.

Genuine happiness isn’t about driving the hottest Formula 1 car, nor getting the employee of the year award, earning the highest 13th month pay, or beating the sales quota. Sometimes, the most sought after prizes in life doesn’t always go to the fastest, the strongest, the bravest or not even the best. So, how do you become genuinely happy? Every one has his own definition of “happiness”. Happiness for a writer may mean launching as much best selling books as possible. Happiness for a basketball rookie may mean getting the rookie of the year award. Happiness for a beggar may mean a lot of money. Happiness for a business man may mean success. So, really now, how do we become genuinely happy? Simple. You don’t have to have the best things in this world. Its about doing and making the best out of every single thing. When you find yourself smiling at your own mistake and telling your self “Oh, I’ll do better next time”, you carry with you a flame of strong will power to persevere that may spread out like a brush fire. You possess a willingness to stand up again and try - that will make you a genuinely happy person.

When you learn to accept yourself and your own faults. You pass step 1 in the project “how to become genuinely happy”.For as long as you know how to accept others, you will also be accepted. For as long as you love and know how to love, you will receive love ten folds back.

Again, throw me that same question “how to become genuinely happy”?. I’ll refer you to a friend of mine who strongly quoted- “Most of us know that laughter is the best medicine to life’s aches and pain. But most of us don’t know that the best kind of laughter is laughter over self. Coz then you don’t just become happy - you become free.”

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One of the more fascinating measures taken for stress relief can be had with an art therapy. With so many different forms of therapy today it’s tough to know which are the most effective for which condition, but art therapy enjoys great success in helping people suffering from a collection of conditions that are both physical and mental. If you are looking for an exciting method for relieving stress, art therapy is a good option.

An art therapy session will help you show others how art can lead to self awareness and understanding, as well as how soothing it can be to engage in the creative process. Taking the time to focus on a piece of art alone can make a tremendous difference in how we live and think and can reduce stress amazingly. Art therapy also helps people to discover things about themselves based on what they draw. It is a good tool that psychologists use in assessing their patients.

Receiving art therapy can be done at your own pace if you go about finding places that offer it online. This is great for those who have families and can’t change their lives. Art therapy will help you to get a better understanding of yourself and your lifestyle. It is a great way for you to find and get rid of the problems that you may be facing. Many hospitals and doctors offices would recommend art therapy but it can be difficult to find the right place for you so be sure to do your research before signing up with anyone in particular.

If you can imagine all of the artists out there who use their art as a means of expressing themselves, it will be easier for you to see that you can do it too. You don?t necessarily have to be a perfect artist to benefit from this type of therapy; however, it helps to use this therapy as a means of expressing yourself. It is a great resource for getting out those feelings which can often be harmful when not expressed. Art has always been used as a way to express oneself so why not make it a part of your stress relief regimen?

If you are having a hard time dealing with your everyday stresses and if you are wondering what you can do to help ease your stresses, you should consider art therapy as a means of helping you. It can?t hurt to give it a try. With alternative medicine becoming a preferred way to dealing with life?s problems, art therapy is just a drug free method of controlling your stress which can also help to reduce many of your common illnesses. Search online for art therapy classes in your area.

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They say there’s more than one way to skin a cat. The same goes when you start tearing your hair out with all the frustration, grief, anxiety, and yes, stress. It’s a state of mental conditioning that is like taking that bitter pill down your throat, causing you to lose your sense of self, and worse your sanity. Just thinking about it can drive anyone off the edge.

And they say that the proactive ones are already living off the edge.

As one stressed-out person to another, I know how it feels, and believe me there are many variants when it comes to stress. Coping with life, and carrying the problems that may or may not belong to you can scratch away the little joy and happiness that you can carry once you head out that door. You can’t blame them for being like that; they have their own reasons, so much like we have our reasons to allow stress to weigh us down. They say that stress is all in the mind, well, what’s bugging you anyway?

There are several ways to manage stress, and eventually remove it out of your life one of these days. So I’ll try to divide it into a seven-day course for you and I promise it’s not going to be too taxing on the body, as well as on the mind.

1. Acknowledge stress is good
Make stress your friend! Based on the body’s natural “fight or flight” response, that burst of energy will enhance your performance at the right moment. I’ve yet to see a top sportsman totally relaxed before a big competition. Use stress wisely to push yourself that little bit harder when it counts most.

2. Avoid stress sneezers
Stressed people sneeze stress germs indiscriminately and before you know it, you are infected too!

Protect yourself by recognizing stress in others and limiting your contact with them. Or if you’ve got the inclination, play stress doctor and teach them how to better manage themselves.

3. Learn from the best
When people around are losing their head, who keeps calm? What are they doing differently? What is their attitude? What language do they use? Are they trained and experienced?
Figure it out from afar or sit them down for a chat. Learn from the best stress managers and copy what they do.

4. Practice socially acceptable heavy breathing
This is something I’ve learned from a gym instructor: You can trick your body into relaxing by using heavy breathing. Breathe in slowly for a count of 7 then breathe out for a count of 11. Repeat the 7-11 breathing until your heart rate slows down, your sweaty palms dry off and things start to feel more normal.

5. Give stressy thoughts the red light
It is possible to tangle yourself up in a stress knot all by yourself. “If this happens, then that might happen and then we’re all up the creek!” Most of these things never happen, so why waste all that energy worrying needlessly?

Give stress thought-trains the red light and stop them in their tracks. Okay so it might go wrong - how likely is that, and what can you do to prevent it?

6. Know your trigger points and hot spots
Presentations, interviews, meetings, giving difficult feedback, tight deadlines?. My heart rate is cranking up just writing these down!

Make your own list of stress trigger points or hot spots. Be specific. Is it only presentations to a certain audience that get you worked up? Does one project cause more stress than another? Did you drink too much coffee?

Knowing what causes you stress is powerful information, as you can take action to make it less stressful. Do you need to learn some new skills? Do you need extra resources? Do you need to switch to decaf?

7. Burn the candle at one end
Lack of sleep, poor diet and no exercise wreaks havoc on our body and mind. Kind of obvious, but worth mentioning as it’s often ignored as a stress management technique. Listen to your mother and don’t burn the candle at both ends!

So having stress can be a total drag, but that should not hinder us to find the inner peace of mind that we have wanted for a long time. In any case, one could always go to the Bahamas and bask under the summer sun.

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We all have this favorite expression when it comes to being stressed out, and I wouldn’t bother naming all of them since it may also vary in different languages. But when it comes down to it, I think that it is how we work or even relax, for that matter that triggers stress. Ever been stressed even when you’re well relaxed and bored? I know I have.

Since stress is unavoidable in life, it is important to find ways to decrease and prevent stressful incidents and decrease negative reactions to stress. Here are some of the things that can be done by just remembering it, since life is basically a routine to follow like brushing your teeth or eating breakfast. You can do a few of them in a longer span of time, but as they say - every minute counts.

Managing time

Time management skills can allow you more time with your family and friends and possibly increase your performance and productivity. This will help reduce your stress.

To improve your time management:

• Save time by focusing and concentrating, delegating, and scheduling time for yourself.
• Keep a record of how you spend your time, including work, family, and leisure time.
• Prioritize your time by rating tasks by importance and urgency. Redirect your time to those activities that are important and meaningful to you.
• Manage your commitments by not over- or undercommitting. Don’t commit to what is not important to you.
• Deal with procrastination by using a day planner, breaking large projects into smaller ones, and setting short-term deadlines.
• Examine your beliefs to reduce conflict between what you believe and what your life is like.

Build healthy coping strategies

It is important that you identify your coping strategies. One way to do this is by recording the stressful event, your reaction, and how you cope in a stress journal. With this information, you can work to change unhealthy coping strategies into healthy ones-those that help you focus on the positive and what you can change or control in your life.

Lifestyle


Some behaviors and lifestyle choices affect your stress level. They may not cause stress directly, but they can interfere with the ways your body seeks relief from stress. Try to:

• Balance personal, work, and family needs and obligations.
• Have a sense of purpose in life.
• Get enough sleep, since your body recovers from the stresses of the day while you are sleeping.
• Eat a balanced diet for a nutritional defense against stress.
• Get moderate exercise throughout the week.
• Limit your consumption of alcohol.
• Don’t smoke.

Social support


Social support is a major factor in how we experience stress. Social support is the positive support you receive from family, friends, and the community. It is the knowledge that you are cared for, loved, esteemed, and valued. More and more research indicates a strong relationship between social support and better mental and physical health.

Changing thinking


When an event triggers negative thoughts, you may experience fear, insecurity, anxiety, depression, rage, guilt, and a sense of worthlessness or powerlessness. These emotions trigger the body’s stress, just as an actual threat does. Dealing with your negative thoughts and how you see things can help reduce stress.

• Thought-stopping helps you stop a negative thought to help eliminate stress.
• Disproving irrational thoughts helps you to avoid exaggerating the negative thought, anticipating the worst, and interpreting an event incorrectly.
• Problem solving helps you identify all aspects of a stressful event and find ways to deal with it.
• Changing your communication style helps you communicate in a way that makes your views known without making others feel put down, hostile, or intimidated. This reduces the stress that comes from poor communication. Use the assertiveness ladder to improve your communication style.

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“Two men look out through the same bars: One sees the mud, and one sees the stars.”- Frederick Langbridge, A Cluster of Quiet Thoughts

If you’ve placed second in a writing contest, will you jump for joy and push for better results the next time or will you be discouraged and find an excuse not to join again?

In life, you are always filled with choices. You may opt to have a pessimist?s view and live a self-defeated life or you may decide to take the optimist’s route and take a challenging and fulfilling life.

So why nurture an optimist’s point of view? And why now?

Well, optimism has been linked to positive mood and good morale; to academic, athletic, military, occupational and political success; to popularity; to good health and even to long life and freedom from trauma.

On the other hand, the rates of depression and pessimism have never been higher. It affects middle-aged adults the same way it hits younger people. The mean age of onset has gone from 30 to 15. It is no longer a middle-aged housewife’s disorder but also a teen-ager’s disorder as well.

Here’s how optimists are in action and researches that back up why it really pays to be an optimist:

Optimists expect the best

The defining characteristic of pessimists is that they tend to believe bad events, which will last a long time and undermine everything they do, are their own fault.

The truth is optimists are confronted with the same hard knocks of this world. What differs is the way they explain their misfortune—it’s the opposite way. They tend to believe defeat is just a temporary setback, that its causes are confined to this one case.

Optimists tend to focus on and plan for the ‘problem’ at hand. They use ‘positive reinterpretation.’ In other words, they most likely reinterpret a negative experience in a way that helps them learn and grow. Such people are unfazed by bad situation, they perceive it is a challenge and try harder.

They won’t say ‘things will never get better,’ ‘If I failed once, it will happen again’ and ‘If I experience misfortune in one part of my life, then it will happen in my whole life.’

Positive expectancies of optimists also predict better reactions during transitions to new environments, sudden tragedies and unlikely turn of events. If they fall, they will stand up. They see opportunities instead of obstacles.

People respond positively to optimists

Optimists are proactive and less dependent on others for their happiness. They find no need to control or manipulate people. They usually draw people towards them. Their optimistic view of the world can be contagious and influence those they are with.

Optimism seems a socially desirable trait in all communities. Those who share optimism are generally accepted while those who spread gloom, panic and hysteria are treated unfavorably.

In life, these people often win elections; get voted most congenial and sought for advice.

When the going gets tough, optimists get tougher

Optimists typically maintain higher levels of subjective well-being during times of stress than do people who are less optimistic. In contrast, pessimists are likely to react to stressful events by denying that they exist or by avoiding dealing with problems. Pessimists are more likely to quit trying when difficulties arise.

They persevere. They just don’t give up easily, they are also known for their patience. Inching their way a step closer to that goal or elusive dream.

Optimists are healthier and live longer

Medical research has justified that simple pleasures and a positive outlook can cause a measurable increase in the body’s ability to fight disease.

Optimists’ health is unusually good. They age well, much freer than most people from the usual physical ills of middle age. And they get to outlive those prone to negative thoughts.

So why not be an optimist today? And think positively towards a more fulfilled life.

Why not look forward to success in all your endeavors? Why not be resilient? Like everybody else you are bound to hit lows sometimes but don?t just stay there. Carry yourself out of the mud and improve your chances of getting back on the right track. And why not inspire others to remove their dark-colored glasses and see life in the bright side?

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Almost everyone have heard the hit single ‘Don’t Worry, Be Happy’ by Bobby McFerrin. The song has a very catchy way of conveying its message of being happy to everyone. Bobby Mcferiin’s simple message surely made a lot of people by telling them not to worry.

Living a happy, resilient and optimistic life is wonderful, and is also good for your health. Being happy actually protects you from the stresses of life. Stress is linked to top causes of death such as heart disease, cancer and stroke.

One of the better things ever said is - ‘The only thing in life that will always remain the same is change’, and in our life we have the power to make the necessary changes if we want to. Even if we find ourselves in an unbearable situation we can always find solace in the knowledge that it too would change.

Social networks or relationships are essential to happiness. People are different, accept people for who or what they are, avoid clashes, constant arguments, and let go of all kinds of resentments. If arguments seem unavoidable still try and make an effort to understand the situation and you might just get along with well with

Happiness is actually found in everyone, increasing it is a way to make a life more wonderful and also more healthy.

To be happy is relatively easy, just decide to be a happy person. Abraham Lincoln observed that most people for most of the time can choose how happy or stressed, how relaxed or troubled, how bright or dull their outlook to be. The choice is simple really, choose to be happy.

There are several ways by which you can do this.

Being grateful is a great attitude. We have so much to be thankful for. Thank the taxi driver for bringing you home safely, thank the cook for a wonderful dinner and thank the guy who cleans your windows. Also thank the mailman for bringing you your mails, thank the policeman for making your place safe and thank God for being alive.

News is stressful. Get less of it. Some people just can’t start their day without their daily dose of news. Try and think about it, 99% of the news we hear or read is bad news. Starting the day with bad news does not seem to be a sensible thing to do.

A religious connection is also recommended. Being part of a religious group with its singing, sacraments, chanting, prayers and meditations foster inner peace.

Manage your time. Time is invaluable and too important to waste. Time management can be viewed as a list of rules that involves scheduling, setting goals, planning, creating lists of things to do and prioritizing. These are the core basics of time management that should be understood to develop an efficient personal time management skill. These basic skills can be fine tuned further to include the finer points of each skill that can give you that extra reserve to make the results you desire.

Laugh and laugh heartily everyday. Heard a good joke? Tell your friends or family about it. As they also say -’Laughter is the best medicine’.

Express your feelings, affections, friendship and passion to people around you. They will most likely reciprocate your actions. Try not to keep pent up anger of frustrations, this is bad for your health. Instead find ways of expressing them in a way that will not cause more injury or hurt to anyone.

Working hard brings tremendous personal satisfaction. It gives a feeling of being competent in finishing our tasks. Accomplishments are necessary for all of us, they give us a sense of value. Work on things that you feel worthy of your time.

Learning is a joyful exercise. Try and learn something new everyday. Learning also makes us expand and broaden our horizons. And could also give us more opportunities in the future.

Run, jog, walk and do other things that your body was made for. Feel alive.

Avoid exposure to negative elements like loud noises, toxins and hazardous places.

These are the few simple things you can do everyday to be happy.

And always remember the quote from Abraham Lincoln, he says that, “Most people are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.”

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At first glance, it would seem that positive thinking and Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) have nothing to do with one another. But many of us with ADD develop negative thinking patterns because we become frustrated by our challenges and frequent feelings of being overwhelmed. This negative outlook then makes it even harder for us to manage those challenges and move forward.

Practicing positive thinking allows people with ADD to focus on our strengths and accomplishments, which increases happiness and motivation. This, in turn, allows us to spend more time making progress, and less time feeling down and stuck. The following tips provide practical suggestions that you can use to help you shift into more positive thinking patterns:

1. Take Good Care of Yourself
It’s much easier to be positive when you are eating well, exercising, and getting enough rest.

2. Remind Yourself of the Things You Are Grateful For
Stresses and challenges don’t seem quite as bad when you are constantly reminding yourself of the things that are right in life. Taking just 60 seconds a day to stop and appreciate the good things will make a huge difference.

3. Look for the Proof Instead of Making Assumptions
A fear of not being liked or accepted sometimes leads us to assume that we know what others are thinking, but our fears are usually not reality. If you have a fear that a friend or family member’s bad mood is due to something you did, or that your co-workers are secretly gossiping about you when you turn your back, speak up and ask them. Don’t waste time worrying that you did something wrong unless you have proof that there is something to worry about.

4. Refrain from Using Absolutes
Have you ever told a partner “You’re ALWAYS late!” or complained to a friend “You NEVER call me!”? Thinking and speaking in absolutes like ‘always’ and ‘never’ makes the situation seem worse than it is, and programs your brain into believing that certain people are incapable of delivering.

5. Detach From Negative Thoughts
Your thoughts can’t hold any power over you if you don’t judge them. If you notice yourself having a negative thought, detach from it, witness it, and don’t follow it.

6. Squash the “ANTs”
In his book “Change Your Brain, Change Your Life,” Dr. Daniel Amen talks about “ANTs” - Automatic Negative Thoughts. These are the bad thoughts that are usually reactionary, like “Those people are laughing, they must be talking about me,” or “The boss wants to see me? It must be bad!” When you notice these thoughts, realize that they are nothing more than ANTs and squash them!

7. Practice Lovin’, Touchin’ & Squeezin’ (Your Friends and Family)
You don’t have to be an expert to know the benefits of a good hug. Positive physical contact with friends, loved ones, and even pets, is an instant pick-me-up. One research study on this subject had a waitress touch some of her customers on the arm as she handed them their checks. She received higher tips from these customers than from the ones she didn’t touch!

8. Increase Your Social Activity
By increasing social activity, you decrease loneliness. Surround yourself with healthy, happy people, and their positive energy will affect you in a positive way!

9. Volunteer for an Organization, or Help another Person
Everyone feels good after helping. You can volunteer your time, your money, or your resources. The more positive energy you put out into the world, the more you will receive in return.

10. Use Pattern Interrupts to Combat Rumination
If you find yourself ruminating, a great way to stop it is to interrupt the pattern and force yourself to do something completely different. Rumination is like hyper-focus on something negative. It’s never productive, because it’s not rational or solution-oriented, it’s just excessive worry. Try changing your physical environment - go for a walk or sit outside. You could also call a friend, pick up a book, or turn on some music.

When it comes to the corporate world, protocol is pretty much the religion. To know the things needed to do are the basics of productivity, but interaction and having a steady mind makes up the entire thing to true productivity. There are those who seem to work well even under pressure, but they’re uncommon ones and we are human and imperfect. To get these little things like stress under our skins won’t solve our problems. Sometimes it takes a bit of courage to admit that we’re turning to be workaholics than tell ourselves that we’re not doing our best.

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If you really think about it, we all suffer from the same stressors and pressures on a day to day basis, yet some people do not seem to be affected by it while others become irritable, snap at their children and lie awake at night worrying over things.

Why is that? Why is it that some people can just seem to cruise through life without seeming to feel the heat (damn them!) while others can hardly cope?

The secret is that stress is not due to things that happen to us ? we all have to cope with demanding jobs, demanding and unreasonable bosses, lack of time, too little money! It is how we each, individually react to these things, these stressors, that make the difference. Some people are just more prone to stress than others. Whether these reactions are naturally born in or whether we learn them when we grow up is a good question, but the fact remains that different personality types react differently to stressors.

It is a well known fact that there are Type A and Type B personalities, where Type A personalities are driven, tend to become workaholics, and end up having heart attacks and nervous breakdowns, whereas Type B personalities are much more calm and collected and seem to take things in their stride without too much fuss and bother. What is not so well known however, is that the majority of people are Type A personalities, which mean that most of us tend to be too stressed for our own good!

What makes this personality type so much more susceptible to stress is exactly the fact that they are driven to perform. This often make them place undue pressure on themselves by taking on more and more responsibilities, or under-estimating the amount of time or effort a task will take, or over-estimating their own abilities. This inevitably lead to too little time, inability to complete tasks through juggling too many tasks at the same time, leading to irritability, inability to make decisions, suffering from anxiety, insomnia and feeling constantly tired.

But other personality traits can also lead to stress reactions. If you are familiar with the Myers-Briggs personality profile (take the online test on www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/JTypes2.asp) you will know that people tend to have four major aspects to their personalities. These four axes have two dimensions each on the opposite end of the scale, and the four aspects, combined with two sides to the scale give 16 different personality types. http://www.e-mbti.com/

The four aspects are:
Where you draw your energy from and where you spend your energy. If you are on the Introversion side (I) of the scale, you draw your energy from within and you tend to focus on your inner thoughts and ideas. If you tend to the Extroversion side (E), you focus on other people and things.

How you perceive things or take in information to base decisions on: This is either Sensing (S) or Intuition (N). This indicate how a person prefers to receive data from the environment around him ? either through his senses, or through Intuition (”gut feel”)

How you make decisions : The two scales are based on Feeling (F) ? using your emotions when you make decisions, or Thinking (T), using rational thought, or logic, to make decisions

How you relate to the world around you and order your life: The two scales here are Judging (P) and Perceiving (P). If you tend towards the Judging side, you will typically like your world to be ordered and controlled. If you tend towards the Perceiving side, you would be more adaptable and flexible.

Please note that these are sliding scales. Each person has aspects of both sides of each scale present, in other words, you would never get someone who is fully Introverted or fully Extroverted ? somebody like this would definitely be classified as psychotic or insane. But most people have a definite preference for the one mode above the other.

It is clear to see now how some personality types might be more inclined to react stressed to certain situations where the opposite type might not find the same situation stressful at all.

Take the example of an Introvert who has to go a party where he does not know anyone AND make a speech in front of a completely foreign group of people. The Introverted person will probably suffer from severe stress and anxiety when confronted with this situation whereas the Extroverted type person would relish in the attention and the opportunity to meet new people.

Another source of possible stress can occur where people whose lifestyle tend to be more Judging, has to confront a change in plans or a change in lifestyle. These types of people like to have order in their lives, they like to plan ahead and they rather tend to be ‘control freaks’. For these people, a sudden change in plan such as holiday plans that have to be suddenly aborted, a flight that has been delayed, or a change in circumstances such as moving house is incredibly stressful.

How does this affect you? It is really a case of “know thyself”.

Most Type A personality types would not admit that they ARE personality type A, or that they are workaholics. If you know that you are more inclined to be a personality type A you can be aware of the fact that you are also inclined to take on too much work and tend to over commit yourself.

If you are aware of your Myers-Brig personality profile you will realize WHY you feel so stressed if you have to deal with a lot of people, or if you are a ‘J’, why you feel so anxious and irritable if plans suddenly have to change and you can consciously try and either avoid these types of situations or consciously try and deal with them through applying some stress management techniques.

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Work related stress probably contributes the most to stress these days since such a lot of our time is taken up by the world of work. Various sets of circumstances that are work related have been identified as being stressful. These include, for example, taking on a new role at work or changing jobs, losing your job, partner starts a new job.

All of these are easily identifiable, however, it is the insidious continuous stress-inducing events that is not mentioned on the scale that seems to be a major source of stress today. Examples are:
- Overwork : Too many of us take on too much responsibilities, either through choice (Personality Type A) or through major changes in the place of work such as ‘downsizing’, and slowing down of the economy. Lots of organizations, when the economy gets tough, save money through making people redundant. What this often means in practice is that the same amount of work needs to be done with less people. Often the staff who remain get saddled with the responsibility of doing their own, as well as their deposed colleague’s work. In fear of losing their own jobs, they often just knuckle under and start doing the extra work without complaining.
- Technological advances in the workplace: Technology is advancing at a rapid pace and new technological equipment and tools are deployed in the workplace on an almost daily basis. The employee is expected to keep up but lots of people are just not technically inclined and this leads to technostress - the inability to cope with technological changes in the workplace.
- Too much information. We are living in an information age, and the focus of the workplace is changing to working with information. A large portion of this is linked to the way that we can now access information in volumes unheard of previously. This volume of information is not necessarily a good thing since it places a strain on our abilities to process the information. Each piece of information such as a news bulletin, an advertisement, an email, a voicemail, a telephone call, an SMS, an Instant Message - all of these pieces of information must be assessed, processed and acted upon. This is placing a tremendous amount of strain on us with regards to the amount of time that we have available to get things done in day. Every piece of information that we need to process makes a demand on our time and interrupts out train of thought. Trying to do too many things at the same time is a typical symptom of extreme Type A type personality behavior, but frankly, with the way that our world is structured, it is difficult to avoid that. You get bombarded with pieces of information wherever you go - in the train and in the bus and driving to work you might listen to the news on the radio, be bombarded with giant advertisements adorning the sides of the roads, the sides of buildings and inside shop windows advertising new products and services, see a couple of TV commercials and news bulletins while waiting in a queue for coffee or in the bank, deal with two or three urgent phone calls that came through while you were traveling, as well as a couple of SMS messages informing you of a meeting that has been scheduled urgently that you need to attend. That is why one of the stress management techniques that can be applied is to limit yourself to the amount of information that you need to handle!
- Travel and commuting - not all of us can afford to live close to our places of work and some of us have to travel long hours to get to work. It can be tremendously frustrating to spend a couple of hours per day just traveling in adverse conditions - whether that be crammed together like sardines in stuffy and hot underground trains, or sitting in your car in a traffic jam with no end in site, knowing all the while that your kids are waiting to be fetched, the supper still needs to be prepared and you will have even less time for yourself.

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Personal events are closely related to family since our lives are not lived in isolation, but in relation to other people, often family members. But personal stress-full events would be events such as going to prison, which is also ranked high on the Holmes and Rahe scale, or moving house, or taking up a new hobby, or stopping smoking, or trying to control your anger and so forth.

Quite a lot of personal events that one would think should not cause stress CAN be stressful, due once again to the nature of the change that one has to go through. An example of this is “Outstanding personal achievement”. One always think that an outstanding personal achievement would be a wonderful thing, but associated with this event would be changes such as coping with the empty feeling of not having a goal to strive towards any more and coping with ‘15 minutes of fame’ if it is such a type of achievement.

Other stress-full circumstances would be health related - especially if suffering from a serious injury or illness. Why illness can be such a stressful event is apart from the physical aspects of the illness, is that there is a huge psychological component to ill-health. This stress aspect can apply equally to the family of the person who is sick, as to the sick person himself.

The fact of the matter is that during the past 50 to 60 years there has been a tremendous change in the structure of society and family life - previously there used to be a much tighter cohesion in family structures, the old looked after the young and vice versa when it became necessary, women didn’t work so much out of the home so there were always a spare person available to look after the sick and the elderly. These days, families are torn apart by divorce, moving away to foreign countries and women have full-day jobs and in some cases, everyone in the family holds down more than one job at the same time, leaving little time and energy to care for someone who is sick. This means that if there is ill-health in the family, the people who need to take on the burden of care is often subjected to a great deal of stress in having to do so.

Apart from that, being sick these days inevitably carries the fear of losing your job or becoming so disabled that you cannot care for your family. Admittedly, this has been a problem since time began - if you were sick then you couldn’t hunt for food and your family probably starved to death.

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