5 Tips for Reducing Stress and Creating Good Stress

If you do not have stress in your life, ever, please email me as I would like to trade lives with you. I used to think show me a person with no stress in their life and I will attend their funeral with you. Stress is a part of life. Bills need paid, Kids need new school clothes. The car needs serviced. The refrigerator is empty. Again! These are things that can be stressful, but are all a part of everyday life.

Stress can be good if you approach it right. It can be bad when it overtakes our lives and becomes more than we can bear. Here are 5 tips on reducing stress and keeping the stress in your life good stress.

1. Do something you enjoy everyday. I like a power nap in the afternoon. I like to turn on the t.v and fall asleep watching the travel channel showing a re-run on the "Top 10 Beaches in America" or something. This is my relaxing 30 minutes that can turn into an hour. For you it might be reading a chapter in a book, or listening to a favorite CD. Just make sure it is quality "me" time.

2. Take a walk or work in the garden. Hop on the treadmill in the basement or join an exercise club. I can not over emphasize the importance of doing something physical everyday. This is great for relieving tension and stress and energizing your body and mind.

3. Slow down and look at each situation for what it really is. Many of us tend to blow things out of proportion as they begin to pile up during the day or the week. Ask yourself "is this really as big of a deal as I think it is?" It probably isn't and you are letting yourself get stressed out over nothing.

4. Put away your Superman Cape and quit trying to do it all and be everything to everybody. You can only do what you can do and then you need to learn to say no to everything else.

5. Laugh more. When I would run the mile in a high school track meet my coach taught me to smile at the end of the race as I was approaching the finish line. Smiling relaxes the body and I was always able to finish a little bit stronger. The same thing in your own life. Smile, laugh, see humor in things. You will be amazed at how much doing that will reduce the stress in your life.

Eliminating stress altogether could be a bad thing as we all need motivation to get things done each day. The key is to keep yourself relaxed and turn the stress in your life into good stress and you will lead a happy life.