Stress Management

If you've already subscribed, you probably know that this week's Healthy Monday Newsletter went nicely with the About.com Stress Management newsletter, as they both focused on things you can do now that it's summer--either to get more active or to better manage stress. If you haven't subscribed yet, I'm including some of the information from the newsletter here, so you can get on board for this week and start working toward a healthier lifestyle from now on. (And if you haven't signed up for the stress management newsletter, now is the time for that also--you'll be able to get the next one later this week!) So I hope for the best health for all of you, and I'm sharing some of the best resources I've seen to help you along the way, one step at a time!

Get Outside--And Move!

Is Exercising Outdoors Good For Your Longevity?
Being active outside carries specific benefits over being active indoors. What are they? You might enjoy reading the research on this--I did! Longevity Guide Sharon Basaraba has information on this that should inspire you to get out and move!

How To Make Exercise Fun
Playing volleyball on the beach, biking with your family, going for a hike in nature: these activities all sound more like fun than work, don't they? They are the types of exercise most people look forward to, not just people who are in the habit of working out. How can you make your workouts more fun? The Longevity site has tips to keep the fun in your fitness.

Outdoor Circuit Workout
What specific moves can you make outside to build muscle and increase your cardiovascular endurance? Exercise Guide Paige Waehner has an outdoor circuit workout that can help you build a healthier body.

The Best Time of Day to Walk and Exercise
Should you exercise in the morning or the evening? As it turns out, there are benefits to both. Which time of day would work best for you? Walking Guide Wendy Bumgardner has research to help you decide.

Sign up for the Healthy Monday newsletter (and don't forget to sign up for my Stress Management Weekly Newsletter while you're at it, if you haven't already), and start building a healthier body now!

Why We Need Vacations
Feel like an annual vacation is a luxury that you can't afford? Here's why vacations are not only fun, but necessary! Read up on research-proven benefits to vacations.

How To Reduce The Stress of Travel With Kids
Whether you're trying to coax an antsy toddler to stay sitting (and quiet!), answering the endlessly asked question, "How much longer now?," or desperately trying to avoid being the parents with the screaming baby, travel with kids can be stressful! Luckily, these steps can greatly cut down on your travel stress so you can really enjoy your trip.

Quick and Cheap Vacations
If you can't take days off of work and go somewhere exotic, here are some ideas you can do in a weekend, and feel like you really had a break!

What are the best ingredients to include in a vacation? The worst? Write your comments in the 'comments' section, and pass this blog onto your friends and family using the 'share' button. Have a great week!

Because June is 'Rebuild Your Life Month', there's no better time than now to take a look at your life and the stressors in it, and make some changes!

It's true that much of our experience of stress lies in how we look at things--threat vs. challenge, external vs. internal locus of control, half-empty or half-full. However, if we have to many stressors in our lives--situations that routinely trigger the stress response--it may take constant effort to recover physically and emotionally from the body's stress reaction; it just makes sense to eliminate some of the situations that cause stress (whenever possible), and add restorative habits and regular activities that reduce our stress levels.

Where to begin? If you're experiencing a lot of stress in a certain area of your life, that situation will probably pop right into your mind without much work. However, stress does generalize, meaning, if you're feeling a lot of stress at your job, for example, you'll feel more stressed at home, too; if you're feeling a lot of stress in one of your important relationships, you may be less resilient to stress you face in other relationships or in other areas of your life. Thus, if you're feeling stress in a few areas of life, it may be difficult to know where all the stress is coming from; it may just feel like it's coming from all sides!

If you're not sure where to begin with the changes you can make in your life, the Lifestyle Stress Quiz can help you examine different areas of your life to determine which areas are stressing you the most, and find resources to help.

The following resources can also give you a good start in relieving stress in your lifestyle, and move you along the path of rebuilding your life for the better!

Lifestyle Stress Relief Resources:

• Set Priorities
  If you find yourself too busy and would like to make more time in your schedule for the things that matter the most (including stress relief habits!), here's a resource that will help you know where to pare down.

• Manage Job Stress
  Don't love your job, but can't quit? Here are some ways to make your current job less stressful, more satisfying, and less likely to lead to burnout.

• Deal With Conflict
  Having conflict in your life can damage your health and happiness. Resolving conflict without making things worse is key! Here are some healthy conflict resolution strategies you should know about, which can help you cut down on relationship stress.

• Financial Stress Relief
  With many people in a place of financial crisis, money stress is one of the biggies. Here's how to handle a financial crisis, if you're faced with one.

• Cull Clutter
  Yes, clutter can actually be a stressor! Think about it: being surrounded by clutter can subtly drain you of energy, day in and day out. While it may not be easy to go from slob to neatnik (and, as one for whom neatness does not come naturally, I speak from experience!), there are steps you can take to keep your level of clutter at a point you can live with, or maybe even a little better! Read about clutter and de-cluttering here, and take some steps toward order today.

• Add Healthy Habits
  It's important to take care of yourself--you'll live longer, be happier, and feel less stressed. Simply put, a well-cared-for body is less reactive to stress. Here are some self-care strategies and healthy lifestyle habits you can adopt that will cut down on stress in your life.

• Change Your Attitude!
  What you say to yourself about things that happen in your life has a lot to do with how you experience your life. In other words, your attitude matters--it can create or eliminate stress to a great extent! Learn more about how to change your thinking style to change your stress levels.

What are your biggest stressors? Share your answer in this Reader Response article about causes of stress, or add to the comments section. Also, you can see what healthy lifestyle changes have helped other readers the most!

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Ongoing Stress Reduction Resources - Follow Me on Twitter - Subscribe to the Newsletter

Stress Eating Resources From Elizabeth Scott:

Take The Stress and Weight Gain Test
Stress can contribute to weight gain in several ways. If you're having trouble with your weight and wonder what role stress may be playing, or if you just want information and resources for healthy change, this is the quiz for you! The following 10 questions are each designed to help you assess a different aspect of your lifestyle to determine if you may benefit from some simple changes that can help you keep your weight under control when you're stressed. At the end of the quiz, you'll find resources that pertain to your specific situation.

What Causes Emotional Eating?
Even if we know what we're supposed to be eating, there are additional factors that influence how much and what type of food we consume. One of these factors is stress, which is linked to increased emotional eating. Emotional eating has many causes. Learn about the main reasons--besides hunger--that stressed people eat, and find resources to stop emotional eating.

How To Stop Emotional Eating
As anyone who's watching their weight will tell you, hunger is just one of many reasons that people eat. If you're an emotional eater, you may find yourself eating to deal with uncomfortable emotions, using food as a reward when you're happy, and craving sweets or unhealthy snacks when stressed. This article can help you to cut down emotional eating and develop healthier eating habits--even when stressed!

Diet Tips For The Stressed
Despite best intentions, many people find themselves falling short of their diet ideals due to various 'diet traps', or factors that may sneak in and sabotage a healthy diet. The following diet tips can help you to combat some of the main diet traps people encounter, and maintain a healthy diet that keeps you feeling great.

Healthy Diet Resources From About.com

• Low Carb Diets

• Low Fat Cooking

• Weight Loss

• Nutrition

_{Source: Bray, George. Pounds Lost. New England Journal of Medicine February 26, 2009.
Image from iStockPhoto.com}

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• Secret Causes of Summer Stress
  Summer, like the holiday season, is a time of year that most of us look forward to with childlike excitement, only to realize about halfway through that things can be much more stressful at this time than when we were experiencing it as kids. What are the new stressors of summer? Here are a few of the biggies. (Don't worry--you'll find help with them, too!)

• How To Avoid Summer Stress
  How does one keep summer stress at bay and keep cool, so to speak? Here are several ideas you can use to keep this summer relaxing and fun, and let any additional stressors roll off your back.

• How Do You Relieve Summer Stress?
  Summer stress can take you by surprise. We expect fun during summer, not stress; but added summer responsibilities--kids underfoot, travel plans gone awry, vacationing co-workers, etc.--can leave us feeling more stressed than blessed. What stresses you during summer, and how do you handle the stress?

Because May is Family Wellness Month, and because Summer is coming up, this blog brings you information on staying healthy, staying active and, of course, relieving stress. Here are health and stress management strategies for people of all ages.

• Strategies for Family Health
  Family health is important--and increasingly hard to obtain these days. With busy schedules and childhood diseases on the rise, it's important to maintain healthy habits to maintain a healthy family. Here are some top strategies for family health.

• Kids and Stress Management
  We don't always think of kids as being as stressed as we adults, but children do face significant stressors in their lives, and react to that stress. Learn more about kids and stress, and find stress management strategies that can work for them.

• Readers, Respond! Healthy Family Strategies
  With families finding themselves busier than ever, it's often difficult to maintain a healthy lifestyle. As a result, obesity rates and juvenile diabetes, among many other conditions, is on the rise. That's why it's important to maintain strategies that keep your family healthy. What are some of the habits and strategies that you've adopted to keep your family healthy?

• How To Reduce the Stress of Travel
  While travel has always been a somewhat stressful experience, increased airport security and other factors have made travel even more stressful in recent years. Here's how to make the experience less stressful.

• How To Reduce The Stress of Traveling With Kids
  Let's face it: traveling with kids is a lot more complicated, and can be stressful. Here's how to make the experience much less stressful, and perhaps even make getting there part of the fun!

• How To Save Gas While Traveling
  Driving used to be the frugal way to travel. Now that gas prices are at record highs, here are some tips to save gas on your next vacation and make it as frugal as possible.

• More Tips for Frugal Traveling
  Because more of your budget may be spent on transportation, here are some useful tips for saving in other areas of your vacation budget.

I say this somewhat tongue-in-cheek, but having fun in your life is actually serious business. Many people are overwhelmed right now with tough economic times, are finding themselves working harder than before to keep their jobs, may be suffering from stress in their relationships as a result, and don't make fun a priority. This is understandable, but it's important to prioritize having fun, too. Here's why:

Eustress: Fun activities provide a source of eustress, the 'good' kind of stress that keeps you feeling vital and alive. It's the sense of excitement you get from completing a project, riding a roller coaster, or meeting an exciting challenge in your life. We need regular eustress in our lives, and fun activities can provide that.
_{Read More About Eutress}

Positive Attitude: Having regular fun in your life can help you feel less overwhelmed by the stressors you face. This can help you change your attitude toward your lifestyle stressors so that you're less reactive to stress when you experience it.
_{Read More About Positive Attitude and Stress}

The 'Best Medicine': Laughter carries many health benefits with it, so the more laughter you have in your life, the better it is for your health.
_{Read More About The Benefits of Laughter}

User-Friendliness: It might be hard to hit the gym multiple times a week or forgo unhealthy 'comfort foods' when you're stressed, but fitting more fun and laughter into your life is something you can do for yourself that's also easy!
_{Read More About Healthy Lifestyle Choices}

Strong Relationships: Couples who engage in new activities together and have regular fun together may enjoy a closer bond than they otherwise would if they fell into a rut. And a healthy relationship can be a great source of stress relief in your life.
_{Read More About Healthy Relationship Resources}

Social Support: Likewise with friends, sharing fun activities with friends is a great way to maintain a supportive circle of buddies, keeping your bonds strong and helping everyone in the group keep stress levels low. Having strong friendships in your life, and a sense of community, has been linked with longevity, lower stress levels, and more positive states of health.
_{Read More About Social Support}

Burnout Buffering: Having regular fun activities to spice up your life can also help you stave off burnout. Feelings of burnout can result from having a stressful job with unpredictable, hard-to-meet expectations and little recognition. One of the methods I've always endorsed for finding relief from this type of job stress is to give yourself small rewards, or start a group of supportive friends to high-five each other when they accomplish goals that would otherwise go unrecognized. Giving yourself a regular dose of fun is a way to do that, and share it with friends.
_{Read More About Burnout and Stress}

So, after looking at some of the "why"s of having fun, let's look at the "how"s. How can we all get more fun into our lifestyles? It's simpler than you may think, if you make fun a priority. Here are some ideas:

Tips For Having Fun

Take A 'PlayCation' For Stress Relief

Fun Stress Relievers
How can you relieve stress by having fun? Here are some ideas to try!

Top Hobbies for Stress Relief
Certain activities are worth the time you put into them, just for the fun and stress relief you can get out of them. Here are some of my top picks for stress-relieving hobbies.

How To Maintain a Sense of Humor
Laughing at the stressors you face is one of the best ways to rob them of their difficulty. Here are some strategies for maintaining a sense of humor in life, and having more fun as you go.

Share Your Thoughts:
Do you feel that you have enough fun in your life? What do you do for fun? Share your thoughts in the comments section, and find more About Stress Management on Facebook.

Apparently, psychologist Jeff Larsen from Texas Tech University and Amie McKibban of Wichita State University wondered the same thing, and set out to test the theory! They studied college students and their attitudes toward one major possession: their cars. Students with cars were asked to rate how much they wanted the car they had; students without cars rated how much they wanted the car they didn't have.

The results, published in Psychological Science, prove what we all know: that people can become accustomed to what they have, appreciate their possessions less as the novelty wears off, and therefore derive less happiness from their possessions as time goes by. However, they also found that it's possible to continue to want the things you have, and that doing so can, in fact, bring greater happiness! In short, they proved that happiness is both wanting what you have and having what you want.

"Simply having a bunch of things is not the key to happiness," Larsen said in a prepared statement. "Our data show that you also need to appreciate those things you have. It's also important to keep your desire for things you don't own in check."

So how does one maintain an attitude of gratitude for possessions already owned? In my experience, maintaining a gratitude journal is key. If you write down what you're grateful for at the end of the day, you get into the habit of noticing what you appreciate and why, strengthening your appreciation for what you have in your daily life. It also takes the focus away from things you want but don't yet have. If you don't keep a journal, there are other ways of developing an attitude of gratitude, which is so important for happiness and stress relief.

Also, let's not forget the other finding in this research: while happiness is connected with wanting what you have, having what you want factors in as well, so don't give up on your goal-setting! Going after a goal (with the right attitude) can be exciting, and achieving what you want has its own obvious rewards. Here are some effective goal setting tips to help you find happiness, get what you want, and do so with less stress.

More Articles on Happiness and Gratitude:

• Cultivating Gratitude

• Quiz: How Happy Are You?
• How To Be Happy

Elaborate on your answer to the poll in the comments section, if you like!

_{Source:
Larsen JT, McKibban AR. Is happiness having what you want, wanting what you have, or both? Psychological Science April, 2008.}

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While most of these relationships need more help than can be provided in a blog (even this blog!), it is likely that these and virtually all relationships could benefit from a little stress management and communication training. Putting work into one's marriage is important for happiness, just as taking care of one's own needs is vital. Whether your Mother's Day was a great one or a day that left you feeling unhappy, stress management is an important and well-deserved aspect of life, not a luxury. The following resources can help you to make changes in life that can help you to feel happier, healthier, and closer to your mate. Put them into action--you deserve it, and you'll be glad you did!

Have More Fun And Enjoy Life
Life is meant to be enjoyed! Stressed moms may find themselves putting off some fun activities in favor of other responsibilities. This is sometimes necessary, but don't forget to work fun into your daily life--it's important for your resilience and stress levels. Here's how to have more fun and enjoy life.

Self-Care Strategies for Moms
You need to take care of yourself so you can take care of everyone else--and so you can enjoy life and more easily cope with stress! Here are some self-care strategies that can help you to feel less stress and more joy.

Maintaining A Happy Marriage
A stale marriage isn't as toxic as a highly conflict-ridden one, but can be problematic nonetheless. Learn what contributes to a happy marriage, and find tips for incorporating these ingredients into your life.

Fun and The Importance of Play
Do adults need 'play time', too? Quite simply, yes. Here's why, and how to get more fun into your life!

Readers Respond: Share Your Best Happy Marriage Tips!
Having a happy marriage takes work, but brings many benefits, including reduced stress. Good communication is key, as is mutual respect. But what else helps keep a marriage happy? What are your best tips for maintaining a happy marriage? See what other readers have to say, and add your best tips to the list! Share Your Best!

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