You can live well and prosper. It’s easy to start right now. Close your eyes for a moment. Take a breath. Scan your body. How does it feel? Tense anywhere? Breathe into those areas. Open your eyes. Make a point of paying attention to your body today. Celebrate this new awareness.
Advice on stress, including stress management, happiness tips, quizzes, action plans and mindfulness advice from expert Elizabeth Scott.
Source: Stress Advice from About.com
This is a great read on how to approach integrating work into life (and not the other way around).
The Biggest Mistake Work-Life Integrators Always Make
We do our best work when we’re not stressed to the max. It’s the times we have balance in our lives that we shine. The best ideas often come to us when we’re taking a break – like while we’re working out or in the shower. It’s no coincidence. Spending too much time working without a break is not healthy for us. So how can we change our behaviors? Start small. Take a one minute break whenever you think about it. The first step is building awareness. If you even begin to think of taking a break, as a possibility, that is a wonderful sign. Try these small one minute breaks as an experiment. See what happens. What do you notice, what do you feel? This is your first step towards being the best you can be.
Take a moment to reflect on the joyful moments you experienced over the past week. What comes to mind? I appreciate spending time with a friend at the park this weekend. That was joyful. What about you?
We all have such busy lives. One way to reduce stress is to love a cat. It’s good for you. It’s good for the cat.
Let me count the ways… (Scott, 2015)
1. Cats can improve your mood. Think of how restful a cat’s purr sounds. Feel her soft fur beneath your fingers. Petting a cat is beneficial for both you and the cat.
2. Cats can help fight loneliness by providing unconditional love.
3. Cats can help reduce blood pressure.
The health benefits of owning a cat is backed up by scientific studies. Researchers extracted data on 3,435 Americans aged 30 to 75, from the second National Health and Nutrition Examination Study that took place from 1976 to 1980. 2,435 of the participants were current or former cat owners, while the remaining 2,000 had never had a cat. During the 10 year follow-up period, the cat owners had a…
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We all experience life changes from time to time. Whether it’s moving, getting married, divorced, or having kids, life is far from static. Change in itself is stressful. So how do we cope during times of change?
First, keep it simple. Take things one step at a time. Need to do laundry and make dinner and feed the dog and watch the baby? Pick one thing to keep yourself from getting completely frazzled. What can you delegate to others? Can you get some help around the house? Maybe you can ask your partner or family member to help by feeding the dog today. Ask yourself, how can I get just one thing off my plate right now? The more we focus, the simpler things become, and the less stressed we feel.
Sometimes all we see is the black and white of a situation. Either something went well, or it was a complete failure. Thinking in those extremes is tough. We always win or lose. We don’t give ourselves the opportunity to think in shades of grey. That is, maybe we didn’t do something perfectly, but we did a good enough job and got the task done.
Melanie Noble 