Stress Relief Center

Accepting situations as they are is always a difficult task. It's easy enough for me to say "don't get upset about the things you can't change" but it's much more difficult to actually live life with that mentality. For example, sitting in traffic is often frustrating and stressful, but what are you going to do about it? You can't move all the cars out of your way. You could have left earlier, but now it's too late, you're sitting in traffic, so why be upset? All this stress does is hurt you, so there's really no point in it. But, honestly, I could tell you this till I'm blue in the face and chances are, you won't just change your whole perspective by tomorrow. In fact, chances are high that you probably don't know how to actually keep from getting upset or frustrated at situations you can do nothing about.  A lot of the time, people just assume that telling yourself to calm down is actually going to work. We think that being cal

Ever have those days where you got 8 or more hours per sleep but you still wake up exhausted and fatigued? Have those days frequently? This persistent exhaustion is often due to stress. Ever have nights where you can't fall asleep? You lay there thinking about everything going on that year and getting frustrated with yourself for not being able to fall asleep when you want to? Then you start thinking about that and how frustrating it is and next thing you know it's 2 am? Also due to stress. A lot of us don't realize it, but this regular cycle of exhaustion and insomnia is often related to high levels of stress. Now I know that telling you that won't fix the problem, but the first step is recognizing what the variable is that's causing the symptom. Stress is a commonplace ailment anymore... in fact it's almost like a competition. Telling a friend you're so stressed often can turn into a "well that's nothing compared to my stress" type conver

Running down the trail, you feel every muscle in your body as it contracts and extends, pushing yourself along. Focus on your breathing. In. Out. In. Out. Feel the air fill your lungs. Push the air out slowly, letting your mind drift into a calm state. Feel each footfall... heel, ball, toe, push off. Heel, ball, toe, push off. The muscles in your thighs alternate between contraction and extension, as it takes your weight then propels you forward. Feel your core, tight enough to keep your posture. Even the slight tension in your shoulders, keeping your arms in beat with your legs. Heel, ball, toe. Heel, ball, toe. Push off. The smell of the air around you is crisp and clear. Birds are chirping in the distance, water trickling down a stream nearby. Heel, ball, toe. Heel, ball, toe. Each step brings you closer to peace. Heel, ball, toe. Heel, ball, toe. Push off. The trail starts going uphill and you feel your thighs burning and your heart pounding. You're breathing a lit

Okay, I know what you're all thinking: "Here we go again, someone telling me I need to use a day planner to keep my stress levels low... I barely have time in the day to do the things I need to do, none-the-less to take 20 minutes planning out my day/week! Plus, who follows those things anyway?" Well, I'm here to tell you that you don't actually NEED a day planner to schedule your time better. If you didn't participate in the values vs priorities lesson from last week, I suggest you go back and take a look at that because it plays the most vital role in your ability to manage your time well. Once you've figured out your values and prioritized those, we can start looking at how you schedule your week. The things that you value most should be getting the most attention. For example, if you value family, work, and school, those should be the top three consumers of your time. If you look at your week and realize that the thing you spend most of your time

Years ago, I was a different person. I was so overly stressed that I would literally scratch myself till I bled. What I didn't know was that it was related to stress. Luckily for me, the Stress Management class was a requirement for me to take in order to graduate... and it changed my life. Mike, the casual professor who lets you call him by his first name, started out the class talking about the physiology of stress and how we can manage our time better to reduce our stress. But the lesson that really hit home for me was on values and priorities. So instead of telling you all about the lesson, I'm going to walk you through it so you can use it yourself! Step 1: Write down 30 of your values, in no particular order. Step 2: Write down the things you prioritize, in order. By this I mean, what do you spend the most time on? Do you spend most of your week at work? That should be the top of the list. Work your way down so that the bottom of the list reflects what you spend

In direct contrast to the last post, I'm going to discuss saying "yes" to things more often. This last year was big for me, I did a lot of new things. I learned how to snowboard in January, learned how to scuba dive in March, got married and left the country for the first time as an adult in June, went on my first mountain trail ride on a horse in July, and started rock climbing in November! Each of these new activities taught me a lesson that I needed in life and has helped me further my abilities in each of them. That lesson is to say yes to new things and to keep pushing, even when you don't feel that you're good enough. The first step is to say "YES" more often. If someone asks you to try something new, be brave and say "yes"! You may not fall in love with the activity but each new thing you try will come with its own new experience and life lessons. When I first joined the scuba diving class, it was really for my now-husband. I wasn

The first few weeks of classes is the busiest time of the year for me. Between tracking down all those great (ish) deals on text books, getting back in the swing of attending classes, and hitting the gym, I barely have time to sleep! My friends are always asking me for help with stuff or to hang out and of course there’s the ever-nagging parents asking why I don’t come around more often. I try as hard as I can, beginning my day around 5:30 and getting to bed around 11, but after about 2 weeks of this, the stress and lack of sleep catch up and I get sick. I spend the next week in a haze of cough medicine and even less sleep, wondering how it even got to this point. My nose get’s raw and my body is barely moving and I finally take a day off work to get some much needed sleep and soup in my life. Then, at long last, the ever-elusive lesson about how to say no kicks in. I start to say “No” when people ask for favors or to spend an entire day together. At first people are a little put-ou