What if you could turn off stress?!?!

It’s hard to be happy if you’re stressed and worried.

Happiness, then, depends at least in part on managing stress and anxiety.

And more happiness is possible; if one learns to flip the switch on stress…

via Psychology Today by Beth Kurland

Take a moment to try a quick experiment. Say the following out loud if possible, or to yourself if you prefer: “This is awful. I can’t believe this is happening. I can’t handle this.” When you do that, what do you notice happening in your body? Does your breathing change? What happens to your posture? What muscles contract or tighten? How do you feel?

Now say the following to yourself: “This is difficult, but I can handle it. I will find the strength to cope with this and move forward.” Ask yourself the same questions as above, and notice what your answers are.

If you are like most people, the first set of statements evokes feelings of tension in the body, perhaps shallow breathing, feelings of irritability, or other signs of stress. In the second example, when I have tried this with my patients, they report being aware of sitting more upright, having less clenching of muscles, feeling a greater sense of openness in their bodies, and feeling more empowered. This is the power of words. The words we say to ourselves are not simply mental events, but affect our emotions and our bodies, which in turn can impact our health. For example, tense muscles, if chronically held, can lead to pain, and stress chemicals flooding our body on a chronic basis can contribute to dis–ease and disease.

It has been estimated that our minds can produce 50,000 or more thoughts per day. If we really begin to pay attention to the things that we say to ourselves, which most of us don’t naturally do, we would notice that many of these thoughts are negative, and even at times self-deprecating. Many of these thoughts make unhelpful predictions about the future without us even realizing this (as in the example above, predicting that we can’t handle something before giving ourselves a chance). Our minds can also focus on unhelpful stories about the past and can pull us in and spiral us downward, ensnaring us in a web of negativity and stress.

So how do we step out of this downward spiral? There are many ways to do this, but I would like to share a two-step process with you here…

…keep reading the full & original article HERE