***** Positive Thinking, Happy Living

Stress is a universal part of the human condition. In short, just about everything in our lives can be a source of stress. The key is not avoiding stress, but learning how to filter what kinds of stress we allow to affect us, and to stop the influence of the worst sources.

Our vivid imaginations often have the power to alleviate or exacerbate stressful situations. On the one hand, we can come up with a lot of different solutions for the same problems; yet on the other, we also can create all manner of roadblocks for ourselves almost out of thin air.

Newton tells us that a body in motion will stay in motion unless acted upon; likewise, a body at rest will stay at rest until acted upon. This gives us a powerful metaphor for the difficulties of getting into a proper, healthy exercise habit that can help shed weight and keep it off.

Our vivid imaginations often have the power to alleviate or exacerbate stressful situations. On the one hand, we can come up with a lot of different solutions for the same problems; yet on the other, we also can create all manner of roadblocks for ourselves almost out of thin air.

In addition to the way that stress becomes quite relentless and ever present in our lives, it also has a terrible habit of refusing to respect boundaries. No matter how we might assume that everything's been taken care of, something always seems to come up to intrude into our few free moments and rob us of the rest we so desperately need.

Sometimes the problem that we're dealing with isn't necessarily a matter of the stress itself, but rather the way we're approaching it. After all, we can't lay all the blame on outside forces - we do make our own problems just as often.

Fortunately, this also means that we can correct those same problems that we've made. Most of the difficulties we find ourselves engineering are easily controlled and modified with a bit of careful effort.

We've talked about stress and the elements that bring it into our lives, or stressors. Identifying our stressors can be a powerful first step, for obvious reasons - if we know what's giving us grief, we can take steps to put it out of our way, resolve it or come to terms with it. Even in the cases where we can't totally remove a stressor, such as a confrontational coworker, we can find ways to moderate its influence.

As many people have commented at one time or another, we could get so much more done if there were just more hours in the day. Obligations pile up everywhere: duties at work, commitments to social groups, quality time with the family and time out to spend with friends… For whatever reason, there always seems to be some kind of demand (or worse, a polite request) on our time. Yet this wishing for more time in the day is missing the real point of the problem, which is actually quite different.

What's the problem, then?