Is it possible to live without stress in our lives?

But I ask, is it necessary to relinquish all stress or just get it under control.

When I taught public speaking I used to tell my students, don’t work on not being nervous, just try to get the butterflies to fly in formation.

Stress is necessary but an imbalance of stress is what hurts us.

Take action.

This is easier than it sounds because we all really know what is stressing us out.

So pick three things – no more.

Say, stress at work, stress with your spouse and feeling overwhelmed in a fast moving world.

Target them and choose just one thing you can do to mitigate each one.  Only one.

Stress at work – change the way you work, write down tasks, build in breaks, avoid stressful or unpleasant people to the extent that you can, make sure you are working at something you really like.  If not, work to change jobs.

Stress with your spouse – declare a day when you give up as many things as you can that come between the two of you.  See if you survive.  You will likely find that this is the easiest stress reliever you’ve ever tried.

Stress of feeling overwhelmed in a fast moving world – Take a yoga class or take a walk alone.  Talk to yourself.  Ask the question:  “Is this thing that is killing me really worth it?”  And put a stop/loss on it.

Good stress makes us competitive.

Bad stress is that which, believe it or not, responds to just about any positive step to recognize it and change things.

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