The stress advice of this week: Beware of that the factors that stress you most, are not always obvious. 


Don't kid yourself by trying to convince you and others that you simply don't have enough time in your live. That is an oversimplification that won't help you a bit. Feeling overstressed and inadequate with not enough solutions, you are at risk using a well known automatic response to protect you. Most likely you will fill your mind with sentences like I don't have time for this or I have so much to do. Then you fight on trying to keep up with daily tasks, shoveling the same sand over again and again. Instead you should try to identify the factors in your life today that stress you most. These could be tasks at work, worries, thoughts or dreams. It is important to identify them to be able to face them, respond to them and look for solutions instead of hiding behind the thought: I don't  have enough time.  These stress-factors are not always obvious and sometimes they are not difficult to solve and often they are important and positive for our live. Take an example. Raising a teenager some would say can by a stressful task. We are not supposed to think of a task like that as negative or stress related but it is difficult and complicated and deserves all you strength and skills as a parent. Let's say you are a director in a developing company and the projects at work are constantly on your mind and when something goes wrong at home you have a tendency to surrender from home to work, telling your self you have no time and fill your head with work related issues and relations at home are sure to get worse and your teenager would benefit much more from a different approach that could sound like this in your mind: I have much to do but this week one of the most important stress factors in my life is my relation to the teenager in the family. How could I use my skills and experience to cope better with this task, what should I plan, what support could I get.

So start out with this new method fighting the stress in your life by asking yourself: Which are the most important stress factor in my life today.
Be an analyst! Good luck.