Everywhere you look, someone is offering stress management tips. And most of them are all the same. But have you ever thought about whether these tips are good or bad? Whether they actually work or are just parroting what someone wrote? Whether they will actually relieve the stress in your life or make it worse?
Here are the top 5 worst tips on stress management usually seen on the web:
1. Take a long walk. Almost every site recommends this. But they recommend this as is. In other words, just walk away from the stress for a while. So what’s the problem? The stress is still there when you get back! And now you have just wasted time that you could be dealing with it! If you are going to walk away from stress, then either use the time to clear your mind and recharge your energy, or to think about solving the stress problem in an undistracted environment.
2. Meditate. Now, don’t get me wrong. Meditation is a vital part of stress management. But just to say meditate, without anything else, is like saying just run your fingers up and down the key board and you’ll be playing the piano! Try several mediation systems and find the one that fits you best THEN – meditate.
3. Practice visualization. What are you visualizing? Your heart attack as the effects of stress on your body wear you down? Looking for a new job after you get fired for not staying cool under the pressure? This tip should be practice visualizing YOUR SOLUTION to the stress.
4. Don’t eat comfort foods. Staying fit and healthy is an extremely important component of managing stress. But look at all the above tips. Taken on their own, each one of them makes you feel better inside. But now you are told not to eat foods that make you feel better? What the---? Eat comfort foods in moderation. Feel good while you are attacking stress.
5. Stay calm. Come again? What people call stress is really their bad internal reaction to stress. So telling someone who doesn’t know how to react properly to stress to stay calm is like telling someone who can’t swim not to drown. You will be calm under stress when you have the confidence of knowing you can react to stress.
The problem with these tips is that they are surface level. They don’t go far enough. They don’t relieve the stress. They just make you feel better – temporarily – inside, while the stress continues to give you an anxiety attack.
Learn to attack the stress. Find a program that teaches you to get rid of the stress, not just handle it. Focus on tackling stress head-on and tossing it out of the way, instead of focusing only on yourself and your feelings about it. Stress doesn’t care how you feel and stress won’t become less just because you can picture a happy place.
Rick Carter created STRESS JUDO COACHING, aggressive stress management coaching for maximum personal effectiveness, based on his 17+ years of experienced in the courtroom and 25+ years of experience in the dojo (martial arts school). Rick is a certified coach and attorney licensed in 3 states. If you want to develop the mindset of a black belt martial artist toward stressful situations, go to STRESS JUDO COACHING.