Befriend Your Stress

Stress has always gotten a bad rap for causing problems with your health and emotions. But when you befriend your stressed feelings by taking the time to get to know it, you may be able to reveal much about yourself.

Things or situations that you care deeply about, challenges you face, relationship issues and much more can be very telling when you examine your stressful feelings and symptoms.

Humans were originally given stress as a way to save their lives. The fight-or-flight instinct is stressful, but when you’re chased by wild animals, it’s a good stress problem to have. Now, we’re not as concerned about getting away from harm.

Yet, that same instinct is there and might be manifested in other challenges you face. Studies have indicated that stress isn’t all bad. It can make you happier with your life, stronger to face obstacles and smarter in finding ways to deal with them.

Embracing your stress to learn from it isn’t easy for most of us, but it may help you develop resilience, powerful mindset and a determination to shape your own reality rather than letting circumstances shape you.

Stress can be the catalyst to improve relationships, connect with others, focus on productivity and gain more energy to tackle challenges in your life. Understanding why you’re feeling stress is the first step in gaining control over it – and over your own life.

You can even use stress to move you into success mode and turn undesirable situations into productive and satisfying ones. You’ve likely known people who seem to thrive when under pressure.

They’ve learned the secret in using stress as a resource to be productive rather than letting it thwart personal progress. Controlling stress in your life rather than letting it control you means changing your mindset.

As soon as you manage that, it’s possible to call on resources that are best for handling stress. Stress is often thought of as a problem that’s difficult, if not impossible, to get rid of. It’s an intrinsic part of life.

But when you think of stress as a way to propel yourself into creativity and productivity, it becomes a path to get what you want – to the success you’ve always dreamed of. It provides a sense of urgency and courage to follow through rather than give in to the discomfort of the situation.

Insight into the causes of stress in your life can also be beneficial in plotting your response using a positive mindset. A positive mindset can produce excellence in individuals and help them achieve more than they ever thought possible.

Stress is often seen as discomfort. You may think that any situation causing discomfort should be avoided, but when you have insight into the cause of the discomfort, you are then able to find the courage to handle it.

Those who have learned how to use stress to their advantage include soldiers, police men and women and others who work in highly dangerous or pressured environments. They thrive on adversity because they approach it with a can-do mindset.

Discovering the secrets in stress can help you in many ways. By conquering your fears of challenging stress, you’ll come away with self-confidence that can help you grow and flourish in any situation that comes your way.

Viewing stress as a friend and embracing its influence can unlock the benefits stress can have in your life. When you master that, you’ll also change the way you think about life, stress and many of the other problems that plague you and keep you from success.

It’s difficult to think that stress can actually offer health benefits rather than put you at risk for many harmful conditions. But when you change your mind-set about stress and let it spur you on to action rather than paralyze you from fear, the message of stress becomes clear.

Rethink your feelings and actions about how you respond to stress and think more about how you can use the stress in your life to transform it. Moving on from problematic situations and toxicity in your life helps you live in the moment rather than the past.

If you’re having stress from thinking of past, negative situations, using the old methods of denial and escape may not be working for you. Changing your response might take some practice, but when you master the method, it can change your life in many positive ways.

Another thing to remember when addressing stress is that certain situations may be considered negatively stressful by some, but not others. The perception of stress in your life plays a large role in how you address it.

If you learn that all stress isn’t bad for you and can be a way to engage in life in a meaningful way and use it as a tool to grow, it can be life-changing. Readjusting your mindset about stress in your life can help you meet challenges head-on rather than shrink away from them.

Both willpower and wisdom can be found when you approach stress as a way to gain insight into what makes you tick. You can then transform the stress in your life to something meaningful and put your mindset in a position of power.