How stressed are you? Take the test

Unlike pressure, stress is never good for you and never a positive thing. Stress is a condition or feeling experienced when a person perceives that the demands placed on them exceed the resources the individual has available. The symptoms of stress significantly affect both your mind and body. If you scored high, imagine how much better you would feel and look without it.

Take the test: 

On a scale of 1-10 how stressed are you now?        *10 being high
 

1-4       Share your secret!

5-8       Your adrenal systems are over active. You will be showing symptoms of stress. Important notice -take time to relax

8+        Stop and assess your life. What’s working? What isn’t?

Symptoms of stress

                                                          

• Increased irritability
• Heightened sensitivity to criticism
• Signs of tension i.e. nail biting
• Difficulty getting to sleep/over sleeping
• Drinking and smoking more
• Indigestion/stomach issues
• Loss of concentration
• Fearful of future
• Anxiety
• Panic Attacks
• Anger
• Depression

SAY ‘NO’ TO STRESS - 10 TOP TIPS TO BECOMING STRESS FREE

1. Be Honest – Listen and trust your instincts. Identify what is really causing you to feel stressed? It's never what you think it is. What’s stopping you from making the changes you know you need to make? Stop making excuses.
2. Slow Down – do one thing at a time and finish it
3. What makes you happy? – do more of it
4. Be thankful- what are you thankful for in life? List 20 things
5. Be kind – to yourself. Check your self-talk, you wouldn’t be that hard on anyone else would you?
6. Simplify your life – let go of clutter, dramas, and people pleasing
7. Ask for & Accept practical/emotional help – people like to help
8. Body Care – Get the right fuel into your body. There are links between vitamin deficiencies, dehydration and high stress levels.
9. Move it – dance, skip, break-dance, whatever floats your boat. Unused energy turns into negative, lethargic energy and can turn against you.
10. Relax – park your brain, breath in slowly through your nose… breath out slowly through your mouth. Just 5 mins sitting with a quiet mind will put a spring in your step even when chaos surrounds you.

If you or someone you know is stuck with stress or suffering stress related illnesses, there are so many amazing options to help you and your brain change the way you feel, even if you don't feel you can change the situation.

Time to say 'NO' to stress

Here is your assignment....

1. YOU WILL RECEIVE A BODY
you may like it you may not, but it will be yours for the entire period of your time here

2. YOU WILL LEARN LESSONS
You are enrolled in a full-time informal school called life. Each day in this school you will have the opportunity to learn lessons. You may like the lessons or think them irrelevant and stupid

3. THERE ARE NO MISTAKES. ONLY LESSONS
Growth is a process of trial and error and experimentation. The 'failed' experiments are as much a part of the process as the experiments that work

4. A LESSON IS REPEATED UNTIL IT IS LEARNED
A lesson will be presented to you in various forms until you have learned it, then you can go onto the next lesson

5. LEARNING LESSONS DOES NOT END
There is no part of life that does not contain its lessons. If you are alive their are lessons to be learned

6. "THERE" IS NO BETTER THAN "HERE"
When your "there" has become "here", you will simply obtain another "there" that will again look better than "here"

7. OTHERS ARE MERELY MIRRORS OF YOU
You cannot love of hate something about another person unless it reflects to you something you love or hate about yourself

8. WHAT YOU MAKE OF YOUR LIFE IS UP TO YOU
You have all the tools and resources you need, what you do with them is up to you. The choice is yours

9. THE ANSWERS LIE INSIDE YOU
The answers to life's questions lie inside you. All you need to do is look, listen and trust

10. WHETHER YOU THINK YOU CAN OR CAN'T, IN EITHER CASE YOU'LL BE RIGHT

THINK ABOUT IT.......

Gut Instincts, friend or foe?

Do you always trust your instincts? Some of the most stressed and anxious clients I've worked with have had one major thing in common. They ignore their gut instincts. Some can't even hear their instincts anymore they have turned up the dial on the chatter in their head so high it drowns them out. They create a life full of distractions, so there is never a moments silence for the instincts to get through with their message. Others hear their instincts loud and clear, but are afraid to trust themselves. The theory is that 'gut instinct' is the intelligence of the unconcious mind.

Stress is created when the gut says 'no' and the head says 'yes', or when the gut says 'yes' and the head says 'no'. This battle creates an inner conflict which causes you disharmony.

Trusting my gut instincts has actually saved my life. I had already had one malignant tumour removed, and my gut was telling me that the tiny freckle appearing on my left side wasn't right. Two consultants looked at it thoroughly, and said it was fine. My instincts were literally screaming at me 'this is not fine'. This gave me the confidence to go back again unhappy about their opinion. After a biopsy it was confirmed, it was indeed another potentially deadly tumour. Because it was caught early, I had an excellent prognosis. This just proved to me that even listening to my gut over expert opinion is important.

Of course it isn't always quite so straight forward. A friend was recently telling me that she felt her boyfriend was lying to her about working away for some of the weekend and not coming back until Saturday evening. (he often worked away in the week) 'something just doesn't feel right' she said. This led her to become very upset at the conclusion that he was cheating on her. It turned out that her instincts were indeed right, he did lie to her about working away for the weekend. After tears and MI6 style questioning he finally admitted that he had wanted to play golf with his colleagues on the Saturday, instead of the planned family day, and felt it would be easier to just say he was working. Her instincts had acurrately detected a lie, but she had convinced herself that he was cheating, when in fact he just lacked balls. (forgive the pun!)

How do you start trusting your instincts?
1) Like any good relationship, spend time alone listening
2) If it argues with you it is not your gut instinct it's your head
3) Develop trust by going with your intuition more and more
4) Be confident in following your instincts, even if the rest of the world is going the opposite way

FOLLOWING YOUR INSTINCTS + BALLS = A GREAT LIFE

Hands Up for Panic Buying

Come on, hands up! Who queued up for petrol over the past week like a lemming?

Did you pack sandwiches and make it an outing, or sit fuming at the inconvenience?

Maybe, like me, you saw that the gauge on your dashboard was just under half a tank, saw the queues building, the updates on facebook, and after passing three garages resembling a car park, decided to seek fuel and fill up so you could relax for the next week. Some of you (you know who you are) drove around on faith and fumes, ignoring the amber light on the dashboard, laughing in the bored faces of those of us that succumbed to the flash mob fuel queue. And some of you (I don't know who you are) were so desperate you stole fuel from others.

All of this because we believed there was a possibility of a lack of fuel. The reality was there was plenty. It was only our belief that fuelled the lack of fuel. Look at the Northern Rock story. The belief that there was a lack of money, caused a panic, and the fear manifested into a very real lack of money and the downfall of a bank.

The point is, when we believe there is a potential lack, we all behave in different and strange ways. A collective belief is the most powerful entity. Wars have been started and won, lives lost, and lives saved, people's lives changed and others destroyed.

So how might someone behave if they believe they have a lack of love or weren't good enough? What would they most likely be creating in their lives?

Ode to 2011

I don't know about you, but 2011 was a rather constipated year for me. I relentlessly invented, fearlessly tried new ideas, and let go of and binned anything that no longer served me. In a fury of consistent shovelling I only ever paused to check if anything was being produced at the other end. Nada! Not even a pellet.

So 2012 is all about movement and flow for me, and so far I can feel it coming.....

Captain..'we're gonna need a bigger boat'

Happy 2012 all, welcome aboard.