dealing with stress
...pe with stress. 1. Find a quiet place. You don't even have to leave your chair for this. Close your eyes for a moment and take a deep breath, in through your nose and out through your mouth. Now imagine yourself somewhere quiet and completely relaxing. Use as much detail when imagining your quiet, relaxing place as possible. For example, imagine yourself sitting on a sndy beach. you can feel the sand on your toes and the warm sun on your face. You can smell and taste the salty sea water and hear it as it laps against the shore. You can hear the sea gulls as they fly overhead and the children laughing and playing in the sand around you. You can see couples walking hand in hand along the waters edge. The sky is a brilliant shade of light blue with small, white, whispy clouds. The water is almost crystal clear with a slight tint of aqua color. The more detail you include the more relaxing it will be. The detail helps you escape, if only for a moment. 2. Force yourself to smile. Start with a smirk ans slowly build up to a room brightening smile. Even when everything around you seems to make you miserable, siling can take the edge off. 3. Write down your thoughts and feelings. Jornaling doesn't have to take long just grab some paper and start writing. Put all of your emotions on paper and get them out of your head. Don't take time to think about what you are writing, just write. What you write doesn't have to make sense or be neat nobody else will be reading it anyway. 4. Change your thought patterns. Think positive! Combat all the negative thoughts in your head with positive thoughts. For example, instead of telling yourself how hopeless the situation is, tell yourself that there is always hope and try to point out ways to make the situation better. This takes practice, but it does work. Pretty soon ever...