I watched an Olivier Roland’s video  and I learned good stuff.

I am doing a synthesis of the Dale Carnegie’s book “How to stop worrying and start living”  and other sources on internet for a blueprint to manages stress in 4 steps.

Stress is about change, it means adapting to the environment of a changing structure. Stress is a feeling triggered by the interpretation of an event. It’s a reaction related to the constraints and the pressure undergone in its environment. Stress can be interpreted as something positive, whether it’s considered a challenge or as something negative, if it’s considered a harmful event.

The truth is that stress is a mistake of reasoning in relation to the attitude or behavior we adopt. This is an answer that isn’t adequate. It’s an alert for mental dysfunction as the body gives us an alert for physical pain. Fortunately, people can learn to control stress in 4 steps : Take a step back and analyze what triggered the stress ; anticipate and visualize ; organize yourself and communicate and turn away or adapt and accept.

1^st step – Take a step back and analyze

 

 

It’s necessary to step back and analyze what triggered the stress. Because before trying to solve that, it’s important to know what caused it. By analyzing what caused the stress, we can avoid certain consequences.

To do that, here’s what you can do :

• Make a list of sources of annoyance that you have in your family, friends, school, work, transportation, etc. Once you have found them, classify them from the most impacting to the least impacting. You can also do a 20/80 analysis, that means identify the 20% of the sources that bring you 80% of your stress.

• Ask yourself these questions : « What is the problem ? What is the cause of this stress in these sources ? What are the most serious consequences that I suffer of my experience ? »

• Understand the emotion that created in these moments. Then check if it’s a real fear or rather a theoretical concern that doesn’t have much to happen in your life.

If a situation is truly unavoidable, you need to prepare yourself to accept it. We must give up the impossible because it’s extremely stressful to have no way to change a situation. To avoid this, you need to anticipate situations that may lead you into an impasse. Once these situations identified, you must try to really avoid them or change the course of things from the start.

It’s impossible to keep control of all things in your life. It’s useless to set inaccessible goals.

2^nd step – anticipate and visualize

 

 

 

The best way to handle stress is to anticipate. Based on the list you made in the first step (source of stress), imagine solutions and possible answers. Ask yourself these questions : « Why did you agree to be in this situation ? ». If what you do make sense, it limits the stress.

Decide how you want to live a situation. An event that happens to you can have not effect on you until you choose words to qualify it. If you say that an event is happy, boring, sad or extraordinary, it can become so. By qualifying the event, you modify the perception that you have of this event.

The way you see the event determines your body’s reaction. So take a moment to think before judging and classyfying a situation as negative.

Take Olivier Roland’s example. When Olivier Roland began to meditate, his neighbor’s dog was barking. At first it disturbed Olivier to focus on his breathing, it was stressful and annoying. After a while, Olivier realized that it wasn’t the barking dog that was stressful, it was Olivier’s interpretation of the situation. From the moment that Olivier decided that the barking dog was something neutral or positive, he began to appreciate when the dog barks. It’s a sign of life.

Imagination can be used to help fight stress. Get in shape before a stressful event. You can create a positive state of mind when an event is negative. Think of something positive like music, a holiday, projects in progress. Visualize a happy moment, a happy memory.

This the end of Part 1. In the 2^nd Part, I talk about organize yourself and communicate and turn away or adapt and accept.

Share this article if you think it can help someone you know. Thank you.

-Steph