Get OFF The Stress Train

It’s time to get out the word. In this crazy, upside-down world where everything is changing at the speed of sound, are you ready to get off the stress train and free yourself to travel to a new destination called stress relief?

• If you feel like you are running in circles most of the time, like a dog chasing its tail, your body is stressed.
• If you feel tired, maybe exhausted, and possibly irritable a lot of the time, your emotions are stressed.
• If you have problems sleeping and you can’t relax because your thoughts are running a mile a minute, your mind is stressed.

As a quick example, when you get caught in a traffic slow-down, do you immediately get angry and curse under your breath, or do you take a time-out and turn up the radio to your favorite station until the cars begin to move again?

Whichever way you reacted depends on what you were thinking at the time. “I hate this freeway, and I’ll never get to my meeting tonight” leads to frustration and other feelings related to stress. “I think I’ll flip to LOVE 101 or WCCO 850 and catch the latest song or news and breathe easy for a minute” will lead you to relaxation and enjoyment.

It’s pretty simple: our thinking is at the center of all of our responses to stress. An exception is environmental stressors to our bodies. Defensive responses experienced when we are physically or emotionally threatened is another. But in reality, most of our stress is linked to our thinking, to our mindset.

With this in mind, we can begin to get off those train tracks of stress. Although a real train ride can be relaxing, the tracks lead in one direction and you can’t get off until you can get off. In real life a ride on the stress train only leads to more of the same scenery—we begin to see stress everywhere. It’s time to learn the secrets to getting off the train and get moving toward a new mode of transportation—one that is truly stress free.