KiHack

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I have been studying stress management as how it applies both to my long term life and work happiness and my medical prevention plan, and this site has all the ideas I had come up with for stress management. Only wish I had come across it sooner.

http://www.mindtools.com/smpage.html 

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While all these years I’ve thought there must be a better way to manage stress, and maybe it had to do with some cheesy “counting to 10 when you’re upset” sort of gimmick, I never really checked into it until now. This year as part of a writing project called INSIGHTS I have analyzed how to control and minimize stress, and almost looked forward to getting stressed because I was analyzing how to control it (like meditating while police was writing out my first speeding ticket instead of getting emotional).

Stress management can be done! The key, I’ve found, is not my doctors or my counsellor, as much as it is my own awareness of what pushes my buttons and gets me going. The key is to write down the stress triggers, how I felt, write down anything I did that helped, and keep a running list.

Sweaty socks -  carry extra socks in the car - change them partway through the day.

Lack of break time due to short shifts - observe which days are crunched and speak up to the schedulers.

Getting lost on the way to new shifts - the GPS plus a cell phone is a lifesaver.

Too much work - paring down obligations till it is comfortable.

Lack of time to eat - quickie foods in the car for those days that eating on the run is unavoidable.

Loss of a friend - Send away all but a few of the things which remind me of that person, and then celebrate all my favorite things and music and treat myself and remind myself that I will always be there for me.

Headache - water (it’s a dehydration headache).

I found that tracking what causes stress and tracking anything that helped is an awesome way to develop a stress management plan. Later on, I found the same concept in a book.

So gone are the days where I don’t know I’m stressed till everyone around me hears it. When I feel the internal tension levels rising, my muscles tightening - it’s time to act - pare down obligations, find a time to relax and power nap and remember all of my favorite things.  One very healing thing is all of my favorite pieces of music. A list of my favorite musical pieces is going to go into this box of stress management techniques!

I suppose there’s probably an expensive seminar that would have taught me this if I hadn’t suddenly realized that the answer is right here.

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My kitten’s name is Cuddles. She’s one of those type of cats that you can turn upside down or dress in doll clothes - you can do anything and she will purr. However, she is extremely rambunctious. She gets in my plants, plays with my toes when I am sitting at the computer, has killed one of my basil plants, thinks the dill plants are fun to play with, naps on my clean laundry, climbs up my wire cubicle shelves and then does not know how to get down, jumps up on my kitchen table in spite of my best efforts to keep her off of it, follows me everywhere I go so that I trip on her, tries to get out the door and go downstairs, plays with her tail in the empty bathtub, tries to keep me awake at night by walking all over me and purring.   

Having a cat is part of a growing stress management plan.

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