Happiness is a Choice

Author and psychologist Shawn Achor presents his “Happiness Advantage” talk at Ted.  This talk is wonderful as it presents some of the leading edge  positive psychology research that is going on today.

This new research is proving that we do have a choice in our own happiness equation.  I only wished that he had talked more about the resistances that we have to making that choice.   Nevertheless, this is definitely a great contribution to our tool box for reducing stress.

What to do when your body says “No” more stress

While our lives get very busy and stressful, our body seems to take the brunt of it.  According to a American Psychological Association study, 75% of Americans experience symptoms related to stress in a given month.  Of those people 77% of them experienced physical symptoms.

While these statistics are startling, it is amazing that we don’t devote more time to create the activities that would minimize the stress to our bodies.

5 Tips to making your relaxing vacation last!

Waiting for our next vacation has become a ritual that we cherish dearly. Anticipating some respite from the grind, we look forward to stepping out of the pressure cooker, playing hard, staying up late and sleeping in the next morning.  On some primal level we all know that breaking the daily routine of everyday life is essential to maintaining our sanity. 

How to change your “beliefs” about the stressors in your life.

It is so gratifying to see the increasing number of articles and blogs about stress management that are redirecting people back to their minds and beliefs to solve the endless suffering from stress.  The actual work of changing these beliefs is elusive, like sand running through our fingers.  We start out on the right track but soon get lost in a fog of uncertainty.  Maybe that is why most articles-blogs just tell us to do it, but leave the methodology up to us.  This post is dedicated to “how” you change your interpretations of the stressors in your life and in doing so eliminate the causes (false beliefs) and their effects (the stress that these beliefs create.) 

Waiting for a Bus

I was daydreaming, one sleepy Sunday morning, remembering my life in New York City. Okay, so I still have a love for NYC.  I know that it was a good decision for me to move out to California, however there are times, knowing what I know now, when I wonder what if? I’ve learned that every experience, pleasant or not, is a classroom of self-discovery and as we get more comfortable in our classroom we drop our resistance and adopt a bring-it-on point of view.   I was recalling my commute to work one morning in New York, waiting for a downtown bus when an encounter with a disturbed person taught me a valuable lesson about myself.

The Memory of Happiness

There are many choices that we can make towards creating a lifestyle that promotes stress relief  and well-being.   The more obvious ones are meditation, yoga, exercise and taking time off from work to recharge.   These endeavors are our most cherished treasures however they are “activity based” and because of that their benefits wane some time after the activity has ended.    Yet there is a secret buried within each of those experiences that we can hook onto, long after the activity is over, to enrich our lives in ways that we have never imagined.

Agreeing to Agree

Growing up in New York City had it’s special challenges, or so I thought, as I was domesticated to tolerate a great deal of noise and large groups of humans cramped into tiny spaces such as high rise elevators or smelly and grungy subway cars.  Who in their formative years gives any though to stress relief no less a stress management program. Who can I thank for not only learning to adapt to such insane situations, but to come to love it and call it home.   There should be someone I can thank, don’t you think?

“Breaking up, is hard to do”

The buddhist have some of the greatest expressions. One of my favorites is “the longest journey man will ever take is from our head to our heart.” You could say that this speaks to our desire to stay in our minds, to think too much, to allow the habitual nature of the mind to use the reasoning of the past to make present decisions. The human mind searches past circumstances and past results to find the most expedient response for the moment.

What happened to my peace?

Why do you suppose that the peace we achieve from our favorite relaxation activities doesn’t seem to last once we re-enter our day to day activities that make up our world?
Why is peace and relaxation such a precious commodity? In fact it is quite astounding that we have come to accept this brief respite as a way of life.

Stress Relief and Relaxation Techniques

There is a “magical” assumption around the word “technique,” as if to imply that it contains the “end all,” complete and only action needed to arrive at a desired solution or result.  Wikipedia defines technique as “a procedure used to accomplish a specific activity or task.”  There is a built in assumption associated with the word that implies a sense of simplicity and ease.  However, in the context of stress relief, nothing could be farther from the truth.