Calming and Peaceful Insights for Stressed Nurses and Caregivers

How to Gauge Your Stress Barometer

When you get the weather report the weather person talks about the barometric pressure in relation to the highs and lows of a weather front coming in your area, the weather for the day can be assessed by this gauge.
Stress also can be gauged by a similar stress barometer.

Your work can create a great deal of pressure that will be expressed as stress. Your job or career can create pressure that is emotionally and physically uncomfortable, although I encourage you to have a job or career you simply love doing, it may not be possible at this time. You can strive towards this goal. Doing what you love decreases the stress pressures.
Your family can generate pressures that increase your stress. Loving your family may not always decrease the pressures. You sometimes increase the pressure by trying to do too much to care for them or care about them. Your involvement in their lives may be creating undue pressure, try to back off a bit and allow a bit of empowering to happen with your family.
Your friends are a great source of pressures. Social events and activities take a lot of your time and the unnecessary drama that is generated add to the discomfort. Try not to be the source of the drama; do not discuss your personal problems too specially. Have a very trusted friend you can talk to keep your problems drama safe.

Your feelings about yourself are an extremely sensitive gauge in the stress barometer. How do you feel about the way you look, are you comfortable in your skin? Do you eat healthy and feel healthy? Do you get enough sleep? Do you take the time to play and no take yourself seriously? If the answers to these questions are mostly no, then your stress barometer is definitely going to show you a reading of very stressful stormy weather ahead.

Pets Absorb Your Stress- What Can you Do!

Pets love you unconditionally and will do anything they can

to make you feel good.
Pets absorb your stress and they are affected by the

stresses.

Your loving dog will sit quietly at your feet or curled up on

the couch next to you as you vent your stress. You can cry,

yell, talk on the phone or talk to your dog. She will listen

and feel your emotions. She will also try to vent and release

that stress that she has absorbed. She may appear to be

acting in a disobedient way or revert back to a puppy

behavior. This is her way of getting back into her comfort

zone. When she vents love her and be affectionate with her,

this will help her to release the absorbed stress.

Some pets absorb so much stress from you and from the

rest of the family that they get physically sick. Resolve to try

to reduce your stress levels for the sake of this loving pet

and your best friend. Play with your pet and go for walks

because being alone with your pet will release some of the

absorbed stress that you both have. Your pet will know that

you are her focus and unconditional love interest. She does

not have to get confused by the need to focus on anyone

else. When she feels you have reduced your stress levels

she will physically feel better. Her eating and sleeping

routines will improve and her vulnerability to infections will

decrease.

Stress Relief - Determining your Bling or Sparkle Stress Factor

 

Your stress has started to give you a certain amount of bling or sparkle, to keep you wanting more stress in your life. The more sparkle or bling you get the more stress.

This bling motivates you to have more stress because the sparkle feels good and looks good.

 Bling factor L1- your stress at this level is important to you. You use it to get though your day. You rely on it like a cup of coffee, to help you wake up and face the drama you have in your life.

 

   Bling factor H1- in this bling factor you are losing a little sleep and eating a bit too much. You still feel comfortable in this bling factor. The sparkle you get is a little like a few light bulbs going off in a photo shoot, you like the attention.

 

  Bling factor H2- you feel a bit overwhelmed with the overload of stress. But you can not seem to turn it off. You are feeling like a stress addict. You are using stress as an excuse more and more to get what you want from others. The sparkle you get is increasing.

The all important   Bling factor H3- the sparkle you get is like pure sun light, you have to wear sunglasses to protect you eyes from the bling. You have so much stress that taking medications seems like the only solution to lessen the bling. The sparkle now has gotten very uncomfortable. You realize the stress actually hurts.

Meditation- Different Effective Types of Stress Reducing Meditations

 

Meditation brings you back to your calmer center.

There are many different types of meditation, which you can adapt to where you are or how you feel.

There is self talk meditation- During this focused time you need to engage in quiet meaningful self talk. This is not a time to beat yourself up verbally by going over all the imagined mistakes you made during a given day. I said imagined mistakes because a situation that you may think was a mistake is a learning experience, a stretching of your comfort zone that did not turn out as well as you wanted it to.

Meaningful self talk is quiet reminders of how ell you did during the day. How well you handled an uncomfortable situation for instance. This self –talk meditation is similar to uplifting affirmations. This is a time to nourish you mind.

Try walking Meditation-This is accomplished by slow walking while deeply focusing on your breathing with a purpose of thinking over a problem or asking for inspiration. You can walk any where, but try to walk among nature. Walking and paying attention to the plants and trees will give you a quiet sense of calm. If you enjoy walking in a mall, then think about the pleasant sights and sounds of the different stores. Think about how grateful you are for the store keepers and their loyal services. Try to detach yourself from the buying emotions and relax with the flow of the walk.

  Also sitting reflecting meditation- Sitting quietly for five minutes several times in a day, will reduce your stress levels  greatly. Realize that these five minutes are the most productive and energizing times in your whole day. You are reenergizing your emotional and physical batteries by the deep breathing and clearing of you mind of negative thoughts.

Meditation is not hard, it does take a little imagination but you can do it!

 

Avoiding habits that you have created when reducing stress

 

Reducing stress has become a challenge for some and a necessity for others.

Your health and well being is mandated on your ability to reduce stress in your daily life.

There are many stress habits that must be removed from your life. These habits must be replaced with calming and relaxing habits to make the transition work.

One habit is sharing your stress problems with others. While it is true that talking out a problem will reduce the problem into doable ideas. The habit of too much talking and venting will cause increased stress and bad feelings, plus there will be no acting or resolve of the stress issue.

When sharing your stressful problem with a friend let the other person know that you are not looking for their opinion on how to solve your stress, you just want to vent and hear the dialog. This way the other person is not obligated to absorb your stress.

 

 Another habit is identifying with your stress. I have heard people say “oh, am I stressed” or “I can’t do what you ask because I’m stressed.”

Stress is not a characteristic of you, like your eye or hair color or your shy personality. You have to remove the idea of identifying with your stress by making it as unimportant as you can. Wanting to reduce your stress is part of the habit of changing stress importance.

 An other habit to avoid is, thinking that stress is a good thing. If you feel you need stress to keep you alert and awake, try to get more sleep. Or you feel stress will give you that competitive edge you are a bit miss guided, because a clear mind that is stress free and focused will give you a competitive and creative edge that you are looking for.  

Using Movement to Relieve Stress

 

Stress clogs your arteries, your thoughts, and your actions.

Stress makes you feel tired and out of sorts.

Stress is relieved by paying attention to the movements of your body and nature around you.

  Moving with a purpose. Purposeful movements are usually called exercise. Your body will love you for the short walks you take in the early evening or early morning. These short periods of relaxed exercise will allow you to reconnect to your thoughts. Listen to your body and how you feel when you gently swing your arms while you walk. Take long deep breaths as you walk. You will find your thoughts are clearer and you may even get some creative inspiration. Enjoy the out of doors as you walk. Take in the sights and smells of the plants and flowers. Pick up a few leaves and stop and inspect their beauty. Nature has her own way of helping you to relieve your stress.

 Moving on purpose. These types of stress relief movements are those that tend to make your feel very good. In the morning before you get out of bed gently and slowly start stretching the muscles in your arms and then your legs. While you stretch think about all the great feelings you feel at that moment. Take a few deep breaths to stretch your lungs. To make this movement really relaxing think some positive thoughts that you wish to carry through your day. Remember you will be unclogging your mind as well as your body.

 

Using Coloring and Coloring Books to Reduce Stress

 

 

Stress relief can be found by using a simple coloring book.

As children we spent hours it seemed coloring and feeling happy.

 

 

  Coloring in a Coloring Book. You can buy a coloring book in any grocery store just look in the children’s department. Some coloring books incorporate puzzles and other activities. Buy a box of crayons with lots of colors as you can really express yourself. The stress reducing part of this plan is that you choose a picture or activity that feels good to you, something you can focus your mind on. This focusing will redirect your thoughts to less stressed thoughts. The colors you choose don’t have to be appropriate to the theme of the picture if you so desire. The idea here is to feel creative, to slow down and release your feelings in your coloring activity.

 

   Coloring in a Doodle Book.I use this idea all the time because it is so portable. You can do this very effectively by getting an artists sketch pad. This is a pad of blank sheets of paper used by artists to plan their paintings or creative work on, much like a writer’s rough draft. Once you have your pad, take a pencil and start to doodle. Make lines, circles, shapes, what ever at the time makes you feel good. Then color in the spaces within the doodles. Even if you think you are not a very creative person you will feel productive and relaxed after a few doodle your noodle calming sessions.